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Nov. 21, 2017

Recap | Final Stats

Virginia Head Coach Joanne Boyle

Opening statement:
“I’m obviously happy to get the win. We’ve had a little bit of a rough start so it is nice to come out at home and get a win. We obviously still have things to work on and we are trying to find our chemistry. We’ve been struggling on the offensive end of the floor and I felt that tonight we really shared the basketball and made some things happen, so that was comforting. Attention to detail, discipline, the things where we had breakdowns, they could have cost us. Those are the things we definitely need to clean up moving forward.”

On the division of duties between Brianna Tinsley and Dominique Toussaint at the point guard position:
“We’re trying to really just groom Bri and bring her along. I think because Nicki can score for us so well it’s hard to just keep her at the point. Starting a little bit more of a veteran team, we want to solidify what this is going to look like going forward, grooming Bri along the way so that she can definitely take that reign then we can get Nicki on the wing to run some of the stuff we want to run. I thought our rotations were much better tonight, I liked the way we rotated the kids in tonight. There’s been some uncertainty but it felt better tonight with the rotations.”

On J’Kyra Brown‘s three-pointer near the end of the game:
“We ran a play that we run a lot for Nicki. She came off a high ball screen, I couldn’t see I didn’t know if she had the look or not but obviously somebody helped off and she kicked it. JB has been shooting the ball well. She can really shoot it, she had a great percentage last year. It was a corner three for her and it went in. Credit to Nicki because she gave her the assist.”

On how necessary it was to win this game, especially since Hampton beat Carolina:
“I don’t know if it was, oh my gosh we have to win this. Our approach with the girls is every day we have to get better. Every day let’s get better. We had a good practice, a good shoot around, we talked about the offense, in particular I feel like we’ve been really defending people. It’s been on the offensive end where we have taken bad shots or turned the ball over. So just really getting them to sit in and understand what we are looking for playing our inside outside game so I was really please with that. But we’re not a team that, oh my gosh we have to do this, we have to do that. It’s early, take one game at a time, take one practice at a time. I like the lineup tonight, I like the rotations tonight, I like the offense tonight and we just have to clean up details.”

On the importance of closing out a game that the team kept coming back:
“It’s very important. I’m not sure we should have found ourselves in that situation to be honest. Again, the attention to detail to me came at the two and a half, three minute mark and we had some breakdowns. So again, it is what it is, but those are the things you have to go back, look at film and run your team through those situations again. We do a lot of offensive situations, we don’t do as many defensive special situations and obviously we have to continue to do that.”

On what she is hoping to see from the Cavalier Classic this weekend:
“The growth we were talking about like cleaning up the mistakes we saw tonight. We have to continue to be a good defensive team. We live and die as we did last year, our defense is our staple. I want to continue to grow on the offensive end like we did tonight, but cut down on the mistakes. I think that’s a big thing for us, just cutting down on the mental mistakes that are on us and I think that will be a big step in the right direction.”

On how the team’s strategy changes when the leading scorer fouls out:
“We have to work on that. This is her second game out of four that she has fouled out. She has tended to be in early foul trouble. I’m going to give it to the fact that Jocelyn was out all of preseason and she is trying to find her rhythm. She is typically overly aggressive which pays big dividends for us but the ref don’t seem to like it so we are going to have to find a balance in that. It’s important that she stays in a rhythm, so getting in early foul trouble hurts her rhythm and then obviously at the end of the game we want her in the game in those situations.”

On where Brianna is in developing as a point guard:
“As a freshman, just trying to figure out what are we looking for out of the offense. I think that’s not even a first year thing that’s just growth for everybody. On the defensive end of the floor, rebounding. We do a lot of switching so she has to be able to box people out. So just being disciplined in her mind, like when the shot goes up, she has to find somebody. It’s that important. And again, scouting reports come quick and they come fast, I think for her it’s just getting some games underneath her belt. For me it’s on both ends of the floor. What can she handle on offense, keeping it simple for her so she can think through things. But on the other end of the floor, we have too many breakdowns defensively, rebounding, we didn’t box out.”

Sophomore Guard Dominique Toussaint
On momentum of having the lead entering the fourth:
“It was really big. It pumped the team up and when we have high energy, we usually play well. So it was really big for us.”

On scoring 12 of 14 points in the second half:
“The coaches like to say that your shot will eventually fall and I think that is just what happened. I was getting looks in the first half as well, it just wasn’t going in for me. But luckily it did go in for us in the second half, and that was very important for us to get those points.”

Sophomore Guard Jocelyn Willoughby
On surprise over the slow start to the season:
“Yes and no. I think that we had high expectations coming into the season. We knew we would have a tough schedule and we thought that we could rise to the occasion. We still have confidence that we can but the reason I say no is because we haven’t fine-tuned the details and the small things that we need to work on. And we know that when we don’t do those things like rebounding or communicating as we should, when we have those breakdowns, you are not going to get the results that you want. We are still looking to grow and we know we want to play our best basketball in February and March and now we just have to take it game by game and practice by practice.”

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