Virginia Game Quotes vs. Oakland
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Dec. 30, 2015
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Virginia Associate Head Coach Ron Sanchez
On Mike Tobey: “Mike has been practicing hard and this is just a testament to his efforts in the last week of practice. Oakland is a very good team. This is just another part of that tough non-conference schedule that Coach Bennett wanted for this team this year.”
On the bench: “I think that our bench is pretty deep. Marial Shayok gave us a great lift today. Our guards are complete that way. I think we can survive a guy getting in foul trouble. London Perrantes is obviously a special guy on the floor as far as keeping our team playing the game the right way. I think our team answers very well to him and in his absence in the first half.”
On Oakland: “Obviously Kay Felder is a special player. He is averaging 30 points for a reason. He was our main concern. I think as a unit we did a great job from Marial to Malcolm Brogdon and London at the beginning of the game before he picked up those fouls. He still had 30 but he had to earn every basket. We wanted to take advantage of our size on the interior and I think we did a good job of that. “
On Tobey’s passing: “Mike has the ability to put points on the board. We are a post driving team. We practice that every day so it wasn’t anything we hadn’t seen. He saw the open side and made the pass, but it is nice to see him have this time of game where he is able to get to the basket and rebound the ball as well.”
On the second half: “Our offense and our defense work together and I think that when we move the ball from the top to the side and make them play defense first, we took advantage of our size in the interior. I think that was the difference. We didn’t turn the ball over so we didn’t allow them to make any easy baskets. We didn’t give up any transition baskets. In the first half, I think we were half speed and then we came back and contested some three-point shots. In the second, we did a much better job of taking advantage of interior play and getting back in transitions.”
On heading in to conference play: “When you get guys who don’t get many minutes playing it’s good because you know you will need them later in the season. It is great to get them on the floor against a team like this. They are a very good basketball team. To see Evan Nolte and Marial give us some minutes that will help us prepare for the ACC play.”
Oakland Head Coach Greg Kampe
Opening Statement: “I’m really pleased with my basketball team. You don’t usually say that, but this was our 10th road game of the season. We are a little road weary and you can see that in the second half. We really wanted to play their game and not ours. I thought if we played our game it wouldn’t go well. If it were a neutral court, it would be different. But, their coach and program are so good that nobody is going to come here and run up and down the floor on them. We decided let’s guard them. And the key for us was rebounding. I think for a mid-major team we are tremendous rebounders. Washington was the leading offensive rebounder in the country and we out rebounded them 55-39. Michigan State only had 12 offensive rebounds against us. Virginia had eight, but of course they made every shot in the second half. That is why we have a chance to be really good. And our point guard of course.
“We did what we wanted to do, but the game got away from us because we turned the ball over. When they had to play against our defense it was anyone’s game. When we turned it over 10 times in the second half they got some easy ones and some confidence. Then they started moving the ball and we got leg weary. When you’ve been on the road for as long as we have it’s going to happen, especially when you’re playing the No. 5 team in the country in a house of horrors for many people. I think we’ve proven we can play with anybody. I am not fearful of playing anybody in this country on a neutral floor. We can play, and win, against anybody. My point guard would be the starting point guard for any team in this country.”
On Mike Tobey: “The scouting report said big white kid that we can’t let have the ball by the basket. He can step out and shoot it, and we are going to let him do that, but nothing at the basket. So we didn’t accomplish that. We don’t double the post, and we tried to, but we gave up some easy ones. On Mike Tobey we needed to double him. He is so physically strong and we needed to make him become a passer. We are not good at that because in our league, which is really what we are trying to win, there is no one like him. He hurt us badly, but what lost us the game were the run outs and threes once they got comfortable They were not comfortable in the first half. You can say they missed some easy shots, but so did we. Every possession is so important in a game like this.”
On Virginia’s depth: “That’s what makes them great. When you walk into the lion’s den you better have some ammunition. You need to score and we didn’t. We average 88 points a game and we only had 58 tonight. The fact that we were in the game and leading at halftime, I’m pleased. I can’t be frustrated with this. It’s not right to my team to be frustrated with this. I hugged my guys and told them that they proved in the last two weeks that they are as good as anybody, believe that you are, walk out of here with you head up and see what happens in our league.”
On Virginia compared to other teams: “First of all the coaching. They have a system and they never got rattled. We took stuff away in the first half and we did what we had to do. That’s why they only had 28 points [in the first half] and their shooting wasn’t good. But they didn’t go away from their system. And once we went down, they got it. They got that curl and then a dunk. Then a curl and a wide open three on the flare on the weak side. That is why they are so good. They have a system and they stick with it. Teams that are not good panic and go away. They have great size and interchangeable parts.”
Virginia Guard London Perrantes
On getting two fouls in the first half: “(Coach Bennett) has faith in the other guys and didn’t want to put me in a spot where I would get a third in the first half. With the other guards that we have, there is no reason to press to get myself in the game. Obviously, I wanted to play, but I knew I had to sit out.”
On taking command in the second half: “In the first half, (Kay) Felder hit a lot of tough shots toward the end of the shot clock. He made some tough threes, some tough pull-ups, and some tough floaters. When we play, we get you to the end of the shot clock and if you’re going to make a tough one, then our hats off to you. We wore down on him and he wasn’t making those same shots as he was in the first half.”
On shutting down Kay Felder’s play-making: “We keyed off on him. We wanted to stop him and we all knew that he ran that team. If we stopped him, he wasn’t going to be able to do too much to help them win. We play our guy and help as long as we can get to our man and stay in front of them as well. They have some good shooters; I don’t think they shot the ball as well outside of Felder, which helped us. I thought we played strong inside and out.”
On Anthony Gill’s role: “He’s a work horse for us. Defensively, to be able to play strong and rebound, he’s huge on that side of the ball. Offensively, around the rim, to have that force, shoot the ball really well, or finishing really well — it opens it up for myself and Malcolm. Our inside game is huge. Mike stepped up today as well. Mike and AG (Anthony Gill) going up against each other in practice is definitely helping a lot. It might not show with Mike on the floor, but it showed today.”
On the defensive decision for who was guarding Felder: “The foul trouble caused us to switch it up but we also knew that we were going to switch it up throughout the game so that we had fresh bodies and give a different look for him every time he came down. The foul trouble put me to the side, but Marial was doing extremely well on him in the second part of the second half. That wasn’t necessarily the plan but we went with it and it worked.”
On finishing a tough non-conference schedule with a record of 11-1: “We’ve been saying from the jump that it was going to help us. We had some tough games compared to the last two years that I’ve been here. We want to play in those games. I feel like if you don’t want to play in those games, you shouldn’t be at this level. I feel like we all stepped up at different times; there is always somebody new stepping up for us. It shows that we can do different things at different times and we can play with the best of them. We’ve won some close games and we’ve won some big things and that will definitely help us down the road.”
Virginia Center Mike Tobey
On his performance tonight: “It felt pretty good. My teammates have been really supportive and helping me get through the hump when I’ve not been playing as well as I would like to play. It felt good to get a good win tonight.”
On him taking his performance tonight and looking ahead to conference play: “This season, foul trouble has been my problem. I’ll try to take this and roll with it to help the team to make a run in the ACC. I had more confidence in myself. The last couple of games I’ve had two fouls in the first half so I’ve been getting down. I’ve got to keep working hard in practice. My teammates support me so I was able to go out and play well today.”
On the alley-oop from Darius Thompson early in the game: “We’ve been talking about that one for awhile and he finally threw it so I was glad.”
Virginia Senior Forward Anthony Gill
On the play of Mike Tobey: “It was awesome. We have kind of been waiting on it and we know he has it in him. It’s up to him just to go out there and do it. I was so proud of him tonight. He just goes out there and is aggressive, and he really got it going. When he plays like that, it is hard to beat us because we have another big guy down there that can really score the ball and really cause a lot of problems.”
On having to come from behind in the second half: “We do not want that to happen ever. We are trying to work on coming out of the gate really strong, but the way our system is built is we break teams down. We kind of break their will and in the second half that normally happens. We understand how our system works and we understand that in order for us to continue to be good we have to play defense throughout the whole game. That is what really breaks them down.”