Postgame quotes from UVA basketball coach Tony Bennett and Cavs players after the 76-65 win at Maryland on Wednesday.
Virginia Head Coach Tony Bennett
On getting into foul trouble: “We had a little trouble adjusting to that. I thought we played good defense the first five, six minutes, we stayed in position. Then we started to put our hands on a little too much and that’s obviously rules emphasis. We didn’t adjust to start the second half. Guys didn’t want to pick up fouls, so they backed off and as the game wore on I thought we did a better job of tightening up our defense.”
On playing a young Maryland team: “I think they play together well. Obviously, without Dez [Wells] and Evan [Smotrycz] that affected them. Those are important pieces for them. Mark [Turgeon] does a real good job. I thought they had a lot of talent last year, they have talent this year. I thought they were a little more cohesive watching them in the tournament. Those young guys are only going to get better and better.”
On Virginia’s defensive effort: “I really thought we were locked in those first six or seven minutes. You could see that there weren’t many gaps. They were contesting shots and I thought, with our foul trouble, we didn’t play as effective. Our goal is always to try to take away the wing, which we didn’t do very well, but make them shoot contested shots and limit them to only one shot.”
On the poise of the team: “I told our team that this is going to come down to who has the most composure and most grit at the end, both defensively and offensively. Our guys didn’t get too sped up or panicked. They took some time off the clock and made some big buckets.”
Virginia freshman Guard Marial Shayok
On his first time playing at Maryland: “It was crazy. It was a really great atmosphere and just a really great experience.”
On his assessment of the game: “It was a really good road win. I felt like we stayed together throughout the game with the injuries and the foul trouble. It showed how good our chemistry is.”
Virginia junior forward Anthony Gill
On if it was the team’s most complete effort of the season: “Yeah, I think that we played well tonight on both ends of the court. We made them work on defense and then we made them work on offense. I think we played really good tonight. Everybody came off the bench and really helped us out a lot. Marial [Shayok], Mike Tobey, all the guys came off the bench and really helped us out.”
Virginia junior forward Evan Nolte
On the adversity the team faced throughout the game: “It was the first time really we had that kind of adversity like that with fouls and stuff. It was great for everyone to step up and just play their roles getting ready off the bench.”
On his 3-pointer towards the end of the game: “It was good. I’ve been shooting it real well in practice. It’s just frustrating when you feel like you’re shooting it with confidence and everything like that. It was nice to see the last one go in.”
On if tonight felt like a rivalry game: “We just treated it like a normal game when we got things going. We played them last year and had some physical, tough games. It’s my third year here so I remembered it. It didn’t feel like they were out of the ACC to be honest but it just felt like one of those tough games that you just had to grind out against a really tough opponent.”
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Chris Graham
