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BIG EAST CONFERENCE MEN'S TOURNAMENTMarch 12, 2015Josh HartDarrun HilliardJay WrightNEW YORK CITY, NEW YORK Villanova – 84 COACH WRIGHT: Good start for us. Obviously, good start to the game. Marquette played zone, which was very effective last night against Seton Hall and a good shooting Seton Hall team, and we just came out and we just made threes consecutively early. I thought that set the tone for the game. If you're playing zone and a team comes out and starts hitting threes like that, it makes it tough. Then they had to switch to man‑to‑man. And after playing last night, I don't think they want to be chasing us around man‑to‑man. I think that was probably the two keys, the fact they played late last night, and the fact we hit threes early against the zone. Q. Jay, did last year's early exit, have you thought about that going into this tournament? COACH WRIGHT: We tried not to talk about it. We really tried to focus on just "be here now." We have the saying "be here now." Whatever's in front of us. But there's no doubt it's in the back of your mind. We didn't talk about it. I just think the experience of that is a part of these guys now. So I think they came really, really focused and ready for anything. Q. One guy we don't really talk about, Kris Jenkins, he comes in, and they cut it to 15 or so. And the ability to have a guy like that who comes in and hits three straight threes like that. How has his attitude been like that with the minutes, and what kind of weapon is he? COACH WRIGHT: He's an incredible weapon. He's an outstanding three‑point shooter, but more than that, he's really a smart player. He actually had two turnovers early in the game that were good pass, good plays, and we didn't execute them. I thought there was a play in the first half where he skipped it to Josh in the corner, that was a big play to kind of separate us. He does a lot of things for us. He can be a really good rebounder. He had four defensive rebounds. But when he's hitting threes like that, that's really dangerous, when that's your four man doing that. Q. Can you talk about your three‑point shooting today, as you guys made 17 three‑pointers. COACH WRIGHT: We're a good shooting team. So when you have nights like that, you're going to win most games. But when you're a shooting team, there's going to be some nights where you don't make those shots, and you can't be afraid to let them fly. You've got to be able to do other things when you're not making shots. That's why I thought it was so important that we hit shots early against that zone. Early in the first half, we took a lot of threes. If we're missing those and they're getting out in transition, it's a different game. So when you make them, it makes a big difference. Q. Can you talk about the 22 assists on 30 made baskets. COACH WRIGHT: We've done a good job of that all year. Our guys are very unselfish. Darrun Hilliard is our leading scorer. We just talked to the team about that. Darrun Hilliard starts the game off hitting two threes, and then we ran six more plays for him, and he got six assists in the first half on those plays. So a lot of times, when a guy gets it going, he feels like, oh, it's my night. When your senior does that, your leading scorer, I think that sets the tone for everybody. Q. Jay, it was 18‑8 and then 18‑16. Right before 18‑16, Josh comes in. I know this gets to be an old story for you after a while. Were you starting to worry? What were your emotions as it went from 18‑8 to 18‑16? COACH WRIGHT: I think we called time‑out at 18‑16. Q. I think so. COACH WRIGHT: I was worried if I called a time‑out. We made some substitutions there that probably weren't‑‑ we had a bad mixture out there on the court for what they were doing. We didn't get some rebounds. They got some offensive rebounds, some extra opportunities. Josh brings so much to us, not just his shooting, but offensive rebounding, defensive energy guarding Carlino, getting steals, in transition. He's an incredible scorer. When it was tight, he made an incredible one‑on‑three drive to finish. So he's the perfect sixth man. Probably won't be a sixth man next year, but he's the perfect sixth man in that he can come in to fill any spot, any position, or any role, whatever you need at the time. You need shooting, you need defense, you need rebounding. Q. Just a quick follow, so just to be funny about this, he makes 11 in a row, and out he comes? COACH WRIGHT: Is that what he got, 11 in a row? Q. I think it was 11 in a row. COACH WRIGHT: He gets tired sometimes. Q. Jay, what were you trying to do with Carlino, and how would you rate that as far as a defensive performance this season against the good scorer from the other team? COACH WRIGHT: That was definitely one of our best. You've seen them all. He's so‑‑ he's got the quickest release of anybody we've played against. Cotton was like that last year for Providence. You can't let them catch it because, if they catch it, they get it off before you can get to them, and they're great shooters. I just thought we did‑‑ especially the first half. We did a great job in the first half. In the second half, you notice the first five or six possessions, they got him looks like four straight times. They made very good adjustments. He made one, but it was only a two, and then the others, one went in and out. I just thought we rushed him and kept enough people on him, and we switched out on him. So it was really good execution by our guys. Q.  Jay, when you look at your coaching career, where does this team rank defensively? Out of all the teams that you've had. COACH WRIGHT: Not as good as I'd like it to be, really. Today was good. Today was good. We haven't been consistently this good defensively. We can be. That's what we're trying to do here at the end of the season is really be‑‑ this team is not one of our better defensive teams. It's really not. It's good, but we can be a lot better. Q. Coach, as you alluded to, Marquette did play last night. Does that help you in maybe conserving your energy for the next two games. COACH WRIGHT: I think our depth helps us in this situation. When a team plays the night before and then get off to a great‑‑ I'm repeating myself, but when they get off to a good start, that adrenaline can keep you going, and then playing the night before doesn't affect you. But us coming out and hitting those threes early, getting some stops early, and kind of jumping on them, then your fatigue, you've got to chase, it starts to wear on you. Q. Jay, as the weeks have rolled on here and the wins have rolled on, how much time have you spent talking to the kids about not getting ahead of this thing and to keep it all in perspective? COACH WRIGHT: I think that's the best thing we've done so far is these guys have been able to stay focused on the next game, and that's always the challenge when you're winning. When you lose, it's easy to focus on the next game because you just can't wait. I think when we lost to Georgetown this year, I think we had a week until our next game; we were dying. We just wanted to go play somebody. That's easy. It's when you keep winning that you've got to stay focused on your scouting report. You've got to stay focused on the details. I think this team has done a very good job. Q. This is kind of a backward question, but you're used to those: Is this kind of game okay with you in that the things you do well you were able to do today, and the Big East Tournament is usually all about surviving when you're not doing the things that you do well. In other words, find those secondary ways of getting it done. I mean, not that there wasn't adversity today. COACH WRIGHT: I think it's a good way to start. It's a good way to start. If you're coming off a game‑‑ you know, last year in the game against Seton Hall, we actually took the lead with eight seconds to go, and it's one of the games where you would look back and say, guys, we found a way, but we've got to make improvements in all these areas. I like it better this way, where we did a good job defensively. We can go back and look and prepare for whoever we play. Guys are feeling good. They're making shots in this arena. They feel good about it. I like it that way. Q. Josh, take us through that sequence where you hit those 11 straight. What was going through your head, and what were you feeling? JOSH HART: I just felt confidence. Darrun was finding me when I was open. Ryan found me. Kris found me. And then when those guys just find you when you're wide open, after like the first couple, you just get in a rhythm, get a confidence, and my teammates did a great job finding me. I really wasn't thinking. I was just shooting. Q. Coach, there's been a lot of talk, obviously, about a 1 seed and maybe having to win here to secure that. That's something you care about or not care about? COACH WRIGHT: Really don't care about. Winning the Big East Tournament would be‑‑ to me‑‑ I'm a little different this way, but to me, it would be far more rewarding than getting a 1 seed. I just think there's a lot more to that than getting a 1 seed. A 2 seed's good, too. We've been in both spots and had success in both spots. I think we've had trouble in both spots, too. That really doesn't bother me. It does not affect our thinking at all. But winning the Big East Tournament affects our thinking a lot. Q. Both players, we asked the Coach this, but what were your thoughts about last year and wiping that out?  When you came in today, what were you thinking about last year? JOSH HART: We just try not to think about. Obviously, that happened. We let the past be the past. We can't take that back. We just knew we're going to have to come in with our captains, and then with the great group of guys we have in the locker room, we just went out and played as hard as we can and let everything else take care of itself. We knew not to focus on that and just focus on what's ahead of us. DARRUN HILLIARD: Same thing. We can't control what happened in the past. We can only control what happens now, and I think we came out with great energy and a great attitude. That's the only thing we can control. As far as last year, it's over, and we just focus on this year. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports |
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