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NCAA MEN'S 1ST AND 2ND ROUNDS: BROOKLYNMarch 19, 2016Jay WrightBrooklyn, New York Q. Maybe can you give us a sense of your relationship with Fran McCaffery and what it means to be going against him in such an important game. JAY WRIGHT: Well, I think Fran and I have been in this for a while. We're always going to run into our friends. People are asking us about playing Temple, all the Philadelphia people, and I was thinking in the back of my mind, it doesn't get any better if we play Iowa. I think very highly of Fran. I don't know if you guys know this in Iowa, but he's kind of a legend, a basketball legend in Philly, White Magic, and in my era -- he was a little bit older than me, just only a couple of years -- but he was a big time player and very well-known amongst our generation. He coached at Lehigh. I played at Bucknell. I followed everything he's done. He's won everywhere he's been, everywhere -- Greensboro, Siena, Iowa. I think he's one of the great coaches in our country, I really do. I had a young assistant who wanted to get started in coaching, and I asked Fran to take a chance on him, Andrew Francis, and I just said, look, I'll give you my word. This guy's going to be good. And he gave him a chance, and Andrew's been great for him. I just think the world of him, and I appreciate his friendship and that he gave Andrew a chance, and I think he appreciates that I gave him a good guy too. Q. Given what Ryan and Daniel and the rest of the senior class has accomplished across all four years, is it almost unfair that the big picture perception of these kids is tied to tomorrow and what they do for the rest of this month? JAY WRIGHT: Yeah. I really -- you know what, I really don't think it's unfair. I just think it's sports, and that's the beauty of coaching college athletics is that you get to use these as life lessons. They're either going to go by this weekend, and they're going to be the winningest class in Villanova history and they're going to get to a Sweet 16, or they're not, and they're going to be the winningest class in Villanova history and didn't get past the second round. Either way, it's going to be a learning process for them. I don't think they're going to define themselves by this for the rest of their life, but I understand what you're saying. It would seem unfair, but that is the way it is. You get a lot of benefits playing for Villanova. They're going to use those the rest of their life. But this is all part of it, man. I heard Valentine from Michigan State yesterday say, this is something I'm going to live with the rest of my life. If you're a big time athlete, you put yourself out on the stage in the arena, that's all part of it. That's why you've got to respect what these guys do. Q. We were talking the other day about elite programs, and you guys are certainly on the cusp and have had stretches of league play, but they don't seem to go through a five or six-year stretch of not -- like Kansas hasn't been in it for a couple years late, but now they're back getting runs again. What is the difference between those guys and the cusp guys, and how do you get from there to there? JAY WRIGHT: There is a difference, national perception, you know, if you get into Sweet 16s, final eights consistently, and we had that going for a little bit, I think you are considered one of the elite programs. If you don't, nationally, you might not be considered. It's kind of similar to what we talked about yesterday, I think, locally, East Coast-wise, if you see the teams play all the time, I think our program has great respect. But it is definitely -- your national reputation in this sport is definitely based on how you perform. Do you get the Sweet 16s? Do you get the final eights? Do you get the Final Fours? Do you win National Championships? That puts you with the elite. We'd certainly like to be there, but we've got to earn it. We've got to go do it. Q. Is there a luck factor? JAY WRIGHT: I think the elite programs over time don't have as much problem with the matchups. We have -- again, the years we were going Sweet 16, final eight, Final Four, the matchups really didn't matter. We had some really tough matchups the year we went to the Final Four. We had UCLA, Duke, and Pitt, number 2 in the country. That was bad matchups. Didn't bother us then. But if matchups give you trouble, you've got to be a little bit better. The elite teams don't get affected by matchups. I should say they don't get affects as much. If you look at Michigan State, once in a while, you're going to get hit. Q. You've mentioned a couple times about wanting to represent the Big East, how you felt you let the Big East down as a conference last year. I was wondering, what's the root of your pride as far as the Big East goes? And do you feel like the conference as a whole can get back to the glory years? JAY WRIGHT: I don't think any conference is going to get back to the glory years. I think the days when the ACC was a basketball conference and it was Tobacco Road, they were the glory years, when the Big East had Syracuse and UConn, they were the glory years, and St. John's. I don't think anybody -- I think college football has eliminated that. What we have is still really, really special and exciting. And the root of my pride in the Big East is, I think, in terms of a basketball conference, we're authentic. I think there are a lot of conferences -- we all know this. There are a lot of conferences that are put together for football, and they are producing very good basketball conferences that were formed to be football conferences. And they happen to be good basketball conferences also. But they're not traditional, like we all know. We are a basketball conference. We are an outlier. We're there for one reason. Just like those football conferences were built for football, we're built for basketball, and we take great pride in that. And it's the biggest sport on our campuses. We don't hide behind that, anything but that, and it means the most to our alumni. They're all in Metropolitan areas where the game started, and we just take great pride in that. We want to see how good can we be? We're new. We're growing. We're getting better every year. And we want to see how good we can be. Q. Circling back to Andrew Francis, I think he worked for you for two years. What do you remember that attracted him to you in the first place and kind of why you recommended him and what you've seen in his growth. JAY WRIGHT: He was a businessman that was already had a good job and was making good money, and he was a friend of Eddie Pinkney, who was on our staff, and Eddie brought him to me and said, this guy wants to quit his job and come coach. He started as a video intern making no money, and I was just so impressed how a grown man who had a good job really loved ball and had a great deal of humility and would take the lowest job on the staff and have great enthusiasm about it. The longer he worked for us, I saw his character. I saw his intelligence, his basketball IQ, his ability to relate to players, and I knew he'd be a superstar. No one else could know that when you're a video guy. You don't see him on the road. But when I told Fran that, I think he trusted me on that, and I think Fran's seen what a great coach Andrew has become. I think he'll be a great head coach one day. Q. Not that you guys don't play games with short turnarounds during the regular season, but obviously, it's amped up now. What is the biggest key for you when you prepare for the quick turnaround in the second game of the weekend? JAY WRIGHT: The later in the season you play the quick turnaround games, the easier it is to prepare X and O-wise, the harder it is to stay fresh mentally and physically. So we just finished our practice, and I thought, if I did -- I always evaluate after a practice. If I did anything poorly, I might have gone through a little bit too much mentally. Physically, I think they're in good shape. They're fresh. But that's our key, is just make sure they're playing Sunday with just fresh legs, fresh mind, aggressive, and free wheeling. Q. You mentioned -- the comment was made about the Big East comment you made during the tournament about feeling like you let the Big East down last year. You talked about the pressure constantly. It's going on all season dealing with this game tomorrow. How do you prevent from that becoming overwhelming and cracking 19, 20, 21-year-old kids? JAY WRIGHT: We have talked about that. As I said, we talked about it during the season that we can't let that affect our ability to enjoy the season. I thought the guys did a great job of that. And as we talked about it, we said, guys, if we ever get to that point, then when we get to that point, then we're going to have to deal with that at a higher level. So we've actually talked about, if we ever got to this point, I said, then we'll deal with it. So we dealt with it. I said to the guys, you know what, we've been here before, and we've given great efforts, and we failed, and it didn't kill us. So let's put all our -- this isn't going to kill us. So let's go put all our effort into playing the best we can, enjoying the hell out of it, and getting after it. It's like you look at what's the worst outcome. We know what it is. We've already done that. We've lived through it. So let's go have fun putting all our effort into the best outcome. That's how we're approaching it. Q. Two years ago, you played Iowa in the Bahamas right after you beat Kansas, a very talented Kansas team on a last-second shot. Then you guys kind of slugged it out, I think eight different lead changes, a lot of big runs. What do you recall from that game specifically against Iowa? And how can you apply it because their personnel is a little bit different today than it was two years ago. JAY WRIGHT: Watching film of that game -- getting prepared for Iowa, we watched that game too obviously. What I can't get out of my head is all those guys who are seniors now were playing in that game as freshmen. Freshmen or sophomores, whatever they were, they were young, and they looked young in that game. And you look at them now, they're men. They are thick, strong, tough men. So I can't imagine that's an advantage for us. Those guys remember that game. It was a slugfest. Great credit to Iowa's strength staff because you look at the bodies of those guys from that game and their bodies now -- Uthoff especially. He was a skinny, wiry kid. I think he got his head cut in that game. That was a really tough, physical game. So they've got a lot of experienced guys. Most of the guys we have were not in that game. That's my recollection of that. Q. I just wanted to circle back on that question with Peter Jok. He barely played in that game, and now he's become a sharp shooting, all Big Ten superstar. How do you -- what have you seen on film from him, and how do you look to contain him? JAY WRIGHT: Uthoff and those guys would have been sophomores. Jok was a freshman in that game. Again, I think it speaks to the talent of their staff and how these guys have developed. That's really what hits me is just -- Marble was on that team. They had some good older guys. These guys were playing, and they were good. Where they are now compared to where they were then is a significant improvement in basketball IQ and in execution and in confidence. Q. I'm interested in maybe the maturation process of some of your older guys. Josh Hart, for instance, quality guy, our first experience with him. What can you tell us about him as a person to go along with all his prowess on the court? JAY WRIGHT: He's a really humble kid, and he's a joy to coach in that he came in as one of the best players in Washington, D.C. He battled Kris Jenkins for Player of the Year and came in second. Did everything we asked him to do. He went to Sidwell Friends, he's bright. He's an inside player in high school, really worked on his perimeter jump shooting. In certain games, we asked him to be more of a defensive player, stop, or he's got to stop somebody, and he'll do that. Certainly games, you've got to be our leading rebounder. He'll do that. He's such a great winner, and he was the most upset when we lost the Big East Tournament. He's just such a team player, and he just plays the game to win. You can't have a better teammate. Q. Jay, you always talk about the NCAA being overwhelming, especially for kids doing it for the first time or early on. Did you keep a special eye a little bit on Bridges and Brunson and maybe a little bit Booth in the game yesterday? JAY WRIGHT: I really did, and I was really impressed. We actually -- Mikal Bridges, I thought, was outstanding, and really in that area because that's what I look for. He's playing with enough upper classmen, if he got in there and didn't make mistakes, he'd be okay, but he went in there and made plays. He really made plays. He was aggressive. I worried a little bit about Daryl Reynolds because he really hadn't played in any. I thought he did a really good job. Brunson, I don't worry about really. He's such an old soul. Some of the high school games I've seen him play in, the place is sold out to see him individually play against the best high school team in Chicago. I've just seen him handle everything. And Booth really, significant playing time first time. I thought he did a really good job too. That was one of the things I was most pleased with in that game because we need those guys if we're going to be able to compete with a team like Iowa, and I think they're ready to go. Q. Jay, what kind of problems could Iowa's length present you? JAY WRIGHT: Both ends of the floor. Uthoff -- like we don't have a body like that. I don't know if many teams -- actually, Temple did a pretty good job because Enechionyia had a good matchup with him, did a good job, and bond was strong and length. We don't have a guy that's has that length and strong enough. Mikal is long, but he's real thin. If he takes us up and posts us up at the basket, he's going to cause real trouble. On the other end, it's difficult to post him up, but Jok is so long, they intelligently have mobility to play on the perimeter and contest threes. Those kinds of teams give us trouble. Woodbury, he's 7'1", man. The guy's big. He made a difference in that game last night at the end. Temple outrebounded them overall, but with the game on the line, when they run their sets at the end, Fran is a very intelligent coach. They're running their sets for the guys, but he's on that weak side block, and that's part of the play. He's tapping that ball back. They actually won the game on him being in that spot. When Gesell drove the ball, if he doesn't go to the weak side block, he's not getting that. So his length around the basket is going to be a problem for us too. Q. What's your take so far on the tournament? I'm sure you're locked in on what you're doing, but you probably are looking around going, wow. I think 13 lower seeded teams won over the first two days. Have you seen a year like this? And is there any way you can compare it to the big picture of college basketball? More parity or what is it? JAY WRIGHT: I hesitate to say this. I don't mean this as an excuse. It's why I don't get overly upset about us not getting past the second round recently, like we've played some really good teams. And when you see a Michigan State get beat, you see Cal get beat, the parity in college basketball is such that, given an NCAA Tournament atmosphere and pressure and the talent of mid-majors, if you want to call them that anymore, every game is so difficult. It's also the beauty of the game. Like we went into that game against Asheville knowing, right before halftime, it was a two, four-point game. We made a little run. We were ready for a two-point game. We weren't going to be surprised by it. I just think the parity in college basketball is such that anybody can be -- look at Duke and UNC Wilmington. That was a great game. South Dakota State -- all these teams. It's not a surprise to anybody anymore. I think that's great for college basketball. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports   |
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