ATLANTIC COAST CONFERENCE WOMEN'S BASKETBALL CHAMPIONSHIP

March 9, 2024

Kenny Brooks

Georgia Amoore

Virginia Tech Hokies

Postgame Press Conference

Notre Dame 82, Virginia Tech 53

KENNY BROOKS: Obviously disappointed. Was not our night. I don't think we played well, especially well enough to advance to the ACC championship game.

But we'll get back at it. We'll get back at it and we'll get back to what we do best and get ready for the NCAA Tournament.

Q. Coach, how do you flush this game so that way you don't let it affect you in the tournament?

KENNY BROOKS: Games are games. I think it counts as one loss. It counts as one loss. That's what we'll do, and we'll look at it, and we've got 24 wins and we've got seven losses, and we'll regroup and get ready for the NCAA Tournament.

Q. Carleigh Wenzel had five points and three rebounds today. I thought she was very strong on the defensive end. As a freshman player going up and very confidently guarding, first-team all-American Hannah Hidalgo. What can you say about Carleigh Wenzel's growth this season as a player?

KENNY BROOKS: Hidalgo is all-American already? It's really hard for me to say right now. I don't think we were good at all defensively.

To try to find the bright spot in what she did or what anybody did without watching the film, we didn't play well defensively at all.

Q. How much does this game kind of underscore that you're really going to need Liz back in order to win more than a game in the NCAAs, or do you look at it like maybe it was just a bad matchup for you this year?

KENNY BROOKS: One game. One game. Who knows who we're going to play in the NCAA Tournament. I just know we will be in the NCAA Tournament.

I promise you when we tip it up and whoever we're playing in the NCAA Tournament, we're not going to look back and say, oh, my goodness, that game we played against Notre Dame. It doesn't happen like that. Tonight was not our night. We were tired. Our kids were physically tired.

That's not an excuse because everybody has to play multiple games, but we had kids out there who hadn't played a lot and without really a game plan, so we just didn't play well today. We'll regroup.

I think this is a time of year -- I'm excited. It's like a new energy. I'm tired of playing against the same teams in the ACC. I'm tired of the same officials. I'm tired of -- I'm excited to see something new. I want to see some new officials. I want to see some new teams. I want to see some new everything.

So that's what we'll get. So we'll be energized for it, and they will, too.

Q. Georgia, at halftime you guys obviously didn't make a lot, but I thought you defended well in the first half. Where in the third quarter do you feel like it kind of slipped away a little bit? I know you guys had a couple bursts in the second half. What was your take overall?

GEORGIA AMOORE: When they went on that run to start off, we were just sloppy. We didn't play defense like we did the first half. We like to say that we would want to do a third quarter blitz.

Well, they blitzed us at the start of the third quarter. I think from then on, they had the aggression and they had their heads down and we were put back on our heels again.

Q. Kenny, what is the exact nature of Liz's injury, and how realistic is it that she could come back this month or not?

KENNY BROOKS: Do you want me to say something? Liz is not available for this tournament, and we wanted to make sure that her health and safety was the first thing that was on our minds.

We'll reevaluate her situation when the time is right.

She's doing great with her rehab. She rehabs three times a day. When the time is right, we'll see what she can do.

Q. Do you have some hope, I guess --

KENNY BROOKS: Georgia played really hard tonight. I thought Olivia Summiel played, and there's nothing more I can tell you other than what we said earlier. We're not going to do anything differently than what I said earlier, is just to not play her this tournament, which we didn't, and then we will reevaluate her situation.

If the trainers want to do it tomorrow, then we'll reevaluate it tomorrow. If they feel like they need to do it on Thursday, we'll do it on Thursday. We'll just do it then.

So there's not going to be anything that I'm going to say that's going to be any different than what I've said before.

Q. Georgia, how do you process a game like this? Like Kenny said, it's just one loss. You guys have won so many other games. You're the regular season champs. But you have eight days to process it. Where does your mind go, and what do you feel like this next week looks like for you guys?

GEORGIA AMOORE: Yeah, it's easy to get down and negative and think about all the bad things, but really we have to adapt a kick-us-forward mentality. Clearly we didn't play well, and it's going to be blatantly obvious on film. Go back and watch that, and I don't think we did -- we just didn't play well. We did stupid stuff, and if we eliminated half of that, then it would have been a more interesting game. If we had made more shots, it would have been an interesting game.

It's nothing magical. It's simple stuff that we can achieve.