Postgame Quotes

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Virginia Head Coach Tony Bennett

On the point guard situation…
“We did run out of point guards. Sammy and Jontel fouling out, and Malcolm being injured was tough. We had a great run, 17, around the 12-minute mark. We got stops. In the first half we weren’t getting stops, when we scored we’d exchange buckets. They did a nice job and had some action that we had to adjust to, and I thought our guys adjusted well. But we started getting some stops and then at the end with some key ball handling and missed free throws we were leaking oil at the end. But we hung tough enough and came away with a hard-fought victory. Both teams were certainly shorthanded and it was a hard fought game. I give a lot of credit to Tech too for battling being undermanned.”

On the basket by Paul Jesperson…
“He played 28 minutes, he’s got feel. He’s good, he needs to get better defensively, but he made a couple of tough shots. He’s usually in the right place at the right time and he took care of the ball. I was real happy for him, he played a nice amount against Maryland and with Malcolm being hurt and our depth being limited, that’s where you need something you don’t expect to come away victorious.”

On the Malcolm Brogdon injury…
“In the Maryland game he injured himself and it just flared up. It’s something in his ankle, so we’ll see.”

On the play of Sammy Zeglinski in the second half…
“Good job. Foul trouble kept him out in the first half so he was fresh but he guarded well. That jump ball that he got was significant for us because they were really attacking us and either drawing fouls or scoring and Sammy was in position. He guarded well, made some big shots, got the ball inside to Mike and Mike had another good game. I wish we could have got him some more touches down the stretch, we had some costly turnovers, but again we snuck one out on the road. Those are two banged up teams playing.”

Virginia Tech Head Coach Seth Greenberg

Opening statements…
“We did a lot of good things. I thought we played good spacing and pace for the majority of the game. We had that one stretch where, quite honestly, we had too many empty possessions. We lost our focus a couple possessions defensively. That first three by Sammy in the second half kind of gave him some confidence. We had a number of unforced turnovers that gave them easy transition baskets. We went a long stretch where we didn’t score, but we had a stretch where we had good shots. We had a chance at the end, we need to make some free throws at the end. Jontel’s shot obviously became a huge factor. I don’t know if it counted or not, I was a little disappointed they didn’t check a monitor. It is what it is, we missed some free throws. We did a lot of good things, but it’s just disappointing.”

On the final play of the game…
“We were trying to get an overload ball-screen. Trying to get Erick to go to his left hand. Trying to roll Cadarian to the basket and bring players behind. We didn’t come off the screen as hard as I would have liked to see Erick. In the possession before we created a similar situation and he got fouled. Erick made some great plays down the stretch. We played really hard. We had that one stretch where we didn’t score the ball and we had too many unforced turnovers.”