Postgame Quotes: Virginia Tech at Virginia

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Virginia Tech at Virginia
Jan. 12, 2012
Postgame Quotes

Virginia Head Coach Joanne Boyle
On switching to man-to-man defense:
“I just think we have been much better on other days with our defense, flying around and making steals. This is the second game where we’ve come out flat. It makes you a little nervous. We have to get back to who we are. We’re not a team that’s going to come out and play 40 minutes of man-to-man defense but I like to use our man-to-man in spurts. I think we rattled them a little bit with our man. We played pretty good pressure and we got some easy transition buckets off it. For us, with the struggle we’re having offensively, you just have to get easy baskets for your team. I thought we were switching well. We had good help. We guarded penetration decent. It’s not something we work on so it was good for us.”

On offensive struggles:
“In games where we’re not scoring, we have to really lock it down on defense. I thought we did that in the second half. It wasn’t like they were on fire in the first half but they shot enough threes that made us get out of it. We were passive. What I hate is having to walk the ball down the floor on every possession and trying to create points that way. Part of getting out of the zone is just changing things up, which I thought we did in the second half.”

On absence of China Crosby:
“We have to learn to go at a better pace. Our pace is too slow, that’s the main thing. We have to find a way to have a better pace to our offense.”

On play of Telia McCall:
“She did good. What she allows us to do is switch on screens. She’s a three/four, so she can really guard post players and obviously guards. It allows us defensively to do some things with her. I thought she gave us a spark on rebounds as well when we were struggling. What do they say? Big things take care of themselves if you do all the little things. That’s a little thing but it turns into a big thing.”

On upcoming game against Maryland:
“They’re a great team. They’re at home. They’re scoring the majority of their points in the paint. They are a monster rebounding team. They have great post play. They’re not a deep rotation but their top seven are very strong. It’s a great challenge for us to play them in their home gym. We’ve played some great teams: Duke, North Carolina, Tennessee, and I don’t see any reason why we can’t be at that level again going into Monday.”

Virginia Guard Ataira Franklin
On run in the second half:
“I would definitely say that we picked it up on defense. In the first half, we didn’t play like ourselves at all. In the second half, we really turned it on. Obviously, once we get deeper in the ACC season, we’re not going to be able to get away with it, but we definitely just picked it up on defense, and our intensity was there. We created offense with our defense and that’s what really got us going.”

On Lexie Gerson:
“Lexie is always a spark for us, so it was great for us on offense today because usually she’s in the passing lanes on defense, getting us steals and getting us hyped up. Today she just really stepped up for us and it could have been anybody and she just put us on her back. She sparked that run for us.”

On first half play:
“We weren’t ourselves in the first half. Coach was definitely disappointed in us for that. That’s something we have to take to heart. We said that we would buy into this system that the coaches put in place and in the first half we deviated from that completely. I think we really just took it to heart and knuckled down. That’s the team that we need to be for 40 minutes. We really have to stick to what we’re good at and the identity we’ve established. Like I said, we didn’t do that in the first half. Once again, we’re not going to be able to get away with that. We have to start the game stronger because against better teams we might not end up so lucky.”

On offensive play:
“I think that for us as a team, defense is usually our focus. We’re not exactly a team that’s going to come out and put up 70 on you, but at the same time, we do still need to execute, and that’s another thing we weren’t doing in the first half. In the second half, once we settled down a little bit more, we didn’t have to a run a play every time. We had some transition points, we got some offensive rebounds, and that made the game a lot easier for us.”

Virginia Guard Lexie Gerson
On her role:
“My job is to give a spark, give that energy, so I take a lot of pride in that. I try to make our defense our offense, and I think that’s when we go on our biggest runs when we lock down on defense and create shots off that.”

Virginia Tech Head Coach Dennis Wolff
Opening Statement:
“Firstly I would like to give UVa a lot of credit. They made adjustments throughout the game and changed their defense some in the second half that disrupted our offensive rhythm. I thought our guys played with good purpose essentially most of the game, I just think that we get to a certain point in a lot of our games where the defensive pressure causes us to not be able to run offense. I would attribute that to them coming out in a zone and playing us hard man-to-man and doing a good job with it.”

On the changes Virginia Tech tried to make during timeouts:
“On a number of the timeouts where we seem to be self-destructing over the course of the year we have a habit of allowing it to snowball away from us. If it’s defensively we are trying to get them to make more consistent plays, if it’s offensively take a little bit better care of the ball, reverse the ball, make a play for someone else. They (Virginia) have been turning teams over at a good rate with the three-quarter court pressure and the little zone. I don’t think we started to turn it over at a bad rate until the man-to-man, but I’d have to see the tape.”

On the movement on offense in the first half:
“Even in the second-half I thought we had some possessions where we moved the ball pretty well and we just didn’t hit shots that could have gone down.”

On the injury to Brittni Montgomery:
“I don’t think there is structural damage and the UVa doctor didn’t think so either, but we’ll see when we get back to Blacksburg.”

On the shooting today:
“One of the things that happens to us is they may miss, we may have good ball reversal, and have a good outside shot and miss it. We get very few easy baskets in the lane. They may miss a shot and they end up getting a put back. We’re not getting very many of those for whatever the reason. We just have to go back and go at it. I was happy that we played with way more intensity and fight than we did Sunday (at Florida State) and we’re going to take some solace in that.”

On the second-half defense:
“They got 35 points in the second half but only ended up with 52 points for the game. Again we got a little fatigued, we trailed too far behind some of the screens, we got beat off the dribble more times than we did in the first half, and then they got some second-chance baskets. The big play was when they hit the three at the end of the shot clock, that was a play that we should have guarded and we sat back and let them shoot a wide-open three. To me that was the one that was the nail in the coffin and took the wind out of our sails.”

On the last two offensive performances:
“The way I’m looking at it is we are who we are and I think these kids are trying hard. I think that because we are a little bit undersized we are not getting a lot in the post, that enables teams to guard us on the perimeter harder. When we had some numbered situations on the break tonight we didn’t finish. We have to finish those. If you are going to be in our position where you are digging it out on every defensive position and you are trying to generate some offense you can’t have two-on-ones or three-on-ones where we get shots on the basket and don’t get anything.”

On the mindset of the team:
“We are in the infancy of our program, what we’re worrying about is having a good practice tomorrow and preparing for the next game. So if we’re going to start saying to ourselves that we have Duke and then North Carolina I might go have my hip replaced this weekend not in March.”

On coming back to UVa:
“It was almost 20 years ago since when I was here and so much time has come and gone. This will always be a special place, some of my closest friends and I still have relationships with people who I talk to regularly. Those were four good years here but I am very happy to be the Virginia Tech Hokies’ women’s basketball coach.”

Virginia Tech Guard Monet Tellier
On turnovers:
“We’ve got to take better care of the ball.”

On Sunday’s match-up against Duke:
“We’ve just got to take it one game at a time. We’ve got to keep trying to get better in practice, keep pushing each other, and most off all, stay together as a team. We really just need to take it one game at a time.”

Virginia Tech Guard Aerial Wilson
On Virginia defense in the second half:
“For one, they changed their offense to man like Coach (Wolff) said. We just couldn’t get in our rhythm on offense.”