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March 2, 2017

Recap | Final Stats

ACC Women’s Basketball Championship Second Round
Virginia Postgame Quotes vs. Wake Forest

Joanne Boyle: Just excited. You know, it’s March basketball tournament time. Some of the best basketball is being played right now, and just happy that our team has just been preparing for this moment, and it was just a great game. Jen has done an unbelievable job coaching her team. They’ve had some real good success this year. It was a battle, but really, really pleased with how we played tonight.

Q: Coach, you all got off to a great start on this one. What were you seeing in them that allowed you all to get the points on them that you did?

Joanne Boyle: Really the focus was not on our offense. It was really on our defense. We said in tournament times, teams that are playing great defense and rebounding the basketball and taking care of it are having opportunities. And a lot of the offense we got was created because of our really good defense and our rebounding tonight. So that’s been the focus really all season, in particular over the last week.

Q: Jocelyn, you were one of four in double figures. You were shooting the ball really, really good, especially in the second half. What kind of looks were you seeing that were allowing you to do that?

Jocelyn Willoughby: I just knew that we had to be aggressive. I think it says a lot about our team for the fact that four different players were in double figures, but just trying to take what the defense gave me. If there was a mismatch that I felt that I could take my defender, then trying to do that, or kick it out for another shot. I thought we passed the ball really well, and that’s what allowed a lot of us to get our shots.

Q: Joanne, question for you: What were the biggest positives that you took out of this game today?

Joanne Boyle: The resiliency. We talked about being bold today, being the grittier team. A lot of times in tournament time, it’s not pretty basketball. It doesn’t look that way. So being gritty and just — the girls just really buying into our message.

But we’ve been a pretty good defensive team all year, and it’s going to carry us forward. So just really proud of how they really dialed into the message that was delivered this week, and all credit goes to them because they executed it.

Q: Felicia, you had 10 points tonight and 21 minutes there. You were getting the ball, some pretty nice looks to your teammates. Was this one of your better games of the season, do you think?

Felicia Aiyeotan: Yeah, but there are many more to come, but I felt like today was a much better game.

Q: Going forward, when you all go to the next round, what are some of the things that you’re going to need to pick up on and improve on in order to advance again?

Joanne Boyle: You know, Notre Dame is a great team. They’ve been here, you know, so I’m preaching to my team, the pressure is on them. We went up there to South Bend earlier in the year. We played them tough. But again, it’s just — you get a game underneath your belt, which we did, so hopefully we’re a little bit looser, but the message doesn’t change. What we did today and the effort that we did today on the defensive end, the rebounding, we took care of the ball, that is going to be the message going forward. We’re going to keep it very simple.

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