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BIG EAST CONFERENCE MEN'S BASKETBALL TOURNAMENTMarch 12, 2016Kevin WillardIsmael SanogoIsaiah WhiteheadNew York, New York Seton Hall - 69, Villanova - 67 THE MODERATOR: We'll start with our players. Ismael Sanogo and Isaiah Whitehead. Congratulations to the Pirates. Isaiah is the winner of the Gavitt Trophy as the Most Outstanding Player. Q. Isaiah, big players make big plays in March. Tell me what was going on in your mind when you had the three-point play. ISAIAH WHITEHEAD: This whole year Coach has been raving about just making winning plays and making winning plays. I really just attacked the basket. I felt I had an opportunity to score the ball. I mean, I saw Kris Jenkins coming over and I knew that he wouldn't be able to get in position fast enough for me to draw a charge. I just tried to lay it in on him. Q. Isaiah, can you talk about what it means to be the MVP of the tournament? ISAIAH WHITEHEAD: This is an amazing accomplishment. I mean, if you look down the line at MVPs in the Big East, it's some real big-time names down there. So just to have my name on there is an amazing feeling. Q. Isaiah, did you understand or did you realize what was going on out there? That was a great game, a Big East traditional type of game. Did you sense that during the game or now afterwards? ISAIAH WHITEHEAD: It didn't hit me yet. I'm pretty sure when I wake up tomorrow morning it will probably hit me. Right now I'm just enjoying what's going on right now. It's an amazing feeling. Q. Isaiah, when you committed to Seton Hall you talked about wanting to turn the program around. Did you envision this? ISAIAH WHITEHEAD: Definitely. Me and Khadeen talked about it before. Me and Khadeen was talking about it before. Before I committed -- actually he committed before me. He really tried to string me along. I really went for it. He said they have a great group of coaches here, and that could get us better and hopefully win a Big East championship. Q. Ish, could you explain how you guys were able to defend very long so well? ISMAEL SANOGO: We just went out there and played our hearts out. We knew it was going to come down to a last-second shot. Kris Jenkins was hitting some unbelievable shots. And we just -- it was just grit. We knew we had to go out there and defend. Q. Isaiah, what does it mean to you as a New Yorker to play such a great game for a New York area team in New York? ISAIAH WHITEHEAD: I mean, it's a great accomplishment. It's an amazing feeling. This is one of the main reasons I chose to stay home, just so my friends and family could see me play as much as possible and having them in the crowd and really cheering me on and seeing me hold up the trophy at the end. It's like picture-perfect. Q. Coach, could you talk about the start you guys had tonight and then on top of that, what were some of the adjustments you made when Villanova went on that run? KEVIN WILLARD: I knew we would come out pretty good. We were pretty focused this morning at breakfast and the walk-through. With these guys sometimes you can tell a lot. We talked at halftime that they were going to make a run on us. I really think it was important the way the Creighton game went the other night. We had pretty much the same thing. We had to battle back. So I think Ish said it at the under 6 or under 8 was we've been through this before; we know what's going to happen. Let's just get some stops. And they did it. Q. Ish, you're a New Jersey guy. Obviously, leading a New Jersey team to the NCAA Tournament. Now you win the Big East Tournament title. What does this mean to you especially since this is a school right in your own backyard? ISMAEL SANOGO: It's like a dream come true. Who would have ever thought a kid from Newark would make it to play at Seton Hall and make it into the NCAA and win a Big East championship. I'm telling you now I sure didn't. I didn't think I was going to be this far in life right now. I'm just so glad that Coach gave me an opportunity to play here. I want to thank him and the coaching staff. Q. For both players, you beat the No. 5 ranked team in the country yesterday. You beat the No. 3 ranked team in the country today. What is this team capable of doing in the Tournament? ISAIAH WHITEHEAD: I mean, this is just about really whoever we play, just better watch out. We really defend at a high level. When we get on the break, it's hard to stop us. It really doesn't matter who we play; we're up for the challenge. Q. Coach, was there a point in the season where you felt like this type of result was possible? Was it the Xavier game? That's when my eyes were opened. KEVIN WILLARD: No, I've said this 1,000 times, it was this summer. You were there. May 19th. That's when I knew. Grant Billmeier reminded me of something. When I rehired Grant, I told him I said, Grant, I know things look shaky but I'm telling you, man, these kids are special. And after about a month of Grant being around him, he came up to me and said, You're right. These kids it was every day, with us, weight room and by themselves and at night. So that was really -- that was the point where I thought these guys could be something special. Q. Question for Ish and then also the rest can chime in: Derrick Gordon I know what he does for the team doesn't always show up in the box score. What is it that he does for you as a unit? ISMAEL SANOGO: He's like an older brother. He's there to calm us down in troubling times. When the game is getting out of hand, he comes in and calms us down. Not even on the court, off the court and in the locker room, he has an older-brother presence that seems to calm us down. Q. Kevin, can you talk about -- KEVIN WILLARD: Derrick, on the court he sacrifices a lot and he's an unbelievable defender. He gets a ton of deflections. He's always guarding the guy, whether it's D'Vauntes Smith-Rivera or whoever it is tough to guard. Off the court he's helped these guys. He's so mature. He's been through a lot and he's matured a lot. He's really a calming presence for a group that is at times extremely emotional. He kind of -- he has been through it. This is his third NCAA Tournament. It just kind of tells you what type of player, more importantly what type of person he is. Q. For all of you guys, how does it feel to be a champion? From the beginning of the year in the Big East, you guys were projected in the latter half, but you played with a chip on your shoulder and you proved a lot of people wrong. How does that feel? KEVIN WILLARD: Awesome (laughter). ISAIAH WHITEHEAD: What he said. Q. Isaiah, you've had the pressure since 14 years old having to be the biggest thing in New York City after Marbury and Telfair and Lance Stephenson. Does this feel like a culmination or the beginning in your career of what you want to do? ISAIAH WHITEHEAD: I think it's the beginning. Those three players I'm pretty sure never won a championship in college. I probably got that over them. That's one thing I actually do have over them. I can brag about it to Lance later on. Those three guys are amazing basketball players. There's really no one that is really going to be like them at the high-school level or anything like that. That's what I really tried to focus on since I was 14, just to be Isaiah Whitehead and to be known as myself. Q. Kevin, you played in this league and you know and have a background that's very, very unique. I would be interested in your perspective about tonight, for those of you who have been around, the atmosphere in the building was electric. First sellout the Tournament has had since 2013, and your fans just overwhelmed the building tonight. It was like the 1990s or the 1980s here at the Garden for the Big East Championship. KEVIN WILLARD: I'm going to get in trouble for saying this, but I don't care: You know, everyone always asks questions about, is this tournament in trouble? The home, the ACC and the Big 10. They want to come in to New York. The Big East is -- this is the home. We are the home. We will always be the home. They are going to be tourists. I've said it before. They're going to come in. They're going to get a slice of pizza. Hopefully a bacon, egg and cheese and a coffee, and then they're going to leave. But at the end of the day, the Big East will still be here. It's a basketball conference. It's a basketball conference. It is because of players like this. Great players. It's amazing. I played in '94, '95. ISAIAH WHITEHEAD: Oh! I wasn't even born yet, Coach. KEVIN WILLARD: No, you weren't born. To experience it as a player, I tell these guys to experience the Big East Tournament as a player is something that you never forget. And to win a championship as a coach, to see all the teams and the coaches that have won and have been through it before you, I'm not a basketball junkie, but I honor the tradition of this league and this tournament. I think that's why I'm emotional because I'm so happy for these guys. But I also understand what this tournament and what this league is all about. Q. Kevin, can you talk about how disappointed you were, if at all, when you guys were picked seventh in the pre-season? KEVIN WILLARD: I thought I was actually excited. I thought we were going to be eighth or ninth. Everyone saw how the year ended last year. I don't think we talked about it. Our focus -- again, when you start five sophomores and come off the bench with two freshmen and one senior, our whole focus this year was just trying to get better game by game. We talked about that after the Creighton game, after the Xavier game. We weren't happy this morning. We talked about things we had to do better in our press offense. Just trying to get better. The pre-season is tough, what? We just never talked about it. This is a weird group. You just don't -- they don't care. Q. Kevin, second time you kind of brought up the tourist thing. Why do you feel the need to kind of poke -- KEVIN WILLARD: He's trying to do what Zach is trying to do. Excuse my language, but we're onto your shit now. Q. Do you think there's a need to kind of remind those leagues this is the Big East town no matter what? KEVIN WILLARD: I get asked the question. I got asked the question before. Adam, right? I got asked the question before about, is this tournament in trouble? And I think today, people were on the sky bridges, they were hanging over the sky bridges. If you watched the level of basketball that these kids play, I'm sorry, it's uncomparable. Is that a word? Q. I'm going to ask you a slightly different probing question: Why didn't you go up and cut down the net? KEVIN WILLARD: Oh, man. ISAIAH WHITEHEAD: He was scared he was going to fall. KEVIN WILLARD: I am scared of heights. Shaheen Holloway has been with me for nine years. Shaheen, I have an older brother and I still think Sha is older than me, but he says he's younger. Sha is like my younger brother. And he has been with me from day one. And to be perfectly honest with you, I thought he deserved it. Every once in a while -- I learned that from Coach Pitino. Coach Pitino let me cut down the net one time, and he said the same thing. I feel that passionately about the job my whole staff has done. Sha has been with me for nine years. Q. Isaiah, when you're going up the ladder to cut the net, what was going through your mind? ISAIAH WHITEHEAD: Not falling. That was my first time ever doing that. It was an amazing feeling. Hearing the crowd go crazy when I went up there. It's really nothing I can say about that feeling. It's really unexplainable. That's the way to say it. Q. Coach, could you talk about your thoughts about playing Villanova and the way you took them down tonight? KEVIN WILLARD: The young man to the left of me, he doesn't get to shoot. He doesn't get passed the ball. You don't have a play for you, do you? ISMAEL SANOGO: No. KEVIN WILLARD: He doesn't have a play called for him. He played the best college basketball game I've watched in a long time on the defensive end. He was phenomenal. He was phenomenal -- I guess he wasn't that phenomenal against Huff. ISAIAH WHITEHEAD: Wow! KEVIN WILLARD: We've been having fun with Huff's performance for a while. ISAIAH WHITEHEAD: Just threw him out there. KEVIN WILLARD: If you go back and watch this game, they all played their hearts out. They all played defense. But this young man, he covered, he was everywhere. He had a five-minute stretch when we were kind of struggling. He had a block, he had a deflection, he had a steal, he had a big rebound. He was just phenomenal. Q. Coach, how does it feel to be mentioned listed right up there with P.J. (Carlesimo) now as Big East champion? KEVIN WILLARD: I didn't shave. I didn't shave this morning. I looked in the mirror. It's always a scary thought. And I said I wasn't going to shave for Coach. Coach Carlesimo texts me or calls me every week since I got the job. He's such a great supporter of Seton Hall. He's obviously the bar that was set and the job that he did. But it's funny, we always talk. We played Baltrusol (Golf Club) this summer. You play golf with Coach Carlesimo, it's painful. He talks the whole time. You can't hit shots. He's all over the place. You're trying to putt and he's got ideas. He's yipping and yapping. But we were talking and we were on 17, it's a par-5. He was in the woods. He came out of the woods and he goes, "You're having the same trajectory that I did." He said, "I struggled for five mighty years." He said, "You have the same support that I have." Obviously, he had Coach (Richie) Regan. I have Pat Lyons. I'm lucky I have the best athletic director in the business. And I'm lucky to have the job that I have. But to be up there with Coach Carlesimo this summer when we played Baltrusol, I just don't have to take everything that I have to take from him on the green, so I'm looking forward to that. THE MODERATOR: Seton Hall, thank you and congratulations. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports   |
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