Postgame Quotes

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2010-11 Virginia Basketball Postgame Quotes
January 19, 2011
Boston College 70, Virginia 67

Virginia Head Coach Tony Bennett

Opening comments:

“I told our guys in the locker room after the game ‘I’m disappointed, but I’m not discouraged. ‘ I can remember last year being in here and feeling differently, certainly a different team, but I thought our guys played a more thorough second half. They battled and hung in there. There were certainly some positives to point out. The things that hurt, they called that time out and we really hadn’t gotten back-doored all game. I think that might have been the first, maybe there was one other one. That’s not something we usually give up and that hurt. Joe (Harris) fouled out on that play. We did all right with making them play over the top. We made them hit some tough shots. I thought we had a little more resiliency in the second half. There was a stretch in the first half, we started out well defensively, but really had a bad stretch defensively. They started to get into the lane, layups, we were slow on traps and rotations and they got wide-open looks. Against a good team on the road you’ve got to find ways to come out of those. A couple of those areas, an offensive rebound here or there, a silly foul and a back door were enough to cost us, otherwise it could have been a different outcome.”

Jontel (Evans) the last two and a half minutes took five shots. Did you want him to do that?

“I wanted him, like we did against North Carolina, to get to the lane. He made some good plays early to really put some pressure on them and then find the open guy. If he got all the way to the rim certainly it was there. They sort of laid off and a couple of times he got himself in traffic. I think we got the offensive rebound, but it’s not necessarily for him to get the shot. It was more to just put pressure on them, draw a little help or get all the way to the rim and finish it, we’ll get on the glass or make the next pass when he touches the paint. He’s been good for us getting to the lane, probably our best at that, and has been backing it up with some good decisions. He had a couple of tough, contested shots that were hard to come by.

A wide stretch of that first half and part of the second as well you went with four guards. You went with four guards more tonight than I think you have most of the season. Was there a matchup you liked there?

“You saw it, they sort of attacked Will Sherrill when he came in and he was having a hard time. We felt like that was a better matchup with Trapani. Sometimes they played him at the five and we said ‘You know what, we’re going to put Assane (Sene) on him there.” We thought it was a better matchup for us and helped us offensively somewhat. Joe (Harris) was a good matchup for the most part. It put pressure on them, on their defense. At times we had Akil (Mitchell) in there I think with Assane. Akil did some good things for us. We don’t have a lot of bodies out there so we have to go with four guards. We got in some foul trouble and we felt it was best suited for us for sure on the offensive end.”

After Assane (Sene) hit the stick back that made it 66-64 with 40 seconds left, I guess you were going to have to foul at some point or they’d run the clock down to five seconds. What was that strategy? Who to foul and when?

“We made them take a time out on the sideline. We were trying to get the young man, they are all pretty good free throw shooters, but the young freshman was I think six-for-10 on the year. Being a freshman we said ‘Let’s let him catch it and go for a steal and try and put him on the line.’ Well when he had it we missed our first opportunity right away in the backcourt and after that he didn’t touch it. You didn’t want to foul Jackson, we tried to keep it out of his hands, but then we had to go get him.”