March 4, 2002

Duke Head Coach Gail Goestenkors:
"I'm happy to still be alive in the tournament. We survived - that's all we did. Give Virginia so much credit. I thought we were on the verge of putting them away, but we made a couple of mistakes in a row, and you could feel the momentum shift. We'll have a lot to learn from this game. I told the team we'll learn more from this game than if we had won by 20 or 30 points.

(On contributions from her bench): Krista Gingrich hit a couple of huge 3s in the first half. Sheana Mosch gave us a spark off the bench. Wynter Whitley, in my mind, was the MVP of this game for us because of the way she played defense. They probably won this game for us.

(On facing a zone defense): Whoever plays us tomorrow I'm sure will throw a zone at us. We haven't played our best basketball the last two games. Any team goes through peaks and valleys. I hope we've got the kinks out now.

(On Iciss Tillis' game): "Any time Iciss moved anywhere, Anna Crosswhite was very physical with her. So Iciss started fading a little bit on her shot trying to avoid the contact. And her shots were short. The contact and not making her shots made her even more frustrated. She played very frustrated tonight."

(On Virginia's late-game run): "When we built the big lead and they started making a run, we stopped playing as aggressively as we were. I think we felt the pressure of wanting the game to be over instead of FINISHING the game.

(On the opponent for Monday's title game): "Both teams are very physical, and both teams do a great job defensively. Carolina - their 3-point shooting and the guard play is incredible.

(On potentially being a No. 1 seed for the NCAA Tournament): "We certainly want to get that No. 1 seed in Raleigh. With Tennessee losing yesterday, Connecticut is definitely going to get a 1 seed -- we all know that. The question is whether they send them to Raleigh, or, send them to Milwaukee. People assume that because Stanford is doing so well out West that they're going to get a No. 1 seed. But when you look at their strength of schedule and RPI, they shouldn't be a 1 seed, at least based on their strength of schedule and RPI. Oklahoma, if they win the Big 12 Tournament, they'll probably get a No. 1 seed. We're looking at a 1 seed potentially. Probably the other schools looking for a 1 seed are Vanderbilt if they win out the SEC Tournament. I think those are the teams vying for a 1 seed right now.

ALANA BEARD
Give Debbie Ryan and Telisha Quarles a lot of credit. We see a lot of things from this game that we need to work on.

SHEANA MOSCH
Virginia played their butts off. We never seemed to be able to put them away. But it's going to be like this from now on. Even if we're up by 1 or down by 10, there's no point in the game where we thinking we're going to lose. I don't think we're at the point of consistency that we need to be at and we need to stop making two or three mistakes in a row.

Virginia Head Coach Debbie Ryan:
We started off the game playing a lot of man-to-man and we dug ourselves a little bit of a hole. I might have been a little reluctant to go to zone because they have such great shooters. When we came out in the second half we went with the zone and that is what got us back into the game. I just told the team with three minutes to go that 'We've got to make one last push'. We just decided to go with a kamikaze type approach where we were taking it to the goal on every possession. It worked until the very last play. On that play, we were trying to get a three-point shot and Liz caught the ball and penetrated, then realized she needed to get back outside the three-point line and tried to step back and had a turnover.

I'm proud of my team and our effort. We played extremely hard and didn't always play intelligently, but we gave it a lot of heart and character. Overall, I'm very, very proud of our performance today.

On last play: It was definitely a double-dribble. The call was a good call. We have a play that we run where we can get a three or a two. With six seconds to go, we knew we could throw it in for two and kick it out for three. Karen saw Liz coming open right away, and Telisha was open a little bit. I was hoping that maybe she would hit Telisha on the play but I think she thought Liz would be open on the play because we had a pretty good double-screen set on the baseline.

On the comeback: I don't know if the pressure got to them or we got to them. Duke hasn't played in a lot of close games and we have. We play from behind all the time, that's no big deal to us. That's one thing that hurts a team that goes undefeated or doesn't really play in a lot of close games - it's not something that you can just put on the court during a game. You have to have it happen during a big game. This was probably a good test for them. Duke's a good team and now they will have tape that they can look at to prepare for the same situation, Gail will have them prepared, there is no doubt in my mind.

On Virginia performance this season: I think that we had players believing in themselves from the start. Most of all, I think that my staff did an outstanding job all year long. They did a great job with not only tactical preparation, but emotional preparation with this team. They did a wonderful job of making sure that players stayed in the game, staying focused and staying on task. We could not have done this without their help.

Virginia guard Talisha Quarles
On the Comeback: I knew we could pull it off like Coach Ryan said. I think we stayed together tonight. When Duke made their run, we still had tight huddles and believed in ourselves. I'm just really proud of the way we played as a team today. When we were down by double digits, I just told the team 'We can still do this'. I was just doing everything that I could to keep my team within reach.