UVA basketball coach Tony Bennett talks with reporters after the third-ranked Cavs topped #9 Louisville, 52-47, on Saturday.

On Virginia’s defense: “We had to win it with our defense. Those were two solid defense teams going at it, and I know we didn’t shoot it well, and didn’t do great offensively, but they make it hard for you. We only had two turnovers and that was significant. I know we took some bad shots, but they made us earn it. I told our guys beforehand they would have to put their hard hats on and work defensively. They have some guys that can make some plays. I thought Darion [Atkins] did a good job against Montrezl [Harrell] and it was one of those games. The home crowd was terrific. We needed every ounce of emotion and energy that the crowd gave us. Then our guys dug deep and came up with a big one.”

On Justin Anderson’s injury: “We will find out about Justin. I don’t even know exactly how he did it, but we’ve got one of the finest hand surgeons in the country in Dr. [Bobby] Chhabra and he will look at him, diagnose him, and then we will get a feel for what is going on. I’m concerned that he couldn’t come back in.”

On choosing Evan Nolte off the bench: “I went with Evan [Nolte] first off the bench. I’ve been going with Marial [Shayok] as the first guard, but there was a good matchup with [Wayne] Blackshear for Evan. I thought that in this setting and in this game, experience and his smarts could come in big. Then the fact that he knocks down a 3-pointer when we were 2-of-14 for threes was big for us. He did a good job defensively and his smarts were there. Louisville is hard because sometimes they’re man and sometimes they’re match-up. They make it hard. You have to figure stuff out, get to spots, and get to the ball. I like what Evan gave us, but depending on what happens with Justin, we’ve got Marial [Shayok] and Devon [Hall] and you’ve always got to be ready.

On defense in the second half: “We were really good defensively in the first half. We were swarming and contesting. In the second half, they broke us down a few times on the dribble and rejected a ball screen. They beat us outside and those two guards are so hard to contain. When we got up, they got a little more ‘we’ve got to put our head down and go mentality’ and they compromised our pack defense. First half it was really challenging and in the second half we made some plays, but we were good enough defensively to come out with that one.”

On Malcolm Brogdon’s 3-pointer: “We looked at it, it’s a set that we have, and if he doesn’t have the shot we have an action out of it. Sometimes it’s a bit of a guessing match because we looked at it earlier, but they had slipped into a zone and we couldn’t quite get what we wanted. It was a big shot he got there. We didn’t shoot it particularly well the whole game, but that was a big one.”

On Virginia’s defense: “It was close to the best half of defense I’ve seen. You could hear the noise from the crowd as the shot clock went down. I’m usually so locked in, but I noticed that. We took them to late in the shot clock, we contested, and we bothered. In the second half, it wasn’t all there. If we could have played the same defense in the second half that would have been something, but the first half was a pretty special defensive half. We need to go back and look at the tape, of course, but it looked like we were covering for each other and bothering stuff. I was very happy with that.”

Listen