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Nov. 29, 2014

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Virginia Head Coach Tony Bennett:

On La Salle as a team:

“They are scrappy. We missed a couple layups, started fouling, and lost our composure with a technical foul. When (La Salle) got in foul trouble they went with four guards and we started standing around. That was the first team that has done that to us. We exploited it a little bit, but then we had trouble. That is a credit to (La Salle Head Coach John Giannini) and those young men. They didn’t lie down.”

On Virginia’s effort:

“We’ve got work to do. You saw some of our flaws, but I think there were some good things in our game.”

On playing at Barclays Center:

“It’s beautiful. I couldn’t wait to come here.”

“This place is unbelievable. It’s really impressive. It’s got a good feel. I liked it a lot.”

On allowing La Salle to cut a 20 point Virginia lead to two late in the second half

“I don’t know if it was complacency, maybe we just got tight. It’s early in the season and we’ve got to figure this stuff out.”

“London (Perrantes), our point guard is usually very collected. That was his strength for us as a freshman last year. He was not himself out there. This will be a tremendous learning experience for him and for us.”

On playing Rutgers in the Barclays Center Classic Championship on Saturday:

“Rutgers is talented, even though I know they lost a couple early. They looked very good tonight. They have good players and they played inspired.”

La Salle Head Coach, Dr. John Giannini:

On the game:

“We obviously played an outstanding team. I think that the strength of our team and the weakness was one of the same. We really play with a lot of emotion. Anyone that can see our team play in the second half knows that we played tremendously hard and with a lot of pride. Anyone that was paying attention in the first half can see that we got very frustrated and at times I think we pulled apart a little bit. Again, you don’t get frustrated unless you care deeply and Virginia frustrated us. They are awfully good. I think sometimes when you play a team at a different level it just takes you a while to adjust to the size and speed of the game…I think it took us a while to settle down and to realize what we could and couldn’t do. Today will make us better. I think just playing against someone at that level just makes you more comfortable the next time you have to do it. I think we also learned to use emotion as our strength and to make sure we minimize frustration and the times it can potentially hurt us…I’m proud we gave ourselves a chance at the end against a really outstanding team.”

On what his team can take from this game:

“I think we’re in a good frame of mind right now because we are disappointed…Our guys have an expectation for success no matter who they are playing. Right now we are disappointed in the loss, but I think we all realize that we got better in the process.”

Jordan Price

On what changed in the second half:

“I don’t think anything really changed. We just came out more aggressive and then we played more of a four-guard offense, because Jerrell (Wright) and Steve (Zack) were in foul trouble.”

On La Salle getting back into the game:

“We’ve been grinding out the whole season for this moment. This is nothing that’s new to us. We knew when we were down 20 that we were going to fight back and we kept hitting and hitting. We made a run in the second half, but it wasn’t enough.”

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