Postgame Quotes: Richmond at Virginia

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Richmond at Virginia
Jan. 3, 2011
Postgame Quotes

Virginia head coach Debbie Ryan
On entering conference play:
“They’re really excited about this start. I mean, we have a tough start. We have Miami coming up. We won the game against them in overtime last year but they have some really good players. It’s going to be an interesting match-up. It will be a battle Thursday.”

On Ariana Moorer’s play:
“She was willing to step up and make baskets in the last three minutes which she has been willing to do every game. You have to remember that every single shot doesn’t go in. Even Michael Jordan didn’t make every shot. We have to constantly remind our players that at the end of the game they should take the ball to the basket or get themselves fouled. One great thing about Ari tonight was that she stayed on balance when she got in the paint tonight.”

On Whitny Edwards’ play:
“Whitny has really come along. I think Whitny did a great job tonight picking up for Ataira [Franklin] whose knees were a little sore tonight. [Brittani] Shells shook Whitny a couple of times in transition but other than that I think she did really well. Whitny has ice water in her veins. Nothing really bothers her. I think she likes this role of coming off the bench and giving us what we need. I’m really pleased with her maturity. Whitny has come into her own as far as what she wants to do and what she can accomplish.”

On Lexie Gerson’s play:
“Sometimes it’s not about who is hot and who is not. Sometimes it is about defending and who is looking good in the whole picture but I needed to put Lexie back in. She did a great job finishing the game for us so that was good for her.”

Virginia guard Ariana Moorer
On the keys to the game:
“This game was about attacking. We wanted to attack the defense and fill in a lot of holes. Transition was another big thing. We wanted to run as much as possible and we did pretty well at it but we still have to do better.”

On the difference between this game and the JMU game
“I think it was about patience. At JMU, we weren’t very patient. We wanted to shoot, shoot, shoot not knowing that the clock was on our side but tonight as I said, we were patient and we worked the clock as much as possible. We just wanted to then attack which we also did pretty well at.”

On spreading the ball around:
“You never know with us who is going to be the leading scorer but I’m glad that we had a lot of players in double figures tonight. It is hard not knowing who is going to play well and who is not but it really helps when everybody does.”

Richmond head coach Michael Shafer
Opening Statement:
“In looking at Virginia on film I was at our men’s game last night and said this to several people that were talking about the basketball game. Obviously the Monica Wright Era is over and Monica Wright was a tremendous player who could carry a basketball team but this is a better basketball team because you don’t know who to game plan for. Needless to say, you could game plan for Monica and give up 35, but this is a basketball team where you have to pick and choose. They did a very good job of going to what was hot and making us pay for that. When we didn’t make runs they got key offensive rebounds that gave them second chances and they made us pay.”

On the end of a winning streak:
“I think anytime you have a winning streak it is a positive and there’s a lot of confidence, but anytime you lose, the natural reaction is to go back and look at what you need to change. I don’t really think we need to change a whole lot. I think we need to keep emphasizing the things that we do well and work on the things like rebounding that have been an Achilles heel for us. I was a little disturbed offensively with our flow. We practiced against a physical defense the past two days and so that surprised me a little bit. As we get into conference it’s going to be like that so we need to be ready for that.”

On using this game as preparation for conference play:
“That’s exactly how we billed it. We walked in here saying we are at the midway point in our season and playing Virginia with conference right around the corner, this is the way conference is going to be. They are going to be grinding out games. It doesn’t matter what conference you’re in; that’s just the way it is. That’s the nature of the beast. Every team knows you better than probably you know yourself and they have preconceived ideas about our basketball team. So yes, it prepares us.”