USF Men's Basketball
Virginia at USF
USF Sun Dome
USF Head Coach Stan Heath
On the game…“That was a good win for our program, I thought we played hard and they played hard. I thought down the stretch we were a little fresher, I thought that our defense really picked up as the game went on and I thought that we had a really good balance of inside and outside.”
“Both Gus and Jarrid commanded paint both in scoring and rebounding, and Jones was huge for us in the second half especially and all the way through the game.
Justin Leemow had some key baskets at critical times, shots that last year didn't seem like they were going in, but this year he is playing with a lot more confidence.”
“We thought the first four minutes would be key, we wanted to get off to a good start. We wanted to continue to establish the inside first, so right away we try to attack the inside initially. We didn't get what we wanted at first, but we just focused on the defense and getting stops and converting. We realized that they were going to try and take away our fast breaks And eventually our defense got some fast breaks for us and really widened our lead.”
On Virginia…“It's an ACC school, it's a school with credibility, they returned a lot of players from last season. It was a game that kind of got away from us last year. They have a pretty good name in college basketball.”
USF Guard Dominique Jones
On the game…“We go hard every day in practice, I know what we can do. Our main thing is translating that from practice onto the court. We made a lot of mistakes, we have a long way to go, but I think our future is pretty bright.”
“At the three minute mark we were up by three and I just told everyone to lock up and finish strong. We started to play really good defense, started getting stills and hitting shots, just doing thing that great teams do.”
USF Guard Justin Leemow
On his new found confidence…“My freshman year, playing next to guys like Dominique and Gus who had more experience then I did, it made me nervous because they expected a lot of things from me. Coming into my sophomore year I'm a lot more confident, I have a year under my belt, I know what to expect with the college tempo and how fast it is, last year I was in a hurry a lot of the time.”
Virginia Head Coach Tony Bennett“Yeah, they certainly played a nice game and I thought early, that especially the first half had real good looks and couldn't capitalize when we got to the lane and missed some really open shots, even some stuff at the rim.”
“And I think that played heavy in our minds and thought our defense held us in there, then as the game went on, I think they're defense toughened up and we kind of did a role reverse, slightly softened up a little bit but, you know a physical team.”
“Jones is as good as advertised, you see that he can make tough shots and get himself going, but that puts a lot of pressure on your defense when you know some of the shots are fallen and you're getting good looks on at times but you get a little impatient and we had some turnovers that resulted in easy baskets and we're playing a little far down.”
