Post Game Quotes vs. Florida State
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Feb. 16, 2017
Virginia Head Coach Joanne Boyle
Opening statement:
“I am so excited for the team and all of the hard work they have put in. Sue does an unbelievable job with their team. I have watched them many times on film and watched that Texas game, and they have so much firepower. For our girls to go out and know they had an opportunity to win, it speaks volumes to the confidence and grit they had tonight.”
On winning a close game against a top-ranked team:
“I told our girls right before the game, I am really relaxed about this game. I was not nervous about it, and you have shown time and time again that you can play with teams like Notre Dame, Syracuse, and Louisville. We just have not won it yet, but it is your time, go play. We talked about three of the most important things and I think they did a great job executing those particular categories tonight. The grit and the hard work paid off. They have a great team and it was our night, we will take it and keep moving.”
On fourth quarter defense:
“Our defense has been very good all year. I think we are top of the conference in opponent field goal percentage and I think what we wanted to do tonight was change defenses as much as we could. So, every time there was a timeout we changed our defense. We did not want them to get comfortable. I think we used everything tonight and it helped. We wanted to make them think a little bit and get out of their stuff. It all goes back to the girls, because it is not easy to be on the fly with a lot of what we are doing and we did a great job limiting their transition points, outrebounded them which was a key factor, and we took care of the ball.”
On it being the biggest win in recent history:
“It was a great win for us. The girls have been prepared, all of the experiences we have had this year led us to say it was their time. Now, we have to bottle this up and come back in tomorrow. We are about to face a very good Virginia Tech team on the road, so this is momentum, but it doesn’t mean anything if we don’t continue this effort. I know the girls will be ready tomorrow and Saturday, and we will do our best on Sunday.”
Guard Dominique Toussaint
On her performance and the win:
“I just trusted what I’ve been practicing when the shot clock is running down and we have to get a shot up. I just trusted my shot. I just try to do my best to help the team. I’m not thinking I should get a certain amount of points, I am just playing my role.”
On moral of the team:
“It boosts our confidence. We knew we could win and we did come out with a win and with [Florida State] being ranked No. 4, it says a lot about our team.”
Forward Lauren Moses
On team’s mindset:
“It just boosts our confidence. Coming into the game we all knew we could do this. We had two good prep days so we knew we had the ability and determination to do it. So moving forward, we have to learn from the mistakes we made in this game and continue to do what we did well.”
On rebounding performance:
“We knew that when the game got close we had to box out. Everybody had to find a body and just push it back. It doesn’t matter if you get the rebound as long as we get it, so I think that’s what we focused on. In the last five minutes we wanted to make sure they didn’t get any second chance points like they were getting in the first half.”
On communication with lower classmen:
“Every night is a different night in the ACC. Our freshmen know that they have had some great experiences in the past games and that they have to play their heart out every game. I don’t know if it’s anything we tell them, but when they come to practice tomorrow they will know it is a new day. Yeah, we won this game but we have to keep getting better.”
Florida State Head Coach Sue Semrau
Opening Statement:
“Congratulations to Virginia. We knew they were going to be tough coming in. They are number one in the ACC defensively. We came off of a really emotional loss and we knew this would be dangerous for us and Virginia made it dangerous. So credit to them.”
On Virginia’s defensive attack:
“They throw a lot of different stuff at you and we didn’t shoot the ball well. Usually we’re a better offensive rebounding team and when we lost Shakayla Thomas that was a pretty big blow to our scoring. It’s not shocking, I thought what Virginia did was they got stops and they scored. This is the danger of stepping out of conference play and had we hit a couple of free throws against Texas then we might have felt different. Basketball is an emotional game and I think that your rhythm comes with that kind of rhythm and we didn’t have it tonight.”
On affects of two game losing streak:
“Losses can shake a team if you lose Shakayla Thomas. That is a big blow to us. We’ll see how that goes when we get back.”
On Virginia’s height:
“I thought they did a great job. We made some ill-advised decisions to try and shoot over Felicia Aiyeotan but that’s not very smart on our part. We’ll get it back together and we’ll grow from this.”