ATLANTIC COAST CONFERENCE MEN'S BASKETBALL CHAMPIONSHIP

March 11, 2021

Quincy Guerrier

Syracuse Orange

Postgame Press Conference

Virginia 72, Syracuse 69

Q. A lot of emotion coming off the floor for you after this one. Where do you feel you stand? You gave it your all against a great Virginia basketball team. Where do you feel you stand as you look for your fate coming Sunday?

QUINCY GUERRIER: I mean, everyone gave everything. We played well today. The last couple games, we played well and hopefully they will select us for the tournament.

Q. The shot at the end there, obviously a heartbreaker. Knowing you guys just came down to the wire, does it sting maybe more than losing by double digits?

QUINCY GUERRIER: No, we fight through the whole game, and it happens. I think that was -- he shot four times and that was the one he made. It was just a heartbreak. But we've just got to keep working, and like I said, hopefully they're going to select us for the tournament.

Q. Can you walk me through that last play, what kind of went wrong and -- was there anything you could do or were you kind of stuck going down to help on Huff at that point?

QUINCY GUERRIER: I needed to help. It's better to give the three at the end, especially for someone who didn't make three shots in a row from the three or was 0 for 3 from the three-point line. So I needed to help because I was driving. And Marek had to come up on him and I had to -- I had to help to make sure Huff was not getting the lob. And he passed it to whoever shoots it, Beekman, and he made the shot. You know, it happens.

Q. I wanted to ask you about Buddy. I know you've touched on it before, but you've seen him a lot working obviously very hard before and after practice. Can you touch on where you've seen him grow, especially these last few games?

QUINCY GUERRIER: It's not just the last two games. He's been tremendous the last, what, probably seven games. He's been playing his best basketball right now, and I'm happy for him. Obviously we wanted to win the game today, but we're just going to keep working and we'll see what happens.

Q. Coach said when you guys played Virginia the first time, one of the goals was to get the ball to you in the high post and kind of go at Hauser a little bit and the forwards. Was that the same game plan today, and how do you feel like you executed it?

QUINCY GUERRIER: Buddy got going early in the game, Rob played well, too, Marek made a couple good plays. But yeah, at some point when I first attacked Sam Hauser and he drew a foul, I think they tried to make everything through me so we would make sure Sam Hauser was in foul trouble. It was not around me the whole game, but it was about the team, not just me. But like I said, Buddy had a tremendous game, and Rob had a tremendous game, too.

Q. Just what you can say about where you feel this team has evolved the most this year and if you feel like at this point in the season, you're playing your best basketball as a team.

QUINCY GUERRIER: Yeah, we definitely played our best basketball probably the last four games. I think our defense got better. We communicate more. I think that was the problem. And we were not moving our feet before and now we're moving our feet, communicating, and I think that's pretty much it.

I think offensively we've been probably good the whole year. Our offense was working, but it was more about defense.

Q. When you play as well as you guys played and don't win the game, felt like the whole game you guys were going to win that game, how tough is that? And do you take any consolation in the fact that you are playing so great?

QUINCY GUERRIER: I mean, it's hard. It's hard. At the end of the game, I cried because we gave everything. I knew we gave everything. It's not like at the end of the game we were like, oh, we should have -- yeah. There was probably a couple things that we could do better like Virginia, but it happens. And it's just -- I'm happy for everyone. We should be proud of ourselves the way we played today. That's pretty much it.