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Dec. 16, 2014

Recap | Final Stats | Photo Album media_icon_photogallery.gif

Associate Head Coach Kim McNeill

Opening Statement
“”Obviously we’re excited about the win. I think we were really ready to play someone instead of beating up on each other for the last nine days. I thought we had some really good practices coming into this game. We focused on the little things, we focused on us, and getting better on the defensive end. Our focus was getting stops and being able to put people away, and hen the offensive end would come easily. Not extremely excited about the way we started the 2nd half, but I’m very proud of the way the ladies played in the second half. They were committed to the defensive end of the floor. I challenged them to see if we could get them to call a timeout before the first media timeout, and we did that. But I still think we’re working on that killer mentality when it comes to the defensive end of the floor, and they know it. We have time to get better and we will continue to get better.”

On learning she would be acting as the head coach
“”This has been a long process for coach, she’s so excited and we are all so excited for her. We are going to support her in any way that we can. She has been really good to us so in return we a re going to be really good to her and take care of the team. And obviously we’ve got a really great staff and really great young ladies that do a good job of being mature and doing the right thing. When I found out I was going to have to take on this role obviously I was a little nervous, but I knew I had a good support group and a good foundation that would help support us. I found out yesterday for sure that she wouldn’t be back, but I kind of had an idea that there was a possibility she wouldn’t.”
“”Well I’ve never sat in that seat before so that was an adjustment, but I have to give credit to coach Boyle. She definitely gives us, as assistants, a lot of say and freedom to do a lot of stuff. We are all in charge of certain things, but she’s not the type of coach where only her voice can be heard. She has given us a lot of opportunities to lead in practice and different things so was it different standing up? Yes. I told the team before that I was a little nervous. But that’s to be expected. I was excited about the opportunity, but coach has given us all a lot of responsibilities so it wasn’t as big of an adjustment.”

On Longwood’s success at the end of the shot clock
“How many times has that happened to us? Whether it’s at the end of the shot clock or going into the half, it has happened a couple of times. I kind of anticipated, being off for nine or ten days, that we would be a little sluggish and that’s why we talked a lot about started off really aggressive. But I had faith in the young ladies that we would pull through once we settled down and eased into our game plan. Was I upset because I told them that No. 4 had really deep range? Yeah, but I knew we would settle in and get the job done.”

On back to back overall good performances
“It definitely feels good, it always feels good. But to get two back-to-back wins like this is good. I just want us to continue to stick to the defensive mentality. We had some goals that I wanted us to reach and we got a couple of them, and a couple of them we didn’t. So tomorrow we will go back to the drawing board, but I told the ladies to celebrate this win because it was a good win, but to be ready to prepare for Saint Mary’s tomorrow.”

Senior center Sarah Imovbioh

On not being whistled for any fouls
“Before the game coach came told me that she was going to look to get the ball to me down low and just wanted an in and out game and I felt that the team stuck to the plan. My teammates did a great job of passing the ball in. Our transitions were good and the posts were running the floor. I’m just excited that we were able to get this win.”

Freshman forward Lauren Moses

On what changed for UVa after the slow start
“I think it was more defense. Coach has been talking about it for the past couple practices that we have to focus on our defense and then the offense will come to us. Coming out to the second half we focused solely on defense trying to get stops, rebounds and trying to push the ball.”

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