VCU coach Anthony Grant:
     
    “A tale of two halves for us. I thought in the first half we had a level of focus and understanding of what we needed to do. Obviously, that changed in the second half. Delaware had a lot to do with that. They’ve got some very talented players. On their home floor … lot of emotion in the game, I thought they came out with great fire and intensity in the second half, and we didn’t respond to that very well and dug a hole for ourselves we couldn’t overcome.”

      On VCU committing 26 fouls and Delaware hitting 27 of 35 free throws:

    “There’s not a lot I can say. At the end of the game, we were put in a situation where we had to foul. It was a very aggressive game on both ends of the floor. They got to the line quite a bit. What can you say?”

    On dealing with Delaware’s variety of perimeter shooters:

    “They pose a lot of problems offensively. On a given night, they have a minimum of four guys who can who can go for 20-plus. In the first half, I thought we did a good job of taking some things away from them. In the second half, they came out and they were a lot more aggressive driving the ball. They did a good job of moving the ball.     

    “There was a stretch there where we were somewhat inept offensively and defensively, and they took advantage of it where it went from a tie game to a 13-point lead for them. It kind of took the gas out of our guys … and we weren’t able to recover quick enough to put ourselves back in position to win.

      “I’ve got to give Delaware credit. I thought they played exceptional in the second half. But … I think a lot of what happened tonight was self-inflicted wounds on our part.”

    On why Delaware was getting open shots in the second half:

    “We did a poor job coming out of the press and identifying shooters. My emphasis was on us being able to get matched because we were living dangerous. I think [Alphonso] Dawson scored like their first nine points in the second half. He was getting open looks. We didn’t have the sense of urgency. Tried to correct that, but obviously didn’t do a very good job of it.”

    On trying to exploit smaller Delaware inside with 6-9 Larry Sanders and 6-8 Kirill Pishchalnikov:

    “I thought we were having some success in the first half. In the second half, we came out and stopped going to that, for whatever reason. Our big guys stopped being as aggressive and as effective as they were. I don’t know if it was because of the success we had in the first half, maybe they thought it was going to be easy. Give Delaware credit. They had some fight in them. Took some balls away from us. Affected shots. 50-50 rebounds, they got every last one of them. They outworked us and outhustled us and basically neutralized our front court and took them out of the game.”

    Delaware coach Monte Ross:

    “That’s a team that has been in big games, been on the road, persevered. What situation can you put VCU in that they haven’t seen before?

    “One of the things we talked to our guys before the game was that when you’re building a program, somebody is on top of the mountain, somebody is the standard-bearer, and VCU is the standard-bearer in our eyes.

    “If we use this as a test, let’s see where we are. Let’s see if we can play in a big game and do the necessary things to win a big game. And our guys did that.”

    Delaware’s Brian Johnson, on beating VCU:

    “They’re the preseason No.1. It feels good to beat them. We’ve just got to look forward to the next game. Wwe can’t get drunk off success, something that Coach Ross always says.”