NCAA MEN'S BASKETBALL CHAMPIONSHIP: FIRST ROUND - WINTHROP VS VILLANOVA

March 19, 2021

Jay Wright

Indiana Farmers Coliseum

Villanova Wildcats

Postgame Media Conference

Villanova - 73, Winthrop - 63

JAY WRIGHT: I want to first congratulate Winthrop and Pat. He does a great job with that team. They are very, very talented, very disciplined and well coached. That was a good win for us against a very good team.

And I was proud of our guys. Really good defensive effort. They're an outstanding offensive team. They play with great pace. They shoot it well.

I thought our defense was the key to the game. And then offensively Jeremiah was great. And not just scoring, but he hit six assists. He really allowed us to run the offense through him.

Q. How were you able to control the tempo? They like to go up and down the court. What did you do to neutralize them?

JAY WRIGHT: I think we did a good job in our transition defense. They get the ball up quick. We got matched up really quick. And did a good job on Vaudrin, who's an outstanding player.

It's first getting matched up, and then getting on Vaudrin and keeping it in front of us.

Q. (Indiscernible) foul trouble, fouled out in the second half. Talk about that.

JAY WRIGHT: Burns is a problem. He's a really talented player. And you know he can pass it out of there too.

I think really the best thing we did is we didn't do a great job stopping him, but Jeremiah went at him, and getting him in foul trouble was probably the best way to stop him. Because when he got the ball, we couldn't do much with him.

Q. (Indiscernible) going into halftime, how important was that?

JAY WRIGHT: Little things in games make a difference. I thought that closing out the half, Cole Swider hitting a three and us getting a stop on their last position was really important.

Q. And in the second half Bryan Antoine came in the game, hit a couple threes. Tell us about his contribution.

JAY WRIGHT: Bryan has really been coming along. He's healthy finally. He's been able to practice. He knows what we're doing. And he's a talented kid.

Defensively in the first half he was really good actually. But in the second half, he hit some huge threes, and he did a great job handling the ball against the press and some big free throws.

Q. Caleb Daniels and Jermaine made some key baskets there at times where points were hard to come by in the second half.

JAY WRIGHT: Yeah, really proud of Jermaine and Caleb. Both of them have the ability to get their own shot, which against a really smart defensive team like Winthrop, you have to do that. You run your offense, you don't get much out of it, but guys got to go make a play. There were times in the second half where Caleb and Jermaine both on their own took it and made great plays.

Q. There were other upsets today. I know you don't focus on those things, but just kind that atmosphere, people talking about Winthrop --

JAY WRIGHT: If I was doing a bracket and I looked at this game, them 23 and 1, they having five or six guys with either seniors or fifth-year seniors, very well coached, they play a fast tempo, we're kind of come into this limping, I would have probably picked them.

And it could have gone either way. They're a great team.

So you definitely know when you're playing these teams, as a coach you know how good these teams are. What's tough sometimes is players that are young, they don't know. And I was proud of our guys really respecting Winthrop.

And I think our assistant coach, George Halcovage, did a great job scouting, like showing our guys how good they were. And I think our guys really respected them.

Q. Practice served you well.

JAY WRIGHT: Yeah, you know, it was great. I'd rather win in the Big East Tournament, but we had to give Justin a couple days off, but we got three or four days of practice with Justin Moore being able to practice with us.

It was one thing not having Collin, but Justin wasn't playing with us either. Getting him back really helped us. I thought we looked a lot more organized. Still we'd love to have Collin, but I thought we looked more organized. Justin Moore did a great job. So did Chris Arcidiacono.

Q. Look ahead, North Texas, what happens next? How do you recoup and recover?

JAY WRIGHT: Well, I watched as much as I could of the North Texas game before we start getting ready here, and, man, are they talented. They're perimeter guys are really talented. They're an outstanding defensive team.

But they've got a lot of guys that can break you down individually. They find the right matchups. I didn't get to see the end of the game, how they closed it out. But I also saw they offensive rebounded extremely well. So going to give us a lot of problems.

But kind of similar to Winthrop. I have to watch more to know. But we'll rest up. Most important thing is to be fresh and to really get dialed in on their personnel.

Q. One final quote on Jeremiah's performance tonight.

JAY WRIGHT: Jeremiah is just growing and growing as a player. He just gets better every day. It's a shame he didn't have the summer with us, and we didn't have the spring or summer, because he loves to work and improve.

You can see he's just getting better every day. His ability to defend on the perimeter tonight was also important. He guarded Burns inside. But he was also matched up on Vaudrin sometimes, had a couple blocked shots on him, and Vaudrin is a really tough cover.

Q. What was the key to stopping, holding Vaudrin in check?

JAY WRIGHT: There was a couple times he got matched up on Chris, some of our smaller guards, and he took advantage of us. When got caught on switches with Jeremiah a lot of times and Jermaine, they did a pretty good job on him. As much as you can. He still is really effective. He's a heck of a player.