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BIG EAST CONFERENCE MEN'S BASKETBALL TOURNAMENTMarch 9, 2017Jay WrightDonte DiVincenzoKris JenkinsNew York, New York Villanova - 108, St. John's - 67 COACH WRIGHT: Really proud of our performance, obviously. And I want to give St. John's credit for the season they've had and last night. They did a hell of a job last night. That was a pretty beat up team, tired team that we played. I thought the game they played last night was gutsy old Big East game, pretty cool to watch. And they've done a great job with that team this year. A lot of young guys are going to be really good. And I think we played like a mature team today. I think -- we have seniors. Josh Hart. Kris was outstanding offensively, but Josh Hart just set the tone defensively on the boards, getting shots for his teammates, not trying, not trying to do too many things, not trying to prove he's player of the year in the conference, just going out there and playing for his teammates. I thought that was really impressive. And obviously Kris was great offensively, and Donte just continues to get better for us every day. Q. Jay, can you talk about your performance, how you jumped all over St. John's? COACH WRIGHT: You know, I just want to talk about maturity. You watched that game last night. That was a pretty tough game. If you're smart and you're experienced, you realize that team can come back, and they're playing with a lot of emotion that can beat you. But that team could be tired if you come ready to play. And if we wouldn't have come ready to play, they were ready to get us. But we were very prepared and rested. I think that was the difference today. Q. When you shoot like this, what do you do for an encore? KRIS JENKINS: I just have to give a lot of credit to my teammates. They do a great job of making the right play. And like coach said, Josh set the tone for us defensively. When your best player does that, then everybody else, it's easy for them to fall in line. COACH WRIGHT: What's your encore for the next game? KRIS JENKINS: Next game. Next game. Q. For Jay and for Kris, I think 52 points from the bench, I think the bench combined shoot 16 out of 19. Just talk about how big that is, especially when you don't have Mikal today? KRIS JENKINS: It's great. We have a next-man-up mentality. We don't want Mikal to go down or anybody. But our guys are ready. They've been put in this situation before. They just get more minutes, more minutes for E, more minutes for Donte, more minutes for Dylan who played great for us today, gave us great minutes. Hopefully we'll get Mikal back for tomorrow and get better. Q. Can you remember a first half or any half where there were no fouls called on your team? And, B, is that like symbolic of your maturity to be able to defend so effectively without fouling? COACH WRIGHT: I hope so. That was a pretty good effort for us defensively. It really was. And again that is maturity. It's experience. Just really, again, you are watching, the whole team watched the game together last night. If you're not prepared for that game, you know, you're not really paying attention. And I think our guys had a great grasp of the scouting report, and I think they played very intelligently the first half. Q. Jay, couple of weeks ago you made the comment you felt your guys were a little tired given the grind. And you had only one game in, I think, 12 days. How much do you think that's recharged some of your guys' legs, and do you think that's reflective in the shooting stats today? COACH WRIGHT: Definitely. I think that was -- that week, when we looked at it at the beginning of the season, having a week at the end where we didn't play a game, we looked at the schedule and thought, wow, that's going to be tough because no teams like to practice for a week. But when it happened, when we came upon that week and we had just played five games really with six guys basically, we really needed it. And I thought our guys did a good job. Jeff Pierce, our trainer and our strength coach, did a great job getting our guys' legs back. Then we added Darryl to that week so it got it to an eight-man rotation. We went into the Georgetown game fresh and I think we've come into this tournament fresh. Q. As you look ahead or go through this tournament, having that flexibility of having a more extended rotation, something like happens today with Bridges or a guy gets in early foul trouble, you didn't plan this flexibility, but it happened. What do you see that doing for you down the road or potentially doing for you? COACH WRIGHT: We always plan to have that, we planned at the beginning of the season to have that. When we didn't have Omari we thought, okay, we can handle that. Then we didn't have Phil. Then it got a little shaky. We said it's going to take time to develop this. And you never know if it's going to work. But we've actually developed, not us, these guys -- Donte and Eric Paschall and Dylan Painter -- have really developed this rotation for us. If they weren't playing at the level they are, we wouldn't be able to do it. And it really does give us the ability to stay fresh in tournaments. That playing seven guys, you can get away with it during the league season but in tournaments like this, that's when it gets to you. Q. With three seconds left in the first half you called a timeout and right after that Jenkins got another buzzer beater. Do you look forward to using that during the tournament (laughter)? COACH WRIGHT: I hope so. We take advantage of all those opportunities. There's no better practice than the game. You can do that in practice all you want and it works. It's nice. But you have to run that against another team and get that experience. And every experience you can get in the game makes you stronger for the next game. So I don't care if anybody knows about it. There's a lot of good coaches out there -- I'm more concerned that our players can execute. Q. You had a career high today of 25 points and seven made shooting. Tell me how did you feel going into the game and what kind of lessons have you learned from the leadership from the upperclassmen? DONTE DIVINCENZO: Going into the game I was confident, as in every game. But the only thing I can say about the 25 is it's all because of the seniors and Jalen, E, everybody was making the right play and I found myself open and today I was knocking down shots. Q. Coach, you have 34 points in the paint. Of course everybody knows your perimeter has always been pretty good. How do you feel about your interior? COACH WRIGHT: I felt good all year. Kris as good as a shooter he is, could be our best post-up player. Josh is good in the post. Brunson is good in the post. Part of that points in the paint come from having shooters and being able to drive the ball and get to the rim. So it's a combination. I feel good about that. I feel good about our balance. Q. Donte, could you just talk about the mentality you guys, Erik, Dylan, all the guys on the bench have as far as not having any let-up when you get into the game? DONTE DIVINCENZO: Just come in and bring energy, bring energy defensively, get as many rebounds as we possibly can and when there's so much attention to players as good as Josh and as good as Kris, you find yourself open. And when you find yourself open just make a play, whether it's a shot, extra pass or get in the lane. THE MODERATOR: Thank you. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports   |
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