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VIRGINIA BASKETBALL
Postgame Quotes
#22 Xavier 84, Virginia 70
Virginia Head Coach Dave Leitao
Opening Statement:
“We got beat today pretty soundly by a team that Sean (Miller) has done a terrific job of meshing together to play with a real purpose. One of my concerns coming into the game was our ability to be able to match their mindset. When you’re going against a team that has a number of guys that have a lot of experience, they’ve been to a final eight and traditionally are deep in the NCAA Tournament, they are able to play through a lot.”
“With the high level of competition that they’ve played in the 12 games before this, the last thing that we were going to be able to do was rattle them. You may for a possession or two, but I thought they did a really good job, much better than us, at just playing through the positives and playing through the negative situations. Obviously possession-by-possession it cost us.”
“As I said coming into the year, unfortunately the down side of our youth is that we’re going to have days where we surprise ourselves and perform at a high level and there are going to be days, like today, that for whatever reasons, you don’t perform at the level you’re capable of. We just have to continue to work at it, to gain the proper experience necessary through good and bad situations, and to learn and grow so we can continue to move forward.”
On the beginning of the game:
“I didn’t like how we came out of the gate defensively. Things that we specifically worked on weren’t there. I was again concerned when they went up 15-8 because we weren’t playing the game the way we had planned to play it.”
On needing more contributions from more than the freshmen:
“Any good team has to have balance. We can’t expect that one or two guys are going to contribute, particularly when they’re younger. Sylven (Landesberg) and Sammy (Zeglinski) have been our leading scorers, but it’s not just scoring. We’re going to have to get more from other people on a regular basis. We’re going to have to get more contributions in other areas, we’re going to have to get more people to rebound, people to take more charges, get more deflections from people. I think when we don’t get that, it puts more pressure on those guys that have been scoring, to score. That’s not going to win you too many battles.”
Xavier Head Coach Sean Miller
Opening Statement:
“ I am very, very proud of our team today. Any time you can come into the ACC on their home court and leave with a hard-fought victory, any program relishes those opportunities, and certainly we do. It also gave us our 11th win and we play arguably one of the top-five schedules in college basketball. For us to be 11-2 says a lot about our game.”
“With the way we started, with the crowd ready and Virginia ready, we took that first punch so to speak, and sometimes you don’t get that back on the road. I thought once we got through the first four minutes, our team settled in and played our brand of basketball for about 24 minutes. We had contributions from our bench, from our older players, defense, passing, playing with 10 turnovers. That 24 minutes was about as well as we have played all season.”
“We didn’t necessarily finish the game the way I wanted to, but credit Virginia. They kept fighting and made the game tough. They got themselves back into it and that is a lesson we have to learn as we move forward.”
On Xavier’s opportunities to get second and third shots offensively:
“I would say that is a real strength of our team. We have really stressed to do a better job of that because we haven’t necessarily been consistent in that area. We are a big and physical team, and at times not as skilled as we have been (in the past). We have to make sure we are there when the shots go up. In the second half we had some big put-backs that did not allow them to come back and get back in the game.”
On Virginia’s Sylven Landesberg:
“He can shoot and I think he will get better. He is a big, strong guard and it’s amazing how he can get fouled. We were very worried about him being able to get to the basket. Part of our game plan was to try to make it tough for him to go one-on-one, make him a passer. If he took shots in the lane, crowd the lane. He has a great talent of being able to get fouled. He certainly is one of the best players we have played against, regardless of if he is a freshman or not.”
On the comparisons to the Xavier-Virginia game last season:
“Last year was like one-in-a-million. It had a lot more to do with us having one of those bizarre nights where every shot we took went in. Keep in mind our team last year was 30-7 and in the Elite Eight. Our team last year was a No. 3 seed in the (NCAA) Tournament. They caught us at our very best and we couldn’t miss. But this year was much different. Different faces and a different game.”