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ATLANTIC COAST CONFERENCE WOMEN'S TOURNAMENT


March 4, 2015


Wes Moore

Miah Spencer


GREENSBORO, NORTH CAROLINA

Virginia Tech – 57
NC State - 56


COACH MOORE:  You've got to give Virginia Tech a lot of credit.  They knocked down shots, and obviously hit some big threes.
We've probably have gotten a little too one‑dimensional this year and relied on the jump shot too much.  We haven't established a good inside game, so I'll take the blame for that.  We lived and died by the three or by the jump shot, and today we just didn't get enough good looks.  Again, very disappointing.  Our kids have faced a lot of adversity, and they've hung in there and they've battled and fought, but still, it's a tough loss.

Q.  Coach, what did you think of your defense on the game‑winning shot?  And then just in general, any differences between when you played them in Raleigh this year and today's match‑up?
COACH MOORE:  Well, I don't know, Panousis, I guess is the pronunciation, we just felt like we couldn't let her come off the pick on the ball and get an open look, so we were trying to trap her whenever possible, make her give it up.
You know, they did a good job.  They rolled the post on the first pick on the ball and came up with another pick on the ball, and that one got her free, and then Miah had to help up, and that left them open for Young in the corner.  Again, she knocked it down.
You know, I don't know.  Looking back on it, maybe we should have done something different, but again, we felt like we didn't want to let her knock down a three off the pick.  They won this one, they won that one.  What do you say?  They did a good job versus the pick on us at our place.  We switched and we were able to take advantage of the mismatch.  Today, which we expected it, they showed a lot, but they did a nice job of helping and covering up when the roll happened.  They were able to help and recover well, and you know, I just think we missed some shots, missed some lay‑ups, missed some open looks, and you have a day like that and you've got to find a way to win otherwise.
Like I say, I feel bad that I've let us get so one‑dimensional.  We've got to establish an inside game and be a threat from there.  But again, Virginia Tech did a great job.  They made that adjustment on pick on the ball, and I thought it worked really well for them.

Q.  Really odd statistic today, zero fast break points scored in the game.  What did they do so well to slow you down?
COACH MOORE:  That's a good point.  And there again, I can probably take some of the blame for that.  Maybe we're calling too many plays.  Maybe we ought to just be pushing it and seeing if we can get something in transition.  Their posts do a good job of running the floor and getting back and taking away the paint.  But again, we probably should have tried to put a little more pressure on them in transition and seeing if we could have made that happen.
But again, we just didn't make enough happen.  We shot 26 free throws.  I thought the kids attacked.  They did some good things there.  But again, we probably should have been more aggressive in transition.

Q.  In the first half, you guys shot the ball very, very well.  In the second half, it seemed like they were able to shut it down.  Did they do anything differently?  What led to that lower shooting percentage?
COACH MOORE:  Yeah, again, like I said, they did a nice job.  When we shut pick on the ball, they did a really nice job of rotating and taking away the first and second looks.
You know, as we mentioned already, in transition they did a pretty good job of getting matched up and not leaving anybody open really.  And they limited our offensive rebounds.  We weren't able to get any second chances, which I think when you're not shooting the ball well, you've got to make something happen on the boards, and we didn't do that.

Q.  Coach, the referees obviously called this game very tightly.  How much did the number of fouls play into this game?
COACH MOORE:  Yeah, you know, again, we had a hard time when we were trying to trap pick on the ball, we had a hard time getting our post up there early enough and really doing a good job of making it hard for them to come out of the trap.  That's where we got a lot of our fouls.
Again, Panousis did a great job of attacking off the pick on the ball when we tried to trap, and she put a lot of pressure on our defense and on our post, and consequently she was able to get to the foul line some and create some things off of that.

Q.  Wes, you look at the numbers between the game you played in Raleigh and this game and they're incredibly similar.  The one glaring difference that I see is that in the win, you got 52 shots up, in this game you only took 42.  Was that‑‑
COACH MOORE:  How many offensive rebounds did we have in that game?

Q.  In Raleigh?
COACH MOORE:  Uh‑huh.

Q.  Let me look here.  Eight.
COACH MOORE:  Not much different.  You're right.
Well, like I said, I think you look at a lot of things.  First of all, we shot 26 free throws, so that means you're shooting less from the field because that's at least 13 possessions probably where you didn't get a shot up.  25 last time?  I don't know, maybe they slowed it down, did a good job of making the possessions fewer.  I'm not sure.  But we'll look at the tape and try to figure it out.

Q.  My question is for both.  How much thought have y'all put into the WNIT?  Obviously you're not going to play in Reynolds anymore.  Do you want the opportunity to extend this season, coach some more games, play some more games?
MIAH SPENCER:  We had a conversation about it last practice.  Coach came and talked to us about the situation and asked what we wanted to do, and so we met as a team, and I asked Len'Nique Brown, our senior, if she wanted to play, and if she wanted to play, then everybody else would play for her, so we said yes.
COACH MOORE:  Yeah, you know, it's a tough call, obviously, because you know you're going on the road.  We know we don't have a real deep bench right now, so it is a tough call.  Trying to get the players' input, see how they felt, and we wanted to kind of see, too, how we came out of this tournament injury‑wise, and that sort of thing.
But answering your question, yeah, we did have to discuss it because we were getting a lot of pressure to let people know what we were thinking.  So we have discussed it.

Q.  Does the outcome of this game now have any effect on that previous decision?  Do you feel you're going to rediscuss it?
COACH MOORE:  I don't know.  We'll see.  Haven't crossed that bridge yet.

Q.  Miah, did you feel like you were going to win the game until that last shot went in, and what was Virginia Tech doing so well defensively to disrupt the other guards' shooting?
MIAH SPENCER:  After the three‑point play I really felt like we was going to dig down on defense and not let them score, not let them have a great open look, and defensively, I guess they were just putting pressure on us, I believe.  But yeah, we didn't have a good shooting night, but we have to do other things, attack, so other people get to the free‑throw line, stuff like that.

Q.  Miah, you're just a sophomore, so I know this is a disappointing loss for you, but you'll be back next year.  Can you take anything from this year and this season and look forward to next year with some new hope?
MIAH SPENCER:  Well, I just wanted to play for 'Nique because I knew it was her last year, and also KB, knowing that she's not able to play.  But what I took from this game is that you have to start the game with a lot of intensity, a lot of urgency.  Discipline comes into it, as well.  I mean, anybody can win a game, anybody can be beaten, so we just have to come ready to play every night for 40 minutes and not just 20 minutes.

Q.  Coach, when I talked to you the other day you said you were like a bubble team for the NCAA, and there's been some mention of the WNIT, but does this definitely put you out of the NCAA?
COACH MOORE:  Yeah, I would probably say so, yeah.  Again, I think we had to make a little run over here, had to win a few probably, and we didn't get that done.  Yeah, I would say so.

FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports




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