Video and the transcript from UVA Basketball coach Ryan Odom in his postgame interview with the media following Virginia’s 73-66 win at Boston College on Saturday.
Video
Transcript
Opening statement: “A ton of respect for Coach Grant and their team, just really impressed. In watching them on film, the togetherness that they play with, the energy that they have on both sides of the ball, their defense is very similar, numbers-wise, to ours, and they’re tough to score on, they really are. They have guards that can get to the basket, bigs, you know, that have some skill inside and outside. They gave us everything, certainly, that we could handle. You know, today, just really proud of the guys, gritty effort overall. You know, to come away this week with two wins on the road is really, really difficult. Proud of the execution down the stretch.”
Focus at the half: “Yeah, we were 2-for-16, you know, from three. And so, one part of the conversation was, let’s make sure that we’re taking the right threes. Let’s don’t just shoot threes to shoot threes when potentially there might be some drives to the basket. And I think in the second half, the guys did a nice job of attacking and certainly got fouled some, but also got some baskets going to the rim. We limited how many threes we took overall. And then defensively, just being better at the point of the screen. We were getting beat at the point of the screen way too easy in the first half, and we needed a tougher effort there from our guards and then also our bigs.”
On Thijs de Ridder: “You know, when teams, you know, play out, and you sort of lock out, they’re really good at guarding the three, and so wanted to make sure that our guys, you know, got to the basket, and you can create contact, sometimes you can get all the way there. Certainly, they have a really good shot blocker back there, but there were times where we’re able to get all the way in.”
Bench points: “Yeah, yeah, it’s just whatever it takes each game, you know, tells us what we need to do. We have good players that start, we have good players that come off the bench. Dallin Hall is a great example of that. Not one of his better overall games, and sat for a good amount of it in the second half, but went back in there and made some huge plays down the stretch, and certainly, we needed him. Chance (Mallory), coming off the bench, he’s pretty consistent, you know, with this play. Ugo (Onyenso) was great off the bench today. And Devin (Tillis), I thought, had really good minutes as well. Jacari (White), he was more like himself. That was the first time, you know, he’s played like himself since the injury.”
5-1 on the road in the ACC: “I mean, it’s hard to complain, you know, winning that many games on the road. It’s not easy to win on the road, doesn’t matter what league you’re in, it’s difficult. And so, we can’t pat ourselves on the back. There’s more road games to come. There’s more. We’ve got to be good at home. And, you know, it’s a tough conference this year, you know, it’s much improved from a year ago, and so, we’ve got to be ready every game.”
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Chris Graham
