ATLANTIC COAST CONFERENCE WOMEN'S BASKETBALL CHAMPIONSHIP

March 2, 2022

Jen Hoover

Jewel Spear

Wake Forest Demon Deacons

Postgame Press Conference

Wake Forest 61, Virginia 53

JEN HOOVER: Thank you guys for being here. Couldn't be more proud of this team's character. You know, we came to Greensboro on a mission, and we really focused and locked in. And give Virginia some credit, they came out and really were overly aggressive with us, and I thought threw us off our game for a half.

But at halftime these kids knew it was 20 minutes or we go home, and they willed themselves to win tonight. We found ways to get stops, we found ways to get this kid here some shots. She found a lot of ways to get her own shot, but her teammates helped her with some ball screens. We had a lot of kids -- I think everybody stepped up and hit some sort of big shot in that run we had to make.

I told them in one of the last time-outs that our defense was what we relied on early in the season and that was what was going to end up getting this win for us, the defensive and the rebounding. We had to take care of that.

Happy to be here and be staying in Greensboro and playing another game, and we want another shot at Georgia Tech, another really good basketball team. We've got to just get some rest and kind of enjoy this one but move on to the next.

Q. Jewel, talk about the three-pointer you hit in the fourth quarter. Do you feel like that kind of jump-started it? Also, did this remind you of the regular season game, the strong finish you had against UVA?

JEWEL SPEAR: Yes, that was a big three-pointer. Like Coach said, my teammates got me open all game, and I happened to be wide open on that shot so I just took it with confidence. I think it was a big momentum change. We were right there the whole game, and Coach kept telling us they were out-rebounding, so we had to cut that in half and get up on the rebounds and then cut our turnovers. I felt like when I made that shot, it kind of gave us a spark on the defensive side, as well.

Q. Jen, the Clemson pep band had to fill in for your regular guys tonight and they were kind of noisy. Did your team feed off that energy tonight?

JEN HOOVER: I don't know if they fed off of it, but they were awesome. Tim Heath, our band director, got with them and helped set us up. Obviously our guys are getting ready to go tip here in about 30 minutes, go Deacs, and so tonight was a little challenging for the Deacon Nation. But we're always going to show up and show out, and I thought their band was phenomenal. It was funny. I was telling the assistants, well, they were really loud when we were at Clemson, so we know they can be loud.

And then our bench I thought was -- especially there when it started to turn, the energy that was coming off of our bench/the band and our fans. You know, Greensboro, the Deacs like to stay in Greensboro, and we get a lot of energy here, so we've got to continue that.

Q. Coach, the game was very, very physical. Can you speak to Jewel and the offense that you ran in the last, I guess you could say, fourth quarter where you let her go iso, or were you actually running plays and she was reading things?

JEN HOOVER: Well, you're right. I thought the game was very physical, and again, I think give Virginia a lot of credit. That team has been through a lot, too, and here at the end, they had some momentum coming in. Since we had played them at home, they were playing that way, more physical, more aggressive, more assertive, and I thought in the first half we were a little timid.

I think when she's -- sometimes when we can't get her the ball early, we can just pull her up to the point where she starts with the ball in her hands and we don't have to worry about how we get it to her. And it just changes what our teammates -- and I think Jewel also understands this -- what it changes is the way people guard us when she has the ball in her hands. That's what opened up Kaia Harrison for two drives, Liv Summiel for her three. She set the screen for Cristina Morra and got the and-one play. Those were all execution that these kids -- we draw it out, but they still have to execute it. And she has to make reads and her teammates have to get into open shots, and we missed a couple that could have been lay-ups.

Even when I called the time-out, I was afraid we were getting ready to travel or getting ready to turn it over and that was going to be a lay-up.

I give these kids a lot of credit. They played together a lot this year, and they've been through a lot, and we keep fighting back and keep finding new ways to create offense and get chances for different people.

I think offensively when you look at the rebounding, I know we only had two O-boards at halftime and we were down on the boards pretty big, and we out-rebounded them by three and had eight O-boards. And Liv Summiel, I always tell everybody she's kind of our silent, unsung hero. She's our toughness. And that kid, what she did tonight, she's playing through some injury right now, and she just -- there's no quit in her. There was tears in her eyes at one point, and I was asking her if she was all right.

But she is going to battle, and she had her hands full. Mir McLean, that's a tough match-up for anybody, what she can do on the boards and how athletic she is.

Q. The fourth quarter here is almost exactly the same as the last matchup, 20-8, 19-8. Did you change anything defensively to shut them down in the fourth quarter?

JEN HOOVER: We really didn't change much up defensively. One of the things I think they do a good job of, and I tried to remember to help them in time-outs with this, is reminding them of personnel tendencies.

We talked a lot about that going into this game, that when the play breaks down, they're going to rely on what they do best, and can we take that away from them. And we didn't want to foul them, didn't want to put them on the free-throw line. I think when you look at the free-throw game tonight, we went 13 of 13. We shot 100 percent in crunch time where we haven't shot maybe three or four or five free throws on these rims.

They only went to the line 11 times, and we're a team -- when we were winning early and when we do win, we're aggressive and we get to the free-throw line.

When they take two charges early in the first half, I think that kind of made us a little timid about trying to get to the free-throw line, trying to drive and those kinds of things. And again, I think that's something they do extremely well is they do take charges. It's in the back of these kids' minds when they're trying to be aggressive and drive, and you just have to adjust.

Q. This question is for Jewel. I specifically noticed the way you were breaking the double-team, moving without the ball. Just how do you think you've grown as a player in doing those things that maybe don't show up on the score sheet and your stat line?

JEWEL SPEAR: Yeah, I think that's a great question because I've struggled with that in the beginning, just kind of just standing on the court. And my coaches have been telling me I need to move more and be more active because I attract different defenders, so just being confident with that, walking my defender in, and coming off of screens hard. Like I said, and like Coach said, my teammates are setting great screens so just using my screens and then not forcing it, as well. When I'm getting double-teamed just looking for the open man, just making the easy pass instead of making the hard read.