Notes and quotes from Virginia Tech’s NIT first round 81-61 win over Quinnipiac on Wednesday.

The Hokies will host UConn in the second round Monday at 7 p.m. The game will be televised by ESPN.

Tech and Connecticut were Big East foes for four seasons from 2000-2004. The Hokies went 1-6 against the Huskers during that span, with the one win coming in Blacksburg on Feb. 5, 2003 (95-74).

Tech has advanced to at least the second round of the NIT in each of the last three seasons. It lost to Baylor in the second round last year, and made it to the quarterfinals, where it lost to Mississippi, the year before.

If they continue to win, the Hokies, one of four No. 1 seeds in the NIT, would host games all the way to the semifinals. The NIT semis and championship are played at Madison Square Garden in New York City.

Quinnipiac led the nation in rebound margin this season, but Tech had a 42-30 edge on the boards Wednesday night.

Bobcats forward Justin Rutty, the Northeast Conference player of the year, probably could have started in the ACC. He had 22 points on 10 of 13 shooting and grabbed seven rebounds.

Tech forward Jeff Allen had six points and nine rebounds in only 19 minutes. Foul trouble limited his playing time once again.

The Hokies recorded 20 assists and only turned the ball over seven times.

Please follow me on Twitter at @nathanwarters.

On to the quotes …

HOKIES G DORENZO HUDSON
I feel like we’ve got something to prove, because I feel like we should have been in the tournament. So I feel like we’ve got something to prove and look forward to next year.

Sunday and Monday was kind of down for the team, but I feel like we did a pretty good job of bouncing back today and just going out and playing hard.

Right now, we’re just a little down. We just want to keep practice competitive, keep some fire up under us and try to keep everything going and just trying to execute in practice and try to do the best we can.

We just tried to get out there and let our young guys know (even though) we didn’t make the tournament, we’re still going to try to go out and win the NIT.

THIRD STRAIGHT YEAR IN NIT MAKE IT TOUGHER TO GET UP: Yeah, it makes it tougher, because we expected to be playing somewhere else, so it makes it a lot tougher, but we’re back home playing in front of our fans. I feel they take some pressure off us.

UCONN CARROT TO DANGLE: We just knew we wanted to play a team that would help us get back on the right track. … I just feel UConn is a pretty good team. They should have been in the tournament, but they kind of had a little bit of a letdown. We’re going to try to come out here and play hard against UConn.

WHERE DOES THIS YEAR RANK AS FAR AS HURT: It hurt us more this year, because we expected to be in. We thought we had a locked spot. Then came Selection Sunday and we weren’t in the tournament, it kind of hit us hard. When we got the news, we kind of held our heads down for a couple of days, but I feel like we’re doing a good job of bouncing back.

We were stunned, because we feel the upsets in other tournaments still should have put us in the NCAA tournament, but we came up on the short in, so we have something to prove now.

I’m not 100 percent, but I’m gritting through the pain.

We’re going to try to win the whole thing, try to prove to some people that we can play with the top 65 teams in the country like we thought we could in the beginning of the year.

I probably won’t watch no games. I’m not really a college basketball fan, so I probably won’t turn the T.V. on.

HOKIES G MALCOLM DELANEY
Where were we predicted in the preseason. That’s all I have to say. We’re not proving nothing. We did what we’re supposed to do. We’re the only people in this locker room that knew what we had coming into this season and knew what we were going to accomplish. We’re not trying to prove anything. We’re trying to come out and win the championship, and we’ve got an opportunity to do that and get back to New York.

TOUGH TO GET EVERYBODY UP AS OPPOSED TO PAST YEARS: It was easier. We just had a different attitude. We didn’t let that kill us. It was very disappointing, but the next day we came to practice and had two of the best practices we’ve had all year.

Winning these games could get some momentum going into next year, because we’re going to have a great team.

HAVEN’T TALKED ABOUT IT ONCE: Nope.

FLOORED BY SNUB: I don’t care about the upsets. Those upsets don’t mean nothing. I thought we deserved to be in regardless. Like I said, we’re not thinking about that.

SEEMED LIKE YOU GUYS HAD A LOT OF ENERGY: We motivated ourselves. The crowd was great tonight. It wasn’t as many people as there usually is, but the crowd helped us out a lot.

GONNA WATCH THE TOURNAMENT: Nope. Unless I know somebody playing, I won’t watch the tournament.

GOAL TO GET TO NY: Of course. We ain’t playing to lose. We’re trying to win every game we can, and we want to win a championship. We didn’t get a chance to go to the NCAAs, but we still have a chance to win a championship. Like I said, we’re trying to get some momentum going into next year. We’ve got to play as hard as we can for these next couple of games and try to get to New York.

We did so much. I just hate when people say the schedule we played and basically 10 wins (in the ACC) was nothing, and 23 wins (overall) was nothing. I heard a comment, “If you’re not in the NCAA tournament, then your team just can’t play.” That’s disrespectful to our program and to our team, and I think we’re just going to take that stuff in and just play.

It can go both ways. We got kept out of the tournament three different ways the last three years, so you can’t just say its our non-conference schedule, because we’ve been there and played non-conference schedules that were good and still got left out. We beat the No. 1 team in the country and you never heard about it, so I don’t care what people say about our non-conference schedule … that one excuse doesn’t mean anything to me.

I was feeling good before that game (Miami). I don’t know what happened, but I just carried the momentum from my last couple of games before that and I felt good out there tonight. I just know that I have to play my best basketball for this team to be a great team and not just scoring … getting assists and stuff like that, and that’s what I tried to do today.

QUINNIPIAC COACH TOM MOORE
Seth and his staff did an incredible job of getting his guys back from what I can imagine was an incredible amount of disappointment Sunday night.

QUINNIPIAC NO. 1 IN THE COUNTRY IN REBOUND MARGIN

It’s one thing to be athletic. Tonight they were athletic and hungry, and again that goes back to the coaching staff.

Virginia Tech’s energy tonight was very impressive to me as a coach.

TECH COACH SETH GREENBERG
They probably handled this situation better than I did. It’s been obviously a hard 72 hours. I know we had everything to lose and not a whole lot to gain tonight, and I think we’re all probably emotionally drained, but for them to come out and play as hard as they played tonight and be ready when the ball went up, for them to … When I think about the play that Zo busts his tail back and blocks a fast break and Malcolm’s diving over the scorers table to try to save the ball. That’s why it hurt so much for me for them on Sunday, because that’s who they are, and I told them before the game, “If you are who I know you are, then you’ll come out and play hard.”

I was a little bit worried just looking in the guys’ eyes before the game, but we came and played really hard. We had a lot to lose tonight if we didn’t show up to play. I’m so prideful in our approach because that’s the culture of our program. When we play next, whenever it may be, a lot of teams will no longer be playing. Our goal is to be one of the last six teams playing, and we’ve got the challenge of getting ready for Connecticut. I think playing Wednesday was huge for us. I’m not sure we could have gotten to this point by Tuesday. I have a huge appreciation for the NIT, growing up where I grew up. I respect the field and I respect the event.