Sunday, November 27, 2016 Post-Game Quotes – Virginia Tech 66, Nebraska 53

Virginia Tech Coach Buzz Williams on impact of Zach LeDay – “I think he’s fun to watch, that’s the first thing. I think he has an edge, and one thing I’d say about him that’s hard to quantify is that these guys care about one another. Guys were struggling in the first half. They were looking to throw the ball back. But the flipside of that is, Zach, he’s always looking to move the ball back. He’s constantly looking for the cutter, constantly looking to pass it to the weak side, and it’s just the symmetry of all of them. But Zach is a force.”

On team’s energy level – “Nebraska played the same schedule we did. You could argue it might be unfair that they played the last game Friday night and then played the second game on today. That’s a distinct difference with us, where we played the second game on Friday and the second game today. The energy definitely decreased as the game went on. But it’s so cliché to say we weren’t making shots. We weren’t making shots because they were running good stuff. We were over-penetrating, and we were all just standing there. Our energy and toughness was much better in the second half.

Virginia Zach LeDay on team’s early success – “Everybody is unselfish. We play for Coach and just want to win. We’re all coming together for a common goal, and that’s winning. We all have a story, have different backgrounds, and bring it together to make one hard nosed, tough team.”

On team’s second half adjustments – “There weren’t really any changes. Coach said we were playing really good defense and that shots would eventually fall. We’re built for games like that. We have to get physical, get in there for rebounds. We wanted to come out, punch them (Nebraska) in the mouth, make all the little plays and the ball would go in the basket. We looked to our defense in the transition, wanted them to get us going, get us running. That helped us out a lot.”

On makeup of this year’s team – “We’ve been together through war. Our first year we won two conference games. He second year we lost our second game. We’ve been through struggles, but we grind. Yesterday we were up twenty and blew it. But we come together and it helps. We play for each other. We play for winning.

On difference between today’s game and game against Texas A&M – “They had three giants in there. We weren’t being aggressive. We were being passive. And they were killing us on the glass. We just wanted to correct that, and Coach showed us that last night. And in the walk thru, literally everybody was diving on the floor, trying to get rebounds. That’s something you work on and try to have that mindset. We wanted to change that. And with this game, when the game changed in the second half, you have to work for those rebounds.”

Nebraska Coach Tim Miles – “We lost sight of things at the end of the first half. We were up eight and down three at the end of the first half to the start of the second half and our defensive intensity fell off. You could tell at the start of the second half that we were not locked in. We felt to win the game we had to win the rebounds and win in the paint, which we lost the rebounds and tied in the paint. That was not good enough for us. We were inept on offense, so it’ll be good to watch tape and find a way to get better. We have another ACC team on the road on Wednesday. It doesn’t get easier moving forward.”

On Buzz William’s time at Virginia Tech? – “Buzz is a friend and a guy that I have known for a long time. He has a great energy level about him and a great commitment to his players. When you have that kind of togetherness, I think you’ll be in great shape. He has founds a style of play this fits them this year. They don’t have a tremendous amount of size and he gets guys in the right spots. I thought they were very good with their match-up zone defensively. I’m sure Jeff Reynolds has had some impact on that. Buzz is an excellent recruiter and he is going to keep building that team better and better.”

On the play of Zach LeDay? – “I thought he set the tone to start the second half. He had consecutive dunks, and we missed two consecutive assignments on him. We did not bump him on a pick and roll and he got a free lane to the basket. We are not suppose to let him go right, and he goes right down the middle of the floor and dunks on us which really set the tone.”

On visiting Disneyland? – “I was mad from losing to UCLA so I stayed home and didn’t go. My son came home and told me he went on 11 attractions and had a great time.”

Nebraska Guard Tai Webster on playing today’s game?- “It’s going to be a good learning curve for us when we watch the film and see what mistakes we made. Obviously we did not come out and execute the game plan that coach laid out for us. It’s day three of the tournament and it was really grueling and they brought it today.”