|
|||
|
|||
|
 |
|
|
ATLANTIC COAST CONFERENCE WOMEN'S BASKETBALL TOURNAMENTMarch 1, 2018Quentin HillsmanTiana MangakahiaGreensboro, North Carolina Virginia Tech - 85, Syracuse - 70 COACH HILLSMAN: An amazing, amazing second half by Virginia Tech. Just got to give them all the credit. Kenny did a fantastic job of making the adjustment in the second half. He went to a zone and kind of slowed us down a little bit, and we didn't make shots and were able to get into our pressure. Got to give them all the credit for just having a great, great second half. Fourth quarter, you know, they shoot 72 percent from the field, we shoot 0 percent. We don't make a shot. From three, they were 4 for 5, 80 percent. We were 0 for 10 and we don't make a shot. You can't win a game if you don't make a shot. The first half we were able to get the lead we had because we were able to make shots and press, and we couldn't get into our pressure because we couldn't make shots. But it was just a great game by them, and this is a Quentin Hillsman loss. I've got to do a better job of making sure that our team is able to compete and able to stop runs. This is about me. Our kids did all they could, and obviously I've got to do a better job of making adjustments to get us into the right stuff, and I didn't do that in the second half. I thought the first half we did pretty well. I thought the second half I got to do a better job to give us a chance to win. I can't say enough about them. They just made plays. Q. During their fourth quarter run, you took two time-outs. What did you tell your team to try to get them to change what was happening as the game kind of slipped away? COACH HILLSMAN: We were just trying to make sure that we got some help on their penetration. We were out trying to take away their threes, but they did a really, really good job of spreading us out and attacking us off the bounce from the wing. We were trying to get our bottom person to step over and help, and they just did a really good job of attacking us off the bounce. Obviously when you have a shooter in your weak side corner, your first instinct is not to leave the shooter, but we understand that we either help over and sink down and help the helper and rotate down, and we didn't do a very good job of that in that fourth quarter. Q. Tiana, in the fourth quarter obviously not scoring a basket for your team, what were they doing defensively? Were they doing things to give you tough looks as a team? TIANA MANGAKAHIA: I think they just -- we just weren't making shots. The first half, I thought we shot the ball well, and Gabbi made two threes in the first half, and dig in a made a few in the first half. But in the last quarter there, we weren't making shots. I missed a few lay-ups that I should have made, and I think that was the main reason. We just weren't making shots. Q. Q, you guys came out, and it seemed like you guys played a lot of man-to-man today, maybe more than you have a lot this season. Is that something you saw from them coming in that you wanted to attack? COACH HILLSMAN: Well, we knew we had to get matched up when they went five out. First half we did the same thing. We got matched up with them, were able to guard the ball a little bit better. But it's really hard to get matched up in transition. When they're in transition and you try to get matched up, we got cross-matched and we got some bigs on some wings every now and then in transition, and it's tough because they've got a full head of steam dribbling at our chest, been aggressive down the court. So for us it was just about not getting matched up properly and getting cross matches because we couldn't make shots to get our pressure set. We were getting up in full court pressure and getting matched up in the man-to-man, and we were in our hold action, and we were able to stay in front of them a little bit, but second half we didn't make enough shots to do that. Q. Tiana, you're up 13 with less than two minutes to go in the third quarter and then they go on that 21-0 run. What's kind of going through your mind when you're on the court and a team is making a run like that, and how surprising is it to all of a sudden look up and you're down? TIANA MANGAKAHIA: Yeah, I think when we're on the court, we came together in a huddle, and we just had to pick up our defense. They were scoring. They were beating us at the dribble, those kind of things, and we just all looked at each other and told each other what was that was letting us down, our defense, they were scoring and we were coming down and we weren't scoring. Yeah, I think that's what we were thinking about was our defense. Q. Tiana, Taylor Emery for them finished with 28. What does she do so well that makes her tough to stop? TIANA MANGAKAHIA: Yeah, she's a great penetrator. She gets to the basket at will, and even though she may not have beat us off the bounce, she muscles up and she can make those contested lay-ups and little jumpers. That's what she does really well, and she did that tonight. Q. Miranda played 38 minutes, Tiana played 37. Do you think fatigue played a factor as the game went on? COACH HILLSMAN: I don't know if it did or not. Obviously those were heavy minutes, but those two play heavy minutes all the time. I can't use that as an excuse, fatigue. We've all been off resting. We've been off our feet and we haven't done a lot going into this tournament because we needed our legs. We didn't expect to be going home today. We expected to be playing further. But I'm not going to use anything as an excuse, but I didn't have my team prepared to play at a high level today. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports   |
|
||||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
About ASAP Sports •
FastScripts Archive •
Recent Interviews •
Captioning •
Upcoming Events •
Contact Us
FastScripts | Events Covered | Our Clients | Other Services | ASAP in the News | Site Map | Job Opportunities | Links |
|
ASAP Sports, Inc. | T: 1.212 385 0297
|