JMU at Virginia Postgame Quotes

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James Madison at Virginia
Dec. 20, 2011
Postgame Quotes

Virginia Head Coach Joanne Boyle
On the meaning of winning this game:
“This game had some history so with history there is always an anticipation of the game. Coming into it we just had the kids focused on the present and not looking at the past but looking at the present and the future. I’m really proud of them because China [Crosby] went down and then you’re trying to figure yourselves out and it took us a while to settle down and just start playing our basketball. But I’m really proud of them for how they responded and how they came back in the second half.”

On Telia McCall:
“On any given day that is what I can get out of Telia. That’s why we always tell everybody to just be ready, you know Telia’s had some great practices and you never know when it’s going to be your time. It was her time tonight and she took full advantage.”

On the last eight minutes:
“Well I thought they were doing a great job of penetrating against our zone. We really were not guarding the ball so we had to tighten that up. Just called a timeout and got back on what we call our elbows and just made them really kick. I thought we got out to shooters better. We made some adjustments.”

On the beginning of the game and JMU’s 12 point lead:
“Well credit to them, they’re a great team and they were running their stuff. They were really pushing the ball down our throat and I thought we were late getting back and we left big gaps in the zone. We just left some big gaps and we tightened that part of our defense up in the second half and they didn’t get as much of that penetration. That’s credit to what we were doing but also JMU is a great team and Kenny [Brooks] is going to have a lot of wins.”

On Ataira Franklin
“When she is in the zone we’ll find her. That’s the great thing about the team, they recognize that and they’re pretty unselfish. They recognize when somebody is hot they’re going to find them and they did that tonight.”

On in-state games
“I understand you have to play some in-state games but I’m ready to take a break from them and just play some competition out of state.”

Virginia Guard Ataira Franklin
On feeling a shift in the game
“We definitely had a slow start and got frazzled by their press. They got some easy transition buckets but I think once we settled down it all started with the defense. We’re establishing ourselves as a defensive team and that’s really what we want to make our mark as, that’s becoming our identity and that’s what we’re focusing on. It really started with one stop at a time. Like coach said, we did a good job executing offense late in the game. I got hot and it all just came within the flow of the game.”

Virginia Forward Telia McCall
On becoming more comfortable:
“Yeah, once I got in and warmed up I started being more comfortable. I remembered that I need to be more confident, this is my third year and there is no point in being timid, either go big or go home. I wanted to come out and be confident and just believe.”

James Madison Head Coach Kenny Brooks
Opening statement:
“I thought we lost our composure down the stretch. I thought we played hard enough to win the basketball game but I didn’t think we played smart enough, particularly down the stretch. I think it all started when we got into foul trouble, around the 12- or 13-minute mark. We had to play some unconventional line-ups. It really threw us off-kilter. We came in and I thought we were doing a good job of man-to-man. Then we had to go the zone and they just kept pounding the zone and getting second-chance opportunities. It really threw us off and then we got stagnant. We made really bad plays. These are all kids who were in the situation for the first time, in a close game like this and of this magnitude. We learned a lot about our kids and we’ll get better.”

On the final minutes of the game:
“I don’t think it was the whole team but I think a couple of kids got a little nervous and a little rattled. How else do you explain the ball going off legs and through hands and legs? We got stagnant and I think a part of that was because we were nervous. It’s because we have kids out there who have not been in positions like that. We’ll learn from it. This is a very resilient group. We will learn from it and I think a game like this will go a long way toward making us better.”

On leading at halftime and into the second half:
“I thought we had tempo. We were doing well. I thought we took them out of rhythm with our press a little bit. That’s exactly what our press does, it will get us some turnovers but it will also take the other team out of rhythm. It speeds you up a little bit. We got a little fatigued though and then the foul trouble hit. That’s when we lost our rhythm. I lost my rhythm as a coach. When we got into foul trouble, we were so unconventional. Again though, we’re not into moral victories here but I think that we learned a lot about our team and each other. We’ll learn from these mistakes.”

James Madison Guard Tarik Hislop
On reason for the loss:
“We made some mental mistakes. I did. As a team, we did. It hurts to lose. We had a lot of turnovers. We didn’t play defense like we wanted to.”

On the play of Cavalier guard Ataira Franklin:
“She’s a good player and she got hot.”

On the final minutes of the game:
“When you’re losing, you want to make something happen. Sometimes it’s not a good thing. Tonight it turned into us making mental mistakes. It’s all mental. We were just trying to make something happen. It hurts. We had control of the entire game. We lost the game in the last six minutes. It hurts.”

James Madison Guard Jasmine Gill
On the Dukes’ performance down the stretch:
“I don’t think we got nervous. We just started making small mistakes, the little things. Like making the wrong pass to the wrong person.”