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

March 18, 2022

Martin Ingelsby

Kevin Anderson

Jyare Davis

PPG Paints Arena

Delaware Blue Hens

Media Conference

Villanova - 80, Delaware - 60

MODERATOR: We'll start with an opening statement from coach from Delaware and go into questions for the student-athletes. With that, Coach Ingelsby, if you want to start with an opening statement.

MARTIN INGELSBY: Sure. Finality of this always stinks. I'm super, super proud of our group and how we competed. We battled. We got after it. I thought we got off to a really, really good start in the first half and put a little scare in them.

I think the end of first half and early part of the second half they were able to really extend that lead, and we were batting uphill from there.

So they're a really talented basketball team, I think played really well, they shot the ball well, and they made 13 threes. I think that was the difference in the game.

MODERATOR: Questions for student-athletes.

Q. Kevin, you had a seven-point lead, things were going pretty well. Obviously it's very early. But could you appreciate that moment at all? Could you feel that excitement of getting off to a good start on a big stage like that?

KEVIN ANDERSON: I'm pretty sure we appreciated it, but as soon as we started appreciating it, they started hitting threes. So we couldn't appreciate it for too long.

Q. Kevin, just to follow up, what makes those guys so difficult to defend? You guys did a really good job at the get-go making them work for three-point shots. But once they found their groove, it was really hard to stop them. What makes it so tough?

KEVIN ANDERSON: That's a really good team. Whenever you make a mistake, they capitalize on it. And we kept saying that. Playing against them, you gotta to be close to perfect on defense because as soon as you make a mistake, they're going to see it and take advantage of it. And that's what they were doing.

Q. Past month and a half, two months, you've just been playing outstanding basketball. You won Most Outstanding Player in the tournament and Rookie of the Year, and now you led the way with scoring today. What have you learned this year, especially these last two months and transferring from Providence, and having such a great role in this team?

JYARE DAVIS: I learned a lot. Definitely know how I'm being used by my team, by my coaches. It's an honor to be with those guys every day, and it's really an honor that my coaches and teammates believe in me to perform for them.

Q. Jyare, early in the game, did you guys have visions of "wow, we can do this" dancing in your head? Is that kind of going on early in the game like that when you have a lead and you have a team like them on the ropes a little bit, as early as it is?

JYARE DAVIS: Absolutely. Definitely we have a competitive group of guys. And we were playing the Golden State Warriors, I think everybody would believe in ourselves and believe in us winning.

So definitely going into the game we expected to win, and throughout the whole game expected to win, but we came up short.

Q. Just talk about the defense Villanova did and that first half to slow you guys down after you guys got off to the hot start, especially the defense?

KEVIN ANDERSON: I would say their switching got us a little stagnant offensively. But I also think it was just on us really, like we were missing a lot of open shots and a lot of shots we usually make.

Q. What do you guys take from this game for next year to learn from playing in this game today?

KEVIN ANDERSON: I mean, I won't be here next year.

JYARE DAVIS: Obviously, I think we all saw level of intensity that we had these last weeks of practices as we went on our run winning games.

And I think that next season we'll have that same sense of urgency throughout the year, since we know what it's like to get here, and we'll have a group of guys that are hungry to get back here and win some games here.

Q. Jyare, what sets Villanova apart? What makes them different from other teams that you've encountered in your career?

JYARE DAVIS: They play really hard. They're very disciplined. They're a very connected group. You make mistakes, they definitely capitalize. And some of our mistakes, they capitalized on, and it ended up biting us in the end.

Q. Kevin, when you checked out of the game for the final time, you took a while going down the line, hugging people. What were the emotions going on in that moment? And is there anything in particular you're going to remember about your time at Delaware?

KEVIN ANDERSON: After the game, I was just hugging everybody, it was just hitting me, like, wow, it's really over. I feel like my past five years I really matured, especially with the coaching staff. I matured as man, and they helped me. And I appreciate them so much for that.

And with the guys this year, I was telling them on the bench, this is like the first time in a long time where I felt like the team was a real actual family and we stuck together no matter what, ups and downs throughout the year.

One thing I will miss about being at Delaware, I mean, just being with the team and just having the support that we have.

Q. A lot of people always overlook different conferences, obviously powerhouse conference. How does playing in your conference help you prepare to play anybody, doesn't matter what region they're in?

JYARE DAVIS: At the end of the day, it's going to be five players on the court. They practice, we practice. So we go into every game to compete, and I think we did that today. We have good teams in our conference. There's good teams in those Power Five conferences too.

And I believe our group can compete with teams like that, and I think we showed that in different parts the game today even though we came up short.

Q. In this day and age, not always easy to keep teams together from year to year. Obviously you're done, but do you hope this group stays together, kind of fulfills some of their potential that you saw this year?

KEVIN ANDERSON: Yeah, I really do hope they stay together because even though we're losing five guys, we still have a bunch of key guys that really didn't get to play this year and are really, really good.

So I feel like if they stay together, they can make an even deeper run than we did this year.

Q. Jyare, along those same lines, you've got three years left, Andrew's got three years left, Jameer's got a couple years left. I know it's way too early to be thinking about next year, but just how excited are you for the potential you guys have to build off what you've done the last couple weeks?

JYARE DAVIS: I'm extremely excited. When I came back here to Delaware, I said I wanted to help do something special for the state of Delaware, for the University of Delaware. I think we're really just getting started here. I hope I can do more to help raise Delaware, put us all on the map and come back here next year and win some games.

MODERATOR: Thank you, gentlemen. Questions for Coach Ingelsby, please.

Q. Martin, you're obviously really familiar with the history of basketball in Philadelphia. Can you put into context for everybody what Jay has done with that program and where they're at? I get the sense from listening to you, you didn't think your team played badly at all, and it's still a fairly sizeable margin.

MARTIN INGELSBY: Yeah, I mean, they're really, really good. I think I told somebody the other day, when I got the job at the University of Delaware, Villanova has been the best basketball program in college basketball. They won it in, I think, '15, '16. They won it again two years later. They've been the model program. It hasn't been Duke, it hasn't been Kentucky, it hasn't been North Carolina, and it hasn't been Kansas. It's been Villanova.

And as I've built my program, I've tried to model how we do things very similar to how Jay has run his program. And, again, they're really, really good. They put so much pressure on you on the offensive end with their ability to shoot the basketball. And they made 13 threes, but they had four guys that made two or more.

And then they're so connected defensively. They're tough, they're physical, they know who they are, they're selfless.

I could go on and on about how they play and how they do things. I think they're one of the three to five best teams in college basketball. So Jay has built an elite, elite basketball program, and I think they're -- they're at the pedestal.

It's them that you aspire -- there's a lot of teams in the country that want to be like Villanova basketball, and he has built that with a lot of hard work, some really, really good players. And they've got it to a point now, it's kind of a machine.

Q. Martin, a lot of teams -- not a lot, but a good number of teams in this situation come out and, you know, the bright lights, big stage, that first ten minutes can be tough. Your guys looked pretty comfortable out there. What does it say about this group?

MARTIN INGELSBY: Yeah, I mean, they were ready to compete. This group became very confident coming off all we did in D.C., and they really believe that they could compete on a big stage against Villanova.

And we got off to a good start. I thought we executed our game plan. Our preparation was fabulous. And we didn't shoot the ball well from the 3-point line. I think that was an area -- against a team like that, you're gonna have to be able to make a couple threes.

I thought we had some good looks. We took some quick ones, but we were battling on the defensive end and limiting them to one shot. And then that last two or three minutes of the first half, into the start of second half, they were able to get separation. And then they can swallow you up on the defensive end with their size and -- positional size and physicality.

But, again, the finality of this is really hard, but I couldn't be more proud of our group for how they competed, how they dug in, and they never gave up for 40 minutes. They left it all out there.

And it wasn't an easy second half for us, but it could have got away from us in a hurry, but they kept fighting and kept battling and kept believing in each other.

Q. Martin, I'm kind of bouncing off Andy's question a little bit. You did answer it partially. But coming into the game in your preparation, did you guys look at the 3-point line as that could be the do-or-die spot, they could really, really get us from there, if you guys don't have a good day yourselves from there? And it kind of turned out that way.

MARTIN INGELSBY: Yeah, I mean, it's easier said than done to take away the 3-point line against them. This is a team that took 50 threes in a college basketball game this year against Syracuse. That was one of the keys for us.

But I thought we did a really good job guarding for 25 seconds, and then they made some very timely threes. Gillespie makes a step-back one, Daniels had one that bounced in, hit the front of the rim and bounced in at the end of the first half.

And then we had a couple breakdowns, and they make you pay. You want to do a really good job guarding the line and trying to take it away. Again, and it's a lot easier said than done. And that was a big emphasize of ours. We didn't do a good enough job to keep kind of us in the game.

Q. Can you talk some about what it meant to get Dylan and all the seniors here to this stage, to get the championship last week, but to this stage at the NCAA Tournament?

MARTIN INGELSBY: Yeah, and that's why they came back. All credit to them. They worked so hard. It took us on an unbelievable journey throughout the season. I told them after the game, they're all gonna graduate from here as champions, and they can never take that away from us. And they're going to be able to hang a banner, they're gonna have a ring.

They moved our program forward. I think they raised the bar for Delaware basketball on a big stage. And we're disappointed we didn't get this, but I think there's so much that we can take away from this experience for our team, for those guys, for Delaware basketball moving forward.

And I can't thank them enough for everything they've done to our program. It was an honor to coach those guys. Every day they came ready to compete, they were proud to represent the University of Delaware in everything that they did.

And we'll have some time to reflect on this, and hopefully I can go out and buy them a beer sometime soon and enjoy that moment with them.

Q. Obviously those three guys -- you just touched on this a little bit -- but they decided to come back, and you guys won the CAA. What were the emotions like when you took them out of the game for the final time and you talked to them in the locker room?

MARTIN INGELSBY: I just thanked them. I told them I love them. Kevin and Ryan have been with me since day one. They've helped build this program to what it is now. And I'll never forget that.

And, again, our coaching staff, the investment we made in them as student-athletes, they paid it back to us, and they've been fabulous representatives of this university.

And it's going to be hard looking down at practice or skill work in the spring and not seeing Kevin and Ryan there because they've been such a big part of what we've been able to build.

And then Dylan came halfway through it, and there's no better teammate, there's no better worker, no better representative of our university than Dylan Painter.

And I'm excited to see what the future holds for all three of those guys. I think basketball is in the future. But at the end of day, they're going to graduate from Delaware and they're going to be champions.

MODERATOR: Thank you, Coach.

MARTIN INGELSBY: Thanks, guys.