Quotes From The Virginia Game

Jan. 15, 2000

Box Score | Play by Play | Notes | Recap

Clemson Head Coach Larry Shyatt:

“Virginia’s quickness and ability to force the tempo helped establish its first half lead. I told our guys they needed to improve when it came to planting their feet and putting up a fight. We needed to show hunger. We did that in the second half showed great effort.

“For three straight games we have been able to put the opposition on its heels late in the game.

“We had 32 attempts on the foul line showed we were aggressive. We need to do that to win games. Virginia shot 21 three-pointers in the first half against our man. They were going to shoot threes anyway so we went to the zone. We rebounded well out of the zone and that helped us get back in the game.

“Will’s performance was one of the best individual performances I have seen. And, he did it against a Virginia team that has outstanding defenders in the backcourt.”

Virginia Head Coach Pete Gillen:

“I thought it was a a great victory for our team. It was our biggest win of the year, winning in the road in the ACC is very difficult to do. We are still very young and we made a lot of mistakes.”

“We couldn’t stop Will Solomon, we recruited him so we know how he plays. He is a great player, but we should not have allowed him to score 43 points. Our bench was a big key for our victory. It was scary at times when we had three freshman in the game, Mapp, Mason, and Watson.”

“They made a lot of free-throws which was key to our winning the game. We could not stop them, it was not our defense that stopped them. It was our ability to make free-throws. For part of the game we played not to lose. There is a big difference when playing not to lose, but to win. In the second half when the crowd became hot, we began to play not to lose. Our win was not pretty, we are a young team that has a lot to learn. It was a precious victory.”

Sophomore Guard Will Solomon

“The first half I just got on myself, because my head wasn’t in the game. I thought the whole team wasn’t in the game and I told myself that I had to come up and get the team back into it to give us an opportunity to win.”

“Those were just the normal shots that I usually shoot in practice. Today they were just falling for me.”

“I was feeling confident and my teammates kept giving me the ball. I kept putting it up and it kept going in. I thank Adam (Allenspach), Andrius (Jurkunas), Pasha (Bains), and Chuck (Gilmore) for getting me open. They gave me the ball right on time. They gave me the opportunity to shoot the ball and I kept on stroking it and it went in.”

“It is nice to do it in a game like this, but it would have been really nice if we had won.”

“I just have to keep working hard and my teammates need to do the same. Hopefully we can get it together and get some wins.”

“I was down because we lost and I thought we had a chance to win it. We just couldn’t come up with the W today. The 43 points, I don’t really care about that because I would rather have five points and win, than 43 points and lose.”

Freshman Guard Pasha Bains

On Will Solomon’s Performance “I think it was just a great. Win or lose, I think it is great to see someone perform like that. We just all need to start following his lead because he played like a warrior today. It was an amazing thing to watch.”

“We have said this all year that teams are going to key on him and just trap him and double-team him. Now it is going to be even worse because he had 43 points. It is going to force us to step up a lot.”

“There were lots of times where we were getting out of the way. He would go to the well and everyone would run out of the way and just watch him.”