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BIG EAST CONFERENCE MEN'S BASKETBALL TOURNAMENTMarch 15, 2019Jay WrightEric PaschallPhil BoothNew York, New York Villanova - 71, Xavier - 67 JAY WRIGHT: What a fun game to be a part of. When you win, it's a lot more fun. Either way, the atmosphere in the Garden, Friday night, semifinals, there's just nothing like it in college basketball. That place was rocking. I just think this is the best tournament in college basketball. This is just an incredible place to play. A lot of credit to Xavier. I told Travis he's making it look easy. First year, he did a lot with this team. They've got a young team too. They were playing as well as anybody in the conference coming down the stretch, and we knew it. This was no surprise at all. They were extremely tough defensively. They got a lot of answers offensively. Scruggs is awesome. Hankins inside. They're a really good team. I thought it was big when Marshall -- he's another great player. Finally, just leadership from two great seniors, who have done it their whole careers, their whole lives. They've done it in high school and college. We're just really lucky to have these two. Q. Coach, at one point Jermaine was 2 for 10 from the field. Did you or any of the players give him words of encouragement at some point to help him out of it, or you just let him play through it? JAY WRIGHT: Jermaine's got a great attitude. He really doesn't need encouragement. He is kind of a young basketball player, kind of just got to give him -- we all just give him little thoughts, like he was open. He was driving the ball. We said to him, "Take your shot." It's simple. He does not fear failure. He stays aggressive. It's a special characteristic he has, and it was big tonight. Q. Jay, I know Collin didn't have the game he wanted to on offense. What about that play on defense that forced that charge in the last few seconds? JAY WRIGHT: He's so valuable to our team. He does all the little things. Obviously, he's had big nights scoring. Defensively, he's always one of the smallest guys on the court, and he's one of the toughest. He'll outrebound big guys sometimes, but that charge was huge, man. That was a big play. Q. Coach, you kind of struggled offensively for most of the game, and you found your offense, specifically your three-point shooting late. How were you finally able to get the buckets you wanted? JAY WRIGHT: We really couldn't run any offense. They just were switching everything. We just put it in Phil's hands, and it's kind of embarrassing to say as a coach, we didn't have any offense left. We just put it in Phil's hands and told him to just make decisions. Drive it if you thought he could get to the rim. If you didn't, try to find people for threes. When he got hot, it forced him to leave to help, and then he found people for threes. Q. Eric, could you please put us in your shoes for the moment and walk us through the play, the tip-in play to force overtime. What did you see on the floor after Phil drove in? ERIC PASCHALL: The bench was yelling at me, "offensive glass", and I saw Booth drive. I was on the weak side. Most shots go off on the weak side. I was thinking aggressive rebounding and the ball was there. I just tipped it in, and that was it. Q. Jay, can you talk about the way even though your three-point shots weren't dropping, how does it feel to grind out a game like this and force it into overtime and win it? JAY WRIGHT: Really proud of our guys. It's really gratifying as a coach to see young people under pressure in a really tense environment keep a positive attitude and stick to our core values, stick together, and just grind it out, man. If you can take that into life and handle everything in life, that way you're going to be a pretty successful guy. I was really, really proud that they got to experience that, and I was proud that they did it. Q. Jay, you've had a lot of players have great performances up here. Where does the performance Phil ranks? JAY WRIGHT: Right now the greatest ever (laughter). It's the only one I can remember right now, Terry, honestly. I couldn't tell you another one right now, when you give me some time, but right now that was the greatest one I've ever seen. Q. Phil, talk to us about your ability to get to the rim off the dribble and just take advantage of what you saw. You really seemed to be in a zone late in regulation and then in the overtime. PHIL BOOTH: Just trying to stay aggressive. They're doing a good job on the ball, just trying to get in the lane and either make a pass or either score. So I was just trying to make a read on what the defense was giving me. Q. For Phil, this is the eighth consecutive tournament win for you guys. I think it's the fifth straight final you're in now. Do you always have the eyes of, this is our tournament? It's always full of Villanova fans. You guys have had so much success here. What's kind of the whole attitude and mantra of this team in this tournament? PHIL BOOTH: I definitely don't think it's our tournament. We were just down seven a couple of minutes ago. We try to focus on the next game and focus on the opponent in front of us. It's great how much the fans come out and support Villanova. You can hear it a lot, especially when the game gets really tight. So we try to take each game and take on our next opponent. Q. Coach, if you could talk a little bit more about Xavier. You saw them twice in the middle when they were somewhat struggling, and then they beat you. To come out of that, can you see a difference, a growth of them between the last? JAY WRIGHT: Huge difference. Anybody who's in their first year in any sport -- the coach, the staff, you've got graduate transfers, you've got freshmen -- a lot of people in their first year. That's what we're struggling with a little bit. Our staff, we lost our two top assistants the last two years. Young guys in new positions, graduate transfer, freshmen. They had it worse, new head coach. It takes time, man. It takes time. What Travis did with that team from the beginning to where they're playing now, I don't know all the tournament stuff, but that team could beat a lot of NCAA Tournament teams, a lot, the way they're playing right now. I think it's a credit to Travis and their program. They get all those guys back, man, they're going to have a hell of a team. When we play games like this in the tournament, you don't want to lose, definitely don't want to lose. But if you do, it would have been nice for them to get in the tournament because that team is playing as well as anybody right now. Q. Jay, this is very similar to that previous game. They were hurting you in the paint, and it seemed like you were searching for a lineup where you could defend the paint and yet still have an offense. Is this something, did you learn some stuff, and is this something that might pay off later on if you run into matchup with a team that's similarly talented? JAY WRIGHT: That's been our struggle all year, Bob. We have lineups good defensively and we haven't found a way offensively with that group. And some good offensive lineups and we haven't found a way defensively with that group. So like football lineups, playing offense-defense a lot, and it got us through. I think we did find some things. I don't want to share them. We did have the defensive lineup in there offensively, and we did find some good things at the end of this game. Q. Phil, I don't think you guys had a lead in the second half at all, and we always talk about how young this team is with a couple of experienced leaders. How comfortable are you executing down the stretch knowing the game is basically on your shoulders at times? PHIL BOOTH: This is a whole new team. We've been in close games throughout the season. We lost some, won some. We've been down the stretch in tough games. We just try to stay together and just stay together. Get another stop. Don't play the score. Get another stop. Get another stop, and play like that. Eric's tip-in tied it up. We didn't even have the lead second half. I didn't even know that. Just trying to tell the team, keep getting stops. Focus on the next possession. That's all you can do. Q. Jay, going back to Gillespie charge in the game. When it's a tie game and it's late, do you want your guys to go out and try to take a charge in that situation, given that the call can really go either way and decide the game? JAY WRIGHT: We want our guys to always try to make the right play. There are time-and-score plays. You don't know if they're going to tap that in. They do a good job of driving, putting it up on the glass, and then tap that in. So he had to come to help, if they don't call a charge there, that could be an offensive rebound. So it was a big play. We just wanted to make the right play. Yeah, the play that was scary is at the end, you have one -- what, do we have 1.4 seconds or something like that? If you don't throw that ball inbounds and they get it baseline out of bounds, that was the most difficult decision. Q. Coach, Hankins, it seemed like for a while you didn't have an answer for him. JAY WRIGHT: The whole game we didn't have an answer. Q. What did you do to finally get him? JAY WRIGHT: He's so long. They do a great job of throwing it up over the top to him. He's really got extension on the shot. We just try to keep Dhamir on him as much as we could and try to pressure the passers. That's why at the end, Welage got to the rim because we were up pressuring him so much, play went right by us. It's just a constant cat and mouse game, trying to pressure passers, trying to keep moving on him. They're very well coached on how to feed the post. Most teams aren't good at that anymore. They're really good at that. Q. Coach, what elements do you take from a game like today and playing in a championship game tomorrow that go right into next week and the week after? JAY WRIGHT: There's pressure in these games here, and there's intensity in these games here at the Garden that's like nowhere else. Believe it or not, sometimes when you go to a first round NCAA game after playing here in a championship game, it's actually a downer, and that has affected us in the past. The intensity and the environment in the Garden is far more than an early NCAA Tournament game. I worry more about that, after you play in this, you get in a first round game. It's quiet. It's in the middle of the day, and you were just in the greatest environment in basketball ever. That's my concern about playing in games like this. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports   |
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