Dec. 30, 2009

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Maryland Head Coach Gary Williams

Opening Remarks
"[William & Mary] seemed to get a lot more team rebounds, when we needed them. They were much more aggressive with loose balls. There were a lot of balls that I thought we had but we didn't get any. They were a tough team to play from behind. We have to figure out some things with our team. We're going to be working real hard as we go along here. We only play one game in the next week since we have the bye in the ACC. But we have to take care of UNC Greensboro this Sunday. The job is to get ready to play and to get better. I'm looking forward to getting together with the team tomorrow and working this through."

On William & Mary's shooting:
"William & Mary gets decent looks. They don't have to make too many passes on the perimeter. The problem is if you are not shooting well, you keep backing off and backing off even more as you go along. They did a great job, they're a very tough team in that they don't miss much that goes on in the game and they did a great job."

On Greivis Vasquez:
"Greivis has won a lot of games for us. If he missed [his three-point shot], then I would have wished he had driven the ball. If he had driven the ball and had his shot blocked, he should have taken the three. That is the way it works. I like the way Greivis is working the ball around and trying to help us win. I've had a lot of great players here that take shots once in a while that you wouldn't like to see as a coach. But that is what makes them great players, they have that aggressiveness."

On Maryland's defense:
"I thought we did well in practice, in terms of knowing what William & Mary was going to do. They didn't do a lot of things that we didn't expect. We didn't react and I thought they did a great job executing their offense. That's the old Vince Lombardi theory of here comes the sweep around the right end, you know it is coming but we are going to block so well that it still works. They did a great job of running what we thought they would run but executed it very well."

Senior guard Greivis Vasquez

On getting ready for the nonconference opponent:
"As a leader, I have to prepare this team better. We have to get ready for these games. If we can't get ready we're going in the wrong direction."

On responding to the defeat:
"We have to have some pride. We need to take some responsibility. It's the players' responsibility. There's nothing Coach Williams can do out there. It's us ... We have to get our fans involved, get them going crazy. I have to get better, myself. I have to be more efficient and be a better leader."

Senior guard Eric Hayes

On rebounding from the loss:
"We've shown the last couple years that we can bounce back from these types of losses. That's exactly what we'll do."

On his play offensively:
"If you're a good shooter you should make shots. I was pretty disappointed with my shot tonight."

William & Mary Head Coach Tony Shaver

Opening Statement:
"I'm certainly proud of the players, I'm proud of our team. I thought the execution and composure was outstanding. I was impressed on the sidelines. Every time Maryland made a run and got a string of things going our guys responded. This was an extremely tough and composed bunch today."

On getting his second win over an ACC opponent:
"It's a good feeling, I'll be honest with you. I think the real value of it will be tested in the next two months, whether that really helps us in our league play or not. It should, but we're not in the ACC, we're in the CAA and we have a lot of tough CAA games ahead of us and three of the next four on the road. I couldn't be happier, couldn't be prouder. I couldn't be more impressed with what our guys were doing right now."

On the play of Quinn McDowell:
"He's pretty good. I've coached very few young guys- he's just a sophomore - that are as tough, mentally and physically as he is. He's so composed. Every time he needed to make a play, or our team needed to make a play, he made a play for us. I thought Danny Sumner got us off to a great start. It was neat to see Danny do that... So many guys responded in so many positive ways."

On how the team defended Greivis Vasquez:
"Well David didn't play man-to-man, we had a lot of guys on him. I thought we defended him well until the second half. It got to a point where he just put his shoulder down and penetrated the lane. We have to do a better job of that, he got to the free throw line too much in the second half. But speaking of David Schneider, what a tough kid. He did not play well offensively today, but he gave us so many key steals. I think it shows for the growth of our basketball team right now that David would go 1-for-9 for three today, and our team would score 83 points. We're a very balanced basketball team."

On the play of Marcus Kitts:
"Oh it's great. The two-headed monster is what we call him. He's a little smaller, maybe not quite as physical as some of those guys but they competed so hard... Marcus I think had a career high of 11 [points]. Scoring is not what he does best for us, but the way he takes hold of the ball right now, and steps up to the free throw line like he knows he's going to score... Brilliant performance by both of those guys."