Dave Leitao Quotes (129 Quotes)

It's obviously frustrating. We're not primed and ready to contend for a league or national championship. It says we're very good at home and very bad on the road.

Sean Singletary has proven himself worthy of being a first-team All-ACC player. In our first year together, he has meant so much to us on the court, but more importantly off the court. We look for even better days ahead for Sean and our team.

Something has gone off inside of him that has allowed him to increase his aggressiveness while staying out of foul trouble.

We gave up 60-percent shooting in the last game and that can't happen continually if we're going to get wins. Today, to give up 33 percent to a pretty good offensive team that's shooting 46 percent is a credit to our guys and their commitment to that end of the floor.

We're going to get on a plane Friday and get ourselves ready. Duke is obviously as good of a team as there is in America, so we have to make sure that we use every available minute to get ready for them.

Steals and we turned the ball over. Essentially, the game was decided by that. The pressure. Half-court and full-court.

There were some key moments in the first four or five minutes when they got to a couple of loose balls or got some offensive rebounds when you could see we were a step slow.

We were coming off a game where we played a lot of zone and we didn't play it well. At times, we played zone today, and we didn't play it all that well. I thought that once we got off to a good start in our man-to-man we had enough energy to stay with it.

This was a very good win for the guys and the growth of our team. We hung tough through a lot of different things.

There are key moments in the first four of five minutes of a game where you can tell a little about the tone of the game. They got a couple loose balls and a couple of offensive rebounds, and we were a step slow. Anytime a team gets into foul trouble is usually an indicator that a team is a step slow.

Fortunately we could use other people today because of the score to both get them some time and also to reward the walk-ons for the job that they do.

He (Wilson) is the end result of their ball movement. You leave a shooter open on the perimeter against a 2-3 zone and he was the beneficiary of very good ball movement, passes, and anytime you leave a shooter, a one-dimensional player, that has an excellent one dimension and he was left open a number of times.

Is he a long-term answer I don't know. But somewhere along the line, we're going to need him to do things like that.

Drew has a really good understanding of the game. I thought his ability to hedge, to play his man and play help defense were really good. He just played a really good floor game. Those minutes were needed and really helped us.

The game got away from us very early. We had talked about how the first five to ten minutes of the game would be critical because that is when you have the opportunity to not only keep all the outside factors out of the game, but also to get them back on their heels - to establish in your mind and their mind that we are here to play. Obviously, we did not do that.

We have an issue this year where we're 5-1 at home in ACC play and 1-5 on the road. We've got to play with a ton more energy than we did today.

He has put together a career for the ages. Part of what people need to do is start appreciating him, not only for the season he's having, but for the career he's put together.

He's so aggressive. He's so good at getting up and down the floor, posting up, taking the ball to the rim and getting fouled. I don't even look at him so much as a freshman as I would one of the elite players in the league.

As a coach, any time you get a win, it's good, because the other option is losing. Based on that, you have to walk away with your head up, understanding that when you don't play as well as you want to and win, that's a good thing.

I was on him a lot, because defensively, Hodges was creating too much separation. I really didn't even notice, until the end of the game, his offensive output for us.

I believe as a catch and shoot guy he's as good, not only as we've got, but as good as there can be in this league. That's confidence as much as it is repetition.

We changed from man to zone, and that disrupted their rhythm just a tad. Our game plan was to keep our bodies in front of them as best as we could. We practiced not letting Miami's guards get free looks at the basket. We also eventually rotated down enough to make rebounds as well.

It's running harder off screens. It's setting better screens. It's paying attention to detail. It's all the things we talk about every single day.

I know and respect him a ton. He has such a refreshing and unique outlook on coaching and recruiting, and it doesn't get much exposure nationally. He gives his guys confidence and simplicity other coaches don't. It goes without saying his teams perform well because of him.

I was irate and frustrated, and we had an exchange. We both said some things that probably we shouldn't have said, and I didn't have a whistle to call a 'T' on him, so he called one on me.

Overall Diane played pretty steady and pretty smart offensively, especially at key times late in the game. The steal and dunk and 3-pointer were energizers that gave us a lift.

They are an excellent team that won five in a row before losing Tuesday at Virginia and 10 of their last 11, with the only loss by two points to Duke. They're one of the best teams in America, and one of the hottest.

We got real stagnant and started sitting in our zone. We weren't guarding people in our area, and they were attacking, and we didn't respond to that challenge. . . . The assignments that we were taking care of the first 30 minutes, we just forgot about the last 10.

We need other people. It's no secret. I don't know that anybody, including those two, had great games today.

I think they've done a really good job of getting their name out there. Not just locally, but nationally, I hear their name a lot.

Obviously, the game got away from us a little bit early. I think we talked about it for a few days in preparation that the first five to 10 minutes of the game were going to be the most critical, because that's when you have the opportunity to keep them (Duke) back on their heels and establish in your mind and in their mind that you're here to play. And we did not do that.

If I am upset then I am sure Sean is 10 times more upset about him not playing up to his capabilities. The only way he knows to combat that is to come back the next day. I am sure he will be as focused and determined to play well as he has ever been.

Last time, they both had ... very quick hands, and anytime we drove the ball, they were there to get their hands on it. They command a lot more attention than almost anyone else in that department because they're so good at it.

Regardless if it's practice or a game against Longwood you have to play the game a certain way. We played to our competition level - no disrespect to Longwood - as opposed to what our level is supposed to be.

One part of building a program is to play the kind of basketball that your players like and your fans appreciate. Our guys are playing hard, and that is the first and most important part of being appreciated as you play the game the right way. I think the fans really appreciate these guys because the players are putting their hearts out for them every night.

They missed some shots and had a few bad possessions and we started to attack a little bit. But we didn't have any staying power with that.

If you step out of the league at this point, you usually have a made-for-TV game on CBS or ESPN. But we used Boston College and Stony Brook on Monday night as an example where Boston College won by twelve points. Stony Brook starts three walk-ons and is 4-19 and B.C. won by 12.

I think what makes this particular team so good is . . . they've got two of the top four or five players in America, and everybody else - including those two - executes their mission more than anybody I've seen in a long time.

I don't think any coach in America could have seen a 50-point loss coming.

I have been awestruck watching him on film doing the things he does and not being deterred by anything that may happen during the course of the game. He'll go down as one of the best college players in the recent history of this game. He takes this game extremely seriously.

Today was a day where Singletary and especially Reynolds were terrific. They made tough shots, they made open shots and more importantly they made plays.

My congratulations go out to the Maryland basketball program and especially to head coach Gary Williams. There are only a few storied and tradition-laden programs in America. When you can call yourself the best at one of those schools, that's something that is not handed out often. He coaches with energy and passion. ... I admire him.

Everybody in the country is fighting for their lives.

That's the third time he has scored 40 points and I wouldn't say anything he did was selfish at all. He really knows the game of basketball. Usually, that is something you see from a guy in the NBA in his eighth year. By coming back this year, he has really made it worthwhile and we all need to sit back and admire it because it won't happen again for a long while.

I thought both teams, from an energy standpoint, battled each other pretty hard. We found ourselves trying to put Band-Aids on our offense.

We've got to improve our talent level, we've got to improve our work ethic, we've got to improve a lot of things about the program. ... You have to do it step by step.

They had a ton of options that they could go to tonight. We had to put a lot of pressure on Sean and J.R. to make every single play.

I thought we lost the game in the first half, when they shot 60 percent. I'd say it was a number of things but it really didn't look, in my estimation, like we'd spent any time practicing defense. We sat behind the post, we gave up middle penetration. You name it, we did it.

Today we took more off-balance shots than anything. Stanford had a lot to do with it. They played us physical and they bumped us, which is a good way to play us. We weren't patient enough to make extra passes.

The biggest, most glaring thing that we thought we could teach was getting off to a good start. We didn't in those two games, and it obviously cost us. We have to do that to give us a chance to win.