Georgia Tech 72, Virginia Tech 57
MEGAN DUFFY: First off, just congratulations to Georgia Tech. I thought they were extremely tough and tremendous down the stretch, especially in that fourth quarter. Their big three of Morgan, Dunn, and Carnegie were terrific. Just a great overall game by them.
I'm very proud of our team. To finish up ACC play, we had a lot to build this year, and there's been some tremendous growth led by our two seniors to my left, Rose and Matilda.
Q. You're only down two points with about eight and a half minutes to go and they went on that 17-0 run to take control. What was not working for you offensively or defensively during that run there?
MEGAN DUFFY: Yeah, I thought they did a couple things. Their hustle plays that led to second-chance points was huge. We got a couple stops and the ball squirted out and they made a couple big baskets off of that. Then they went one-on-one downhill against us, hit a couple step-back shots.
It was a two-possession game still, called time-out, and we've been pretty good at being able to settle down and execute. Missed a couple easy shots and they made a couple great plays defensively. So it's kind of the pretty perfect storm why that run happened.
But, again, we talked a lot about playing Georgia Tech. You have to be fueled by your defense and your rebounding because they're super talented in different positions. And unfortunately even when our offense went a little cold, we still needed to rely on the defensive part, and we couldn't quite do enough.
Q. Coach, it seemed fitting that Matilda and Rose, they led the team in scoring, knocked down the last two shots. What can you say about them and what they've meant for this team in this transitional season?
MEGAN DUFFY: Rose and Matilda have been amazing. First and foremost, great women, great ambassadors to Virginia Tech. I can't say enough about the people they are that I get to be around every day.
Both of them were very steady through this game. Matilda hit some big shots in the first half, and Rose was trying to be an anchor for us on both sides of the ball inside.
They've continued to be challenged by our coaching staff. Even though we met them, what, probably eight or nine months ago, but it feels like it's been four or five years, just being able to coach them and lean on them.
I'm just very proud of the effort they've given, and obviously we still have some basketball to play, to watch them.
Q. Matilda, when you guys are going through kind of an offensive lull like that, how difficult is it to get one down, and did Georgia Tech do anything different in the second half from your perspective just to limit you guys in some areas?
MATILDA EKH: I think our biggest problem at that time was that that we couldn't get stops. You can go through droughts like on offense where you don't score the ball and miss couple of shots, but our problem was that they were scoring at the same time. We just couldn't figure out a way to get a stop.
Q. I think you now have a 10-day wait until the NCAA Tournament selection show. How tough is that going to be waiting, and are you worried that you might be left out of the tournament now?
MEGAN DUFFY: I think 100 percent we're a tournament-worthy team. This is my first year in the ACC, and I've been a part of a couple different conferences a head coach, one being the MAC and the Big East.
This is something different. The depth of the conference, the talent level of teams from top to bottom is unlike anything I've been a part of. It's really special to be able to play against some of the best talent in the country.
To finish eighth in our league, to finish .500, we've had some great quality wins. What people told me when I took this job, they're like, just wait until you play the top teams, the middle teams, and the bottom teams. Sometimes it doesn't feel any different.
It's been a marathon of a season. We had some bumps in the road with it. We lost Rose for a couple games. We had some little injuries and had to really, really persevere through that.
But I have a lot of belief when you look at some of the quality wins we have, when you match us against different people that we deserve to be in that tournament.
We deserve the opportunity to play against the best, and from an overall confidence with Virginia Tech between our fan base and me as the new head coach and our seniors, with the net strength of the conference, with the Quad 1 and 2 wins, I truly believe if we're in that tournament, we have an opportunity to beat the best out there.
We faced a Georgia Tech team today because they had a tough end to the season, dropped all the way to 9, but they were as high as -- at least when we played them, they were 14th in the country and undefeated. To think about that as the 8-9 matchup in our league is absolutely incredible.
I think the interesting part about our Virginia Tech team is we haven't been led by a single star or one person. We came into this season being we're going to stay connected, we're going to be balanced, and again, to do that when there's a lot of hype about individual kids, our kids have continued to be about the good of college basketball and stay together and sacrifice.
That's another reason why I think we deserve a bid.
ROSE MICHEAUX: I feel like when we're really on our toes, I feel like what Coach did you have if I said, we are a tournament ready team.
This time we're going to take waiting for the selection show we're going to get our mind and our body prepared for the selection show and for the tournament. We're going to get in the gym, work on what we need to work on, and just like any team that takes a loss to the chest you've got to learn from it and keep pushing and see what you can get better from and see how you can be successful for those aspects for the next game.
Q. Rose, what do you feel like you take from this game? What do you feel like you do learn from this game?
ROSE MICHEAUX: I feel like I've just learned that it doesn't really matter what team is out there and who you're playing against. There's going to be adversity. Every team has a different game plan and you just have to learn how to stick to the one that your team came up with.
You have to be able to be playing for your group, the people that you come into the fight with, facing adversity, but then also just relying on execution and knowing what's key to win a game. I feel like those are the key things you have to learn, just playing for one another but also executing what the plan is.
Q. In terms of their defense, Carleigh just one basket tonight. Was Georgia Tech doing things defensively to make it tough for her? Matilda, you were so hot in the first half. Did Georgia Tech defend you differently or better in the second half?
MEGAN DUFFY: I think one of the things with Georgia Tech is they had some awesome defensive possessions where they were physical, they were aggressive, and then we started executing with a little bit different movement and sharing the ball. Then you would get an open shot, and I thought during that kind of stretch we almost rushed it. We almost didn't think we were going to be open.
That's a little bit of the feel that -- I thought Matilda turned down a couple shots. I thought they were hounding Carleigh, and all of a sudden we had a wide-open pull-up and we just were a little bit maybe off a half a second with our rhythm to shoot it.
Then we had a couple really good looks. Lani had a pull-up, we had a couple nice touches for Rose inside, and that's the game of basketball.
I really I feel this season, it's unlike anything I've been a part of. We've had a couple games where we had some interesting calls we had the ball bounce off our hands, and there's three or four more wins because of that. It's interesting all of the nuances.
To give Georgia Tech credit, I thought they were aggressive and really tried to blow up some of our stuff, and when we actually did get open, I thought we were a little bit pressing in some ways, especially when we know we needed to score when our defense wasn't up to par.
That was my perspective, I guess, obviously before watching the film.
MATILDA EKH: I want to say they were playing very tough defense throughout the whole game. They were very physical throughout the whole game.
As Coach said I think I turned down a couple of looks in the second half, but other than that, I wouldn't say that they did anything different.
Q. Megan, Matilda mentioned when you play a Georgia Tech team it starts on the defend. What did you feel like in that fourth quarter where maybe you guys were a little bit disjointed at times defensively?
MEGAN DUFFY: Yeah, they're very talented in their guard positions, and when they move Dunn over to the 4, it's like four elite level kids who can score.
I thought we messed up a couple times on our ball screen defense and then a few times it was just one-on-one, man-to-man defense, you've got to figure it out.
Tried to make a couple adjustments down the stretch and we weren't quite sharp enough. What I mean by that is just trying to double a little bit, trying to -- when they went downhill, try and put more bodies around, and a couple times when we did that, then we fouled, put them at the free-throw line. Just the fluidity of some of those adjustments weren't as good as they needed to be.
I thought about going zone at a couple different times just to protect the paint, but you always have in the back of your mind Georgia Tech is a great three-point shooting team, so it's a little bit of pick your poison.
But it was the one-on-one defense for sure, and just quite -- it was like five, seven, eight points where we were still okay and couldn't get the ball screen coverage or the one-on-one defense with bringing bodies to either Carnegie or Morgan quick enough.
FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports