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ATLANTIC COAST CONFERENCE WOMEN'S BASKETBALL TOURNAMENT

March 5, 2020

Greensboro, North Carolina

Wake Forest - 58, Virginia Tech -55

THE MODERATOR: For Wake Forest, head coach, Jennifer Hoover, Ivana Raca and Gina Conti, Coach?

JENNIFER HOOVER: Super proud of this team for our fight and our grit. We knew coming in we were going to face two really tough teams, but we're a tough team, and we're tougher together.

Today our challenge was to dig deeper, because we played yesterday and they didn't. I have to give these kids credit. They played with a lot of fire. They played with a little fight and they were really focused and had that was our finish.

Q. Coach, you guys had multiple opportunities to succumb to the Virginia Tech runs throughout the game. How do you explain the resilience of this team? It looked like from my vantage point that you never blinked.
JENNIFER HOOVER: I would go back to what I've said throughout the year, the character of this team is above and beyond anything and I think when you hit adversity and you hit runs like this team has learned that our character and our fight and our desire to help each other out and play for each other and they've got each other's back, just -- it was able to withstand it. I think we're really confident. We know we've got a lot of different ways we can score and I think we do a good job of giving up a good shot to get a great shot for a teammate. I can't say enough about Maya Banks today. Her teammates believed in her and got her the ball and she hasn't had a lot of opportunity but she has been ready and waiting and she got it and she seized it in a key point for us.

Q. Coach, talk a little bit about the way that Gina controlled the ball at the end and then Ivana with huge shots in the fourth?
JENNIFER HOOVER: I thought these two all year have really done a great job of kind of being our poise and both a little bit of fire and a little bit of ice if you will at times and I thought Gina Conti controlled that game. When we were at she controlled that game. She was a warrior on campus and today we wore her out and we ran ball screen after ball screen and kept getting after her to use it and she made plays downhill, including some buckets. The last one was the toughest bucket of the day. Phenomenal job of moving the ball and hunting Raca and we found her in open space and we hit the shots we had to get and this team in the last couple of weeks has a lot of confidence in those shots and confidence in getting them in positions where we know we can make 'em and we have been knocking' 'em down.

Q. Jen, at your place when you lost to them last month they scored 73 points, shot over 50% from the field. What did you do better defensively today?
JENNIFER HOOVER: We really felt like at our place we let them establish Kitley way early and that hurt us. I said then she is the Rookie of the Year in our conference. They got Christina Morra in foul trouble early and I thought that hurt us. I thought Maya Banks did a great job defensively. Taja Cole got out in transition early at our place. Se had assists at our place again. I thought she controlled that game a little bit today. I just thought today we didn't allow am they to do that. We were on the help line, we were there when we needed to be, we doubled early on Kitley. We attacked 'em downhill and I thought we did a good job of at that being attacking in certain situations and spacing the floor. And rebounding was huge for us. Alex Sharp's 7 offensive rebound, that's what Alex does and when she is relentless on the boards she is a handful.

Q. For both of you, you get ready to play a third game tomorrow, is the adrenaline so high you're going to recover quickly or is it going to be a test for you?
GINA CONTI: I would say this is what makes it fun when you can play game to game to game, our adrenaline is okay, and we're excited, who doesn't love to play.

IVANA RACA: Our passion is way bigger than our tiredness.

JENNIFER HOOVER: There you go.

Q. Gina this is the first Wake Forest team I can remember playing the full season mostly healthy. How much of this --
JENNIFER HOOVER: Knock on wood.

Q. How much of this season has been about you guys learning how to win and win consistently?
GINA CONTI: I would think Jenna Rady or strength coach, the beginning of the preseason, all of that, she kept us getting strong, if you have, and I think that carried into preparation for conference play, preseason and now postseason. I think that preparation from Jenna and individuals and stuff our coaches put us through, so, yeah.

Q. First quarter, making shots, what did you do better defensively in terms of your three-point defense especially?
IVANA RACA: We wanted them to run off the line so we wanted them to go for a layup instead of the 3 because they're really good shooters and if they go to the layup we can rotate and help.

JENNIFER HOOVER: I thought early we dared Mabrey a little bit to shoot it and give her credit she was taking a step and hitting her step-back and that's a tough shot and she is a tough kid and a phenomenal shooter. But I challenged them to take care of that and what Ivana is talking about, we can help you on a drive but be can't nobody help you on a 3, you gotta defend that. So we got locked in on that.

I thought the first three or four minutes off of playing we had a great game plan. They did a great job focusing in on it and obviously the fresher team is going to come out and push you a little bit but I thought after that we stepped up.

Q. Jen, you've got your record where you want it now. Does that free you up tomorrow to kind of relax a little bit and play your game?
JENNIFER HOOVER: Well, you know, these kids, they've been wanting postseason play. A key was to get us two wins here so we could get above 500 again but the one thing about this group I could say from every practice we've stepped in is they're not satisfied. They've always wanted more, they're hungry, they're in our offices nonstop. We have these brand new gorgeous buildings, and I don't know if that's why they hangout in 'em and the fuel stations underneath or if they want more. They're watching film, they're in the gym shooting, and they're not satisfied. If I know these two and the rest of the kids in the locker room, they're already thinking about what we need to do better when we play Florida State.

We played in two games against them this year, where we gave them a 20-point lead and then we came back and it was a four point game. We were up the first three-quarters of the most. The task at hand, this group will get off their feet and rest and be ready to lock in and give it their all. This group has given their all every time they step on the floor, and as a coach I couldn't be more blessed to have these young ladies on the team and wearing a Wake Forest uniform.

THE MODERATOR: Thank you very much.

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