Quotes: Duke 65, Virginia Tech 40

Opening Statement:

“I think it was a good, focused game by our team in terms of execution and getting back in the rebounding situation, in the second half in particular. I thought Becca (Greenwell) was really, really aggressive. They had to try and deny her the ball, which is always good because that provides opportunities for her teammates and can mess the defensive rotation of the team if they're going to try and face guard and take somebody out. We played strong and aggressive. A business-like good game.”

On what changed after being down three and then going on a 17-0 run:

“I felt that our defensive pressure picked up throughout the game. I thought that in the beginning of the game, we were a little bit not as aggressive, and then I thought we became more aggressive. I thought we wore them down by the second half in terms of shot contesting and forcing 5-of-22 for a player. That's some excellent shot contesting. They shot 25 percent for the game, so I thought we wore them out through time. We just didn't start as aggressive.”

On Mercedes Riggs' improvement:

“I think Mercedes is pretty steady. We can count on her. She had five assists. She can knock some threes down. She had a beautiful pass to Elizabeth (Williams) inside, so I think she just gets more confidence. She's been sort of exposed to everything in terms of our schedule, and I think she has done a terrific job. She's a huge lift off the bench and has a great role for this team.”

On the progress of the rebounding game:

“We made some progress. You look at Azurá [Stevens]'s 13, that's progress. We need to grow it. I think we're a team that should have a ton of rebounds. They had more offensive rebounds – I know we shot 52 percent – but we should have more offensive rebounds, for sure. It's just something we have to keep growing and focus. At one point we were number one in the nation in rebounding. If you think about it too long, that's not smart. What we care about being is number one in the nation in rebounding at the end of the year. It's a long process. It's a marathon. I think we slipped up on that, and I think that's a nice challenge for us.”

On the impact of Oderah Chidom's injury:

“I have no idea. She's a positive kid. She said it feels great and she was ready to go back in the game. That's what Oderah said. Hopefully we get a little bit of luck there with her shoulder, but she played well in the 18 minutes that she played. She was aggressive.”

On Erin Mathias' performance tonight:

“Erin is just really growing and working her way into the rotation. She'll play more and more minutes. Getting her to rebound and getting that defensive pressure. I think she's doing a great job. She's staying pretty focused and pretty ready. We got in a little bit of foul trouble again tonight, so that really called for her, and I thought she answered the bell and did a great job.”

Redshirt Freshman Guard Rebecca Greenwell

On focusing on eliminating turnovers:

“I think we definitely tried to key in on that this game. Twenty-five turnovers the past two games is way too much so we really just tried to value the ball a lot more, be patient and not rush. I think it showed.”

On regaining momentum after Oderah Chidom's injury:

“We just tried to stay focused, and I think we did a good job of not letting them go on any runs. We stayed constant, played hard and were really smart and executing on offense, and I think that showed even after Oderah got hurt.”

Senior Center Elizabeth Williams

On the team's defense in the paint:

“I think honestly we were just staying active in our zone, and in our match up. I think it is really important for us as post players to be moving a lot, and make the paint seem smaller than it is. So I think we did a good job of that, and with forcing them to shoot outside shots I think the guards did a good job of contesting and it showed in the end.”

Virginia Tech head coach Dennis Wolff:

Opening Statement

“Credit to Duke. Duke's size went on and wore us down. I thought we had a pretty good pace to start the game, made some shots to give us some confidence on offense, and then we had trouble with either not getting to the inside quickly enough or the second shots. I was concerned about that coming in, we gave up too many offensive rebounds. We lost track of their shooters too. Again, it was difficult. They did a very good job on defense so they deserve a lot of credit. They pressured us into hurried outside shots because we really had trouble scoring inside the lane.”

On number of three-point shots:

“I don't prefer to be doing that. Because we had trouble getting the ball inside and those girls finishing inside, we ultimately end up taking more outside shots. So probably that is the best chance of our scoring. We all know that you're not going to win that many games shooting that many threes.”

On Rachel Camp's lack of presence:

“I think that is a good way to describe it. I thought being in Cameron Indoor for the first time or whatever, I thought she was unusually tight with her game so she ended up in bad places that made us out of sync in offense. We have a young team and sometimes that is going to happen.”

On ending the first half 2-18 field goals:

“What I told them was that if that bank shot by [Erin] Mathias had not gone in, which clearly she wasn't trying to bank it, we would have gone in down 10 points. So what I told them at half time was if we could move the ball a little crisper, get the defense drawn out of position, take a little bit more time on some of the shots, we could get ourselves back into it. Again, I'll have to look at it, but at one point we hit a three to cut it to like 15 and then they offensive rebounded like 3 or 4 straight times. That's been what's really played us.”

On taking a positive from the game:

“I think that what I am taking out of it for our kids is that they are playing hard and they are trying. As a coach I commended them as soon as I went in there. It is not a question of effort. We need to continue to try to coach through some of the skill issues we have, typically inside.”

On Vanessa Panousis:

“She keeps trying. Vanessa Panousis is a player. We are asking Vanessa and Rachel [Camp] to do too much right now for where they are at right now in their careers. She made some threes, she had a bunch of them that looked open, and she is a very good shooter. She is trying very hard to do what we want her to do. Again they've lost guys also so it's not any issue for us to lose the girl Reagan McGarraty. We are still trying to fight our way out of that.”