California Head Coach Cuonzo Martin Quotes

Opening Statement:

“Tough one down the stretch. I give those guys credit for executing down the stretch and making plays. I thought both teams fought, competed, executed and grinded the game out. It was probably a great game to watch from afar. It was a tough one to learn from and continue to move forward. I thought our guys did enough, but we just came up a little short.”

On the loss:

“I am not embarrassed or ashamed by losses, but when you lose after you have competed you have a tendency to sleep a little easier. But when you don't play hard and you don't compete, or even if you win the game, there's a bad taste in my mouth. But I thought our guys fought against a very good team on both sides of the ball. [Tony] Bennett is one of the best coaches in the game. They are experienced guys who are battle tested. It was a tremendous environment. We came up short, but we will learn from it. I thought our guys did enough to win the game. But it was another lesson that down the stretch of the game you need to execute what you are trying to do. Just try and win the ball game.”

Virginia Head Coach Tony Bennett Quotes

On having the lead for only 32 seconds:

“You just keep playing. I want to credit Cal for how talented they are, how hard they played, and how well they played. We didn't start well – we had a hard time. We were a little impatient offensively and were not dialed in defensively. We thought we prepared well for it but we were not. In the second half, we started scrapping defensively. We start really battling and getting stops, and then of course big plays were made. We were running harder offensively with our cuts and guys were attacking at the right time. I just kept saying 'get a score, get a stop, score, stop, there is still time.” Obviously Malcolm [Brogdon] hit the big three and then we had a little action as a counter to that on the next one. If the three was there for London, great, if not, there was something else. I wouldn't probably put a lot of money on that in that spot, but you know what, as long as you've got the ball, you've got a chance. We got it back, so why not? We were down two and I knew we'd get a good look at it.

On the decision to call a certain play to Malcolm [Brogdon] at the end of the game:

“That's why you always see me pulling out that card and looking at it and going 'alright, what do we have?' It could have easily been the wrong call but I just wanted to give him a clean look. He's been a good player for us and he has some counters. We haven't used it a lot. I'm glad we used it for this time and this game.”

On Virginia's last time out:

“The shot London [Perrantes] got, he made the shot. It wasn't like Malcolm [Brogdon]'s shot – he was wide open. There was an action where if you have a clean look, you can take it. If not, we had enough time to get something attacking out