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BIG EAST CONFERENCE MEN'S BASKETBALL TOURNAMENTMarch 12, 2016Jay WrightKris JenkinsRyan ArcidiaconoNew York, New York Seton Hall - 69, Villanova - 67 JAY WRIGHT: Great college basketball game. Just awesome to be a part of it. The Garden was rocking. You know, we just got beat by a team that played better than us tonight. They played a great first half. We played a great second half, and then down the stretch, they made the plays, and we didn't. Some of the reasons we didn't is because they made some great defensive plays. Q. Jay, can you talk about some of the adjustments you made to make that huge comeback? JAY WRIGHT: We played a little bit bigger. We blitzed. We trapped Whitehead a little bit. We tried to get some minutes out of Daniel going inside to him some. Little things. Nothing major. They were outstanding first half. We didn't have an answer for anything they did. Q. Jay, can you just run by what the plan was after they went up with one with 18 seconds what you wanted to do, and you what saw in that whole sequence? JAY WRIGHT: After they went up one? Q. Yes. JAY WRIGHT: When we had the last shot, the shot that Kris took? Q. And Josh had the offensive rebound. JAY WRIGHT: We wanted to get it to Kris, give Kris a chance to shoot it or drive it. And then we wanted to attack the offensive glass. When you're down, you know you want to get to the glass and Josh got a great look, you know, and it didn't go. We did a good job there. They're a great defensive team. It's hard to just come down and get exactly what you want. But you want to get your best scorer with a shot or a chance to drive, and then you want to get your offensive rebounders on the glass. It just didn't work out for us. Again, they got the rebound. They did a great closeout on Kris Jenkins. They flew at Kris Jenkins. They got up on the air and contested his shot tough. Q. This for Ryan: Arch, you've talked about some of the scrappy games you guys have been in and the grind. Was it just too much just constantly feeling like you had to keep coming back and keep coming back and keep coming back this one? RYAN ARCIDIACONO: We definitely dug ourselves in the hole in the first half. They played really well. We didn't execute our game plan. You have give them credit for the way they played. We grinded. We had a shot to win. We were up two. They called it a block and and-one. We still executed to the very end what we wanted to do. When he missed the free throw, I got a decent look, but we still executed until the very end. Q. Jay, this doesn't look like the same team Seton Hall you saw in January. It looks like they've come night and day since then. Do you think it's experience, they start such a young team, or is it just the season has gone that way for them? JAY WRIGHT: I really think it's coaching. I really do. We played our second game against them early. So after we played them, we won by one at their place, and they really played well. And when we watched films of other teams when we were preparing for Seton Hall, we kept saying these guys are getting better and better and better and better. And he has had those guys for two years. Kevin has done a great job with them. And they have a bunch of sophomores out there. They played down the stretch. They executed, man. They got the right guy the ball and made the right plays, they defend, they got rebounds. That's a very good basketball team. A well-coached basketball team. I think Kevin has done a great job with them. Q. You played Georgetown, Providence and Seton Hall, three traditional Big East teams. What does this run mean for the conference moving forward as far as tradition and kind of building itself in the national spotlight? JAY WRIGHT: That's a great question. I think this whole tournament, especially the last two nights; last night sold-out Garden, four great basketball programs. That's what's beautiful about this tournament, whoever is left out of the four is going to be traditionally great basketball programs. That's the beauty of this conference. Then sold-out two local teams. We got a lot of alumni in New York. Just a great Garden crowd for the final. Great tough physical game. This is what Big East basketball is, you know? And if you're a basketball purist, there's nowhere you would rather coach or play than in this conference or you would rather play your tournament than in Madison Square Garden. You just saw tonight that's what it is. If you're a basketball person, there's no conference that matches it anywhere. I'm not saying we're the best. For just basketball, everything we do is basketball. We play in the Mecca. Madison Square Garden. Great traditional basketball schools. All the alumni from these schools this is what they live for. No football weekends. No homecoming football games. This is what they live for. This was awesome. Q. Two questions, can you describe how you saw your last offensive drive when you took the three? And the one before that, when Whitehead made the drive and it looked like you got in his way and could have been either way, I guess. KRIS JENKINS: Yeah, I just saw him attacking the basket. He had a clear path. I tried to step over and make the play on defense at the end. On offense Ryan did a good job of getting into the paint, and he kicked it out, and he gave us a chance. And it just didn't drop. Q. Jay, you've obviously had a lot of different experience in this tournament over the years. As far as it with regards to what you're going to do the next week or multiple weeks, what do you see in the past few days that gives you any indicator that you guys might be ready to make a run? JAY WRIGHT: I think we're going to learn a lot from this game. This was a tough, physical, athletic team that that really got into us in the first half and took us out of our offense. And I think they're the kind of teams you meet in the Tournament. So it's great to have that experience. We made a lot of mistakes because of what they did. You know, our 12 turnovers, it was their defense. We'll learn from this. And we'll go into the Tournament knowing that we still have to get a lot better. Q. Coach, you talked about down the stretch they executed. Whitehead I think scored six straight points there. Can you talk a little bit about him and that kind of play down in a crucial situation like this? JAY WRIGHT: Yeah. What makes him a great player is, there's one thing to make plays at the end of the game, but when the other team is specifically trying to prevent you from making plays and actually giving other people -- we were loading to him, trying to double him and leaving other people open and he still made the plays. That's what makes him great. Q. I know you say it's out of your hands, but do you feel like you should still be a No. 1 seed when the brackets are revealed tomorrow? JAY WRIGHT: I don't know enough about it. I don't know what the criteria is with the other teams. I haven't followed it closely enough. I know we're in the running. I'm sure what -- did Virginia play yet? Q. They're playing now. JAY WRIGHT: That's going to be a big factor in it. We really don't care about that. I know we have a chance to play in the east. We would love to play in the east. But if we don't we're so happy to be playing in the NCAA Tournament. We'll take whatever we get. Thank you, guys. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports   |
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