If you’ve already read the game story in the previous post, here are some extra quotes from James Johnson on the Hokies’ win Monday:

On the bench: “We found a way to pull it out tonight. It was a tough start, a little bit of a hangover, but our guys found a way to pull it out. We had some guys step up from the bench tonight that helped us win. I talk to the guys all the time about, at some point everybody on this team is going to have to help us win a game this year because of our depth.”

On MVSU’s rebounding in the first half: “I’m sure they saw the West Virginia tape, I’m sure they saw the game and just said, ‘Just try to pound them on the glass and get to the glass.’ That’s something we addressed yesterday (Sunday). We’ve got to get better in that area.”

On Green: “He’s been a warrior. He sat out a couple practices last week and then came back and played. He’s lost about seven to nine pounds. That’s a lot of weight for a guy that’s playing that many minutes. He’s taking a beating in the games when he’s attackng the basket and he’s 175 pounds with rocks in his pocket. He can’t afford to lose nine pounds.”

On Rankin: “He responded tonight and that’s huge for our team and it’s big for Marquis and his confidence. That’s like the Marquis that I know.”

On van Zegeren: “He had some key blocks for us tonight. He stepped up. He played big minutes for us tonight, big plays. Erick Green drove in and the double team came and he dropped it off to Joey and Joey was ready to make the play. He rebounded the ball for us, he blocked shots. He played big.”

On Tech’s poor shooting: “Walking through yesterday, we didn’t get a lot of shots up. I’m sure, some of the guys played a lot of minutes (at WVU), I’m sure their legs were a little tired, a little weary. I’m sure, again, a little bit of a hangover from the last game, (a lack of) confidence there too. But we’re going to have some of those nights. You can always play defense, you can always give effort, but there are going tobe nights where the ball don’t go in the hole for us. It’s going to happen again for us this year. We’ve got to be able to defend … and rebound … and try to have our defense hang in there and keep us in the game until we can get a few shots to go down.”

On the VT defense: “It was pretty good. We made some lapses. …. Our initial defense has been good. It’s been the second chance shots. So our initial defense I’ve been really, really happy with. But the second chance opportunities that we’re giving up, not good.”