Postgame Quotes

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Virginia head coach Tony Bennett

On team’s overall performance
“Early on I thought that was the most unselfish our team had been. The ball was touching the paint – guys were making the extra pass and getting rhythm shots. Then we got on the offensive glass and fell into some easy rebounds. We had one of the best halves of sharing the basketball and I think our assist-to-turnover ratio showed that in the first half when it was 14-to-2 – I don’t know how we finished, but that was nice to see.”

On mixing up the lineup during Hampton’s second half run
“We had a cold stretch where we didn’t score for awhile, but we were up and I wanted to give guys chances and reward them for hard work in practice. I just wanted to see guys on the defensive end making it hard to score. There were good moments and some shaky moments for everybody in that stretch in the second half, but I like how they came out energy wise – much better than the NJIT game in terms of their mindset and focus. We had a pretty spirited practice the day before and I hope that helped.”

On distributing minutes
“These last two games were a little different than it will be, but you get to distribute the minutes. But I think that is positive when you can distribute the minutes and have balanced scoring – all the good teams we have been a part of, except the ones I played for, have been balanced scoring teams. I think when you can get 3-4 guys scoring in double figures and can keep guys a little fresh for hard defense that’s good. You don’t always have that luxury.”

On Hampton’s zone defense
“We haven’t played against a ton of zone. We shared the ball and shot well – grabbed some offensive rebounds and that always devastates zones. There were some soft spots in that zone that we exploited in the middle and short baseline – and got some offensive rebounds. When you start hitting shots that really helps – that’s when the guys started sharing the ball and got some assists. In the second half they went to a 3-2 or a 1-2-2 and that is where we labored a little bit. We were standing and weren’t attacking – we weren’t moving the ball – I don’t know if they were too comfortable or unsure, but I think you have to be aggressive against zones with ball movement and player movement – try touching the paint in the high post and low post, off the dribble and we didn’t do it in that stretch at all.”

Hampton head coach Edward Joyner, Jr.

On Hampton’s zone defense
“We generally mix it up a bit, depending on who we play. We do try to play 50 percent zone – 50 percent man, somewhere around there – depending on how the night goes. This is something we normally do, but we did understand we were coming in here against a considerable size advantage for them inside. We wanted to see if they could hit the three with a little more consistency and they did.”

On the difference between this year’s UVa team versus last year
“They took care of the ball real well. When you zone bigger teams, you try and force them into difficult shots. They really took their time, they knew what they were looking for and they were able to execute it and get it. That was the biggest difference and they still didn’t have Mike Scott tonight.”

On Jontel Evans’ (Hampton native) transition from high school to college
“He is playing more of the point guard position at UVa. When he was at Bethel he had to play more of a scoring guard – he was pretty much the primary ball handler during crunch time, but he was looking to score. Knowing that he wasn’t the best three-point shooter, but he can hit clutch shots. He is playing more of the point at UVa and you can see the understanding of another position in his game. I was impressed with him from that standpoint.