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BIG EAST CONFERENCE MEN'S TOURNAMENTMarch 13, 2015Josh HartJay WrightNEW YORK CITY, NEW YORK Villanova - 63 COACH WRIGHT: Arch has a rib issue. So he's getting it checked right now. Just great college basketball game. Just a thrill to be in it here at the Garden, semifinals, Big East, Friday night. It's what you dream of, man. It was an awesome game. I give Providence a lot of credit. Their zone was awesome. We just really struggled with it. We've been good against zones, but we really struggled. But I thought our defense kept us in it, but we couldn't rebound. Couldn't rebound against them. That's what kept them in the game. So their defense, their rebounding, and I think our guts and a couple big plays at the end, that was the difference. Q. Jay, thoughts on your first Big East final as a coach. COACH WRIGHT: I'm thrilled. I love this tournament. I like this tournament better than any other tournament. I just love being in New York, love being in the Garden. I know all of our alumni do. I'm thrilled. I'm really happy for these guys. Q. Jay, regardless of what happens tomorrow night, do you feel like you've earned the 1 seed at this point? COACH WRIGHT: Honestly, I don't know enough about it. I really don't. I don't follow it. I couldn't give you an honest answer. I think, if we win it, we deserve one. But I don't know all the other parameters to give you an honest answer. Q. Coach, another big game from Josh coming off the bench. Can you talk about that. And also is there something special that allows him to come off the bench as the sixth man right away to do things like that? COACH WRIGHT: I'm glad you give me a chance to say that. There is something special about him. He's good enough to be a starter. We have him penciled in as a starter preseason, and Dylan Ennis just had a ridiculous summer and fall. Josh had a real good one, and Dylan Ennis was amazing. He just shocked us all. He just earned it. We told Josh, you didn't get beat out. He just‑‑ you didn't lose it. He just was ridiculous. You've got to accept this. The day he won the Sixth Man Award, I called his mom and dad and said, "Just because of you guys, the character you built in him," and his parents don't complain. His parents say, "Hey, you're the sixth man. Be the best sixth man." That's what he did, and that's unusual. Q. Jay, just your thoughts on Kris Dunn's performance tonight, and your thoughts on him. COACH WRIGHT: Awesome. He is big time. We're pretty good defensively, and we're pretty good at pick‑and‑roll defense. He's the toughest guy. I would say he's the toughest guy we've guarded in pick‑and‑roll defense. I'd have to look at every game, but after coming out of that game, I don't think there's another guy we've had as much problem against on the pick‑and‑roll. Q. Jay, when you look at this team, do you feel it's one that's built for the NCAAs? COACH WRIGHT: I hope so. I really do. I think tonight was a great example. A couple of our guys were just not in sync tonight. I don't know why. Darrun Hilliard fouls out, and then other guys step up. Josh steps up. Daniel has a huge game. But we kept our composure and found a way to pull it out. That's what it takes. You've got to have guts. You've got to have a great resiliency to keep going. So I like this team. Q. Do you think there's something this team has that maybe last year's team didn't that might afford it to go far? COACH WRIGHT: Definitely, the experience. Everybody on this team, the top seven guys, have all been in big games. They've all played in the Big East Tournament. They've all already lost in the Big East Tournament. They've all already played in the NCAA Tournament. They've all been a 1 seed in the Big East Tournament. They've been through everything. That makes a huge difference. It's not something to be taken lightly. Q. Talk about the strategy on the last play with 12 seconds left. What was the strategy? Who was the play drawn up to? COACH WRIGHT: Daniel‑‑ we were having trouble getting the ball inbounds before that. Daniel is great at coming back and getting the ball. He's got great hands. The play was to inbound the ball to Daniel, Daniel get it back to Ryan, and then spread the floor and set a middle ball screen. We had three shooters around Ryan. That's why he got to the rim because they knew we had three shooters out there, and Daniel set the back screen. Q. Jay, what's that time‑out like? After that turnover that ties the game, is it panic? Do you have to calm them down at all? COACH WRIGHT: No, not this group, and that's where the experience comes in. That's happened to us before, and we've lost games on that, this group, because they've been around. So that's happen. And we've won games. We just say, "Attitude" to each other. That's our word we know. "Next play, man. Next play." They're more calm than I am. There was no doubt we were going to make a play there. The concern was going to be how much time was going to be left? And were we going to be able to get a stop? Q. Was there a point in the game where you felt, even though they were playing zone and you usually are able to move the ball well enough to find your shots, that wasn't going to happen, and you were going to have to put the ball on the floor and penetrate and do it a different way? Was there a moment where you said, hey, guys, we've got to start doing something else? COACH WRIGHT: In the second half, we started that way. We started doing a good job. They started taking out a way. They lifted all four guys above the foul line, which is really unusual. And they just said, go ahead, put it in to Daniel Ochefu or put someone in the middle of the lane. At the end, we got it to J.P. in the middle of the lane. We got it to Darrun in the middle of the lane. Darrun Hilliard made a big play. They made us do things we don't normally do. That's where you give them credit. Q. Is that big down the road for you? COACH WRIGHT: Definitely. I'd rather not have all these games, but when you do, you're really glad you have one. It's great to go through that. There were plays where we just threw the ball off a guy's foot and one guy wasn't looking. It was one of those nights, but you've got to find a way to win those nights. Q. This is for the players: How tough was it to regroup after losing the lead, which you had the entire game until those last 12 seconds? JOSH HART: It wasn't really tough at all. Like Coach said, we got in the huddle and looked at each other and said "attitude", and we moved on to the next play. We had 12 more seconds left to play Villanova basketball. We knew we had one mistake, but it was in the past. We focused on the next play. We focused on the last 12.9 seconds, and luckily it worked out for us. Q. Josh, you guys wouldn't have been able to repeat what you did yesterday from three, but you started out kind of slow. So how important was it for you especially to hit those two that you did in the first half when you did? JOSH HART: It was a good feeling. Like you said, we were starting off a little bit slow. We can't always have the shooting game that we had against Marquette. That's where our defense really came into play. Obviously, when you make those first couple in the first half, you have a good feeling. Q. Jay, you had a pretty good angle compared to the rest of us. What did you think of the call? COACH WRIGHT: I had no angle because he was on the other side of the defender. So I really had no angle at all. Q. Jay, the last couple games you guys have won by more than double digits. How did it feel to finally win a game in a tight finish? COACH WRIGHT: I think that's going to be a great experience for us. That's going to be something for us to look back on and learn from. You need that. We really haven't had many games like that, and it was good for us. A lot of end‑of‑game situations, we made some mistakes, we did some things well, but we'll learn from that. It's good to be in a game like that at the end of the year. Q. If you guys end up playing Georgetown tomorrow night, historically, is there something to be said for that matchup, given it's two old school Big East teams and the anniversary of the '85 title game? COACH WRIGHT: All that stuff would be cool. It really would. But it would be just as cool as to play Xavier in the finals. Being in the Big East finals, that's the best, man. This night, the double‑header Friday night, that's the great night to be in, but the final game in Madison Square Garden is a thrill for anybody that's in the Northeast in basketball, man. You just dream about that. Q. What's the biggest difference between last year's team that got knocked out surprisingly in the quarterfinals and this year's squad that's going to the Big East championship tomorrow? COACH WRIGHT: I think the fact that they all played in that situation together. It's not like anything sexy. It's not like Daniel's improved a lot, which he has, but it's really that these guys, they're coming into these games having been in lots of big games, having been the top of the league all year. Everywhere we went on the road, it was the biggest game, it's a sellout, everybody's out to get us, and they've been through all that. And they already failed last year. I heard Ryan Arch say, "Hey, we already came up here and lost in the first round, and everybody hated us." We already did that. We're not afraid of that. We lived through it. So the fact they've been through all of this together is a great characteristic they have going into every game. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports |
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