NCAA MEN'S BASKETBALL CHAMPIONSHIP: REGIONAL FINAL - HOUSTON VS VILLANOVA

March 26, 2022

Collin Gillespie

Caleb Daniels

Jay Wright

AT&T Center

Villanova Wildcats

Elite 8 Media Conference

Villanova - 50, Houston - 44

THE MODERATOR: We're joined by Villanova coach Jay Wright, and Villanova student-athletes Collin Gillespie, Caleb Daniels.

Q. For Collin and Jay. After Houston got it down to 42-40, Collin, you hit a pullup for your only basket of the game, and you waved off -- I forget which teammate of yours. Was that the design play coming out of the huddle? Was that an in the moment decision you made, Collin? How did that play out?

COLLIN GILLESPIE: It was Jermaine -- it was an in the moment decision. They were soft blitzing me basically the whole game. That time they just happened to switch. So I wanted Jermaine to go down into the post. I had a mismatch, so I wanted to attack it and either get somebody else a shot or give myself a shot. Then Jermaine had a guard on him so he could rebound.

Q. Jay, first of all, two questions for you. One, can you just talk about the way your veteran players handled the rush that Houston had late in the second half? And secondly, how does it feel to go back to the Final Four?

JAY WRIGHT: I was proud of our guys, David. Having experienced guys playing in that environment like a true road game, them making a run, a really, really good team that you know can get on runs, and for them to keep their composure and get a couple stops, hit big shots like Collin did, having veteran players is the key to that, guys that have been in that moment before.

It feels great, man. It feels great to be going back to the Final Four. It never gets old. It is a dream of every player and coach in college basketball. It's the ultimate. We're going to enjoy this. Tonight and tomorrow we're going to enjoy this. We're going to rest up, and then we're going to get to work. We get to keep playing. That's what we enjoy the most.

Q. Coach Wright specifically, you guys have won, haven't lost a tournament game in Texas going back to 2016. What do you say is your team's biggest success coming to this region?

JAY WRIGHT: I think barbecue. I think we like barbecue. We love Texas. We really do. It's always nice weather when we come down here. People are so friendly. I don't know what to tell you. I don't know what it is, man. We have played some great games down here against some really good teams, and we've come out on top.

When we got here, from the police officers to the people in the hotel, everybody welcomed us back like we were locals. We felt very comfortable.

Q. Jay, what couldn't you do to win this game? What did you have to stay away from to win this game?

JAY WRIGHT: We couldn't get Justin or Collin in ball screens. They just took it away. We couldn't get Justin and Collin in post-ups. They took it away. It was hard to even get them back door cuts. They are a great defensive team, great defensive team.

They took away our two leading scorers, and other guys had to step up.

Q. Jay, a lot of programs track floor burns and deflections. Do you guys track pump fakes?

JAY WRIGHT: We don't. We really don't. We don't chart them, but we try to teach the guys how to use them and when to use them, and we do -- when we watch film, we look for opportunities.

You know what, we probably should. We probably should.

Q. And how much of that was the emphasis, you know, not pivoting but pump faking and kind of using their doubles against them a little bit?

JAY WRIGHT: Well, if a team's really athletic like that, you've got to be smart, and a lot of times it happens when Jermaine drives the ball and you know they're going for a blocked shot. If you're going to go up and try to dunk it over them, you can, but you're probably not going to come up with a good percentage of success. So you just have to be smart.

It's not something that a coach can tell you when to do it, you've got to have a feel. That's why I have experienced veteran players. Jermaine's got a great feel for that. Collin's got a great feel. Caleb, that's one of the things he's actually had to learn here, and he's starting to get really good at it.

Q. How severe is Justin's injury?

JAY WRIGHT: X-ray was fine, no broken bones. Probably not good for Justin. Like we're going to get an MRI when we get back. Probably not good.

Q. For Jermaine and Caleb, how difficult was it inside getting rebounds? Just kind of describe what it was like every time you tried to go grab one of those boards?

CALEB DANIELS: I felt like, it was like playing against our own selves. They were just as physical as we were. It was a literal street fight, every possession trying to get a rebound.

JERMAINE SAMUELS: One thing that's a credit to Houston is their timing is insane. I don't know how to describe it, how to put it in words. Every time they put the ball up on the glass, somehow, some way the ball just finds their hands. Whether it's knocking it loose, whether it's tapping it back.

They're just a great offensive and defensive rebounding team. We were fortunate enough to come up with some of those rebounds and make plays for each other.

Q. For any one of the three players, how was the mindset and the ability to keep the game on your side despite shooting 28 percent?

COLLIN GILLESPIE: I think it's something that we work on every day in practice. Our other guys, the younger guys, the white team that we go against, they prepare us each and every day. They help us get better. Normally in practice we're getting calls called against us to prepare us for moments where the other team might go on a run or we might not get a call.

We just have to stick together and say attitude. That's what we pride ourselves on, just playing hard for 40 minutes. No matter what's happening during the game, just staying into each other and just saying next play, attitude. That's really what we talk about in the huddle when they went on a little run.

Q. Collin, yesterday Coach said that he expected you guys to take a little smack in the mouth to start the game because that's how Houston usually comes out. You guys kind of landed the first punch today. Was that kind of a point of emphasis amongst you guys going into the game that you didn't want to have to be the ones to react, you wanted to kind of land the first punch?

COLLIN GILLESPIE: Yeah, we knew it was going to be a battle. They're well coached, and they play super hard on every possession, like Jermaine and Caleb were talking about. They go to the glass on both ends of the floor. They play extremely hard. That's something we talk about every time we step on the floor is make sure we're playing hard and we're competing on every possession. We take pride in that. Just making sure we play Villanova basketball every time we step on the floor.

Q. Collin, during your celebration when the final buzzer sounded, you flipped the ball towards the backboard and celebrated and made a beeline for your teammate, Justin. What was going through your mind during that celebration?

COLLIN GILLESPIE: Just to try and cheer him up. I've been in that position before. I know what it feels like. We don't know what the injury is yet. He still has to get checked. I don't ever want to see him by himself. He's done so much for this team, always guards the best player, is one of our best offensive players, and will do anything for any one of our guys on either end of the floor.

A lot of our guys ran right over to him because we're not in the position that we are without him. So we just wanted to go over to him and just appreciate what he does for us and know that we got his back.

Q. Jermaine and Collin, now you get to go to a Final Four as the leaders. Talk about the difference about being in this position now with the experience you have, and Jermaine especially, you didn't have much time in that Final Four.

JERMAINE SAMUELS: Yeah, I've been saying, it's probably getting old now, but it's crazy how things have come full circle. I'm extremely appreciative. Back then it was amazing to watch those guys from the sidelines. I had front row tickets to some of the greatest Villanova basketball players to ever put on the jersey. You take all those experiences with you, and you try to emulate them and be them and do the things they do and put the work in like they put in, and just pray that it works out for you.

Now I'm just extremely grateful to be in the position to compete and play another game.

COLLIN GILLESPIE: Like Jermaine said, those guys taught us a lot. They're a big reason, they're a big part of the reason that we are the way that we are today, and we learned a ton from those guys. Now we play for those guys. Those guys came before us, and they taught us how to play Villanova basketball and what it means to wear a Villanova jersey. So it definitely did come full circle. Now we're just trying to maintain that and pass it down to our younger guys and keep playing for the guys who came before us.

Q. Jermaine, can you speak to your emotions after Justin's injury? What do you feel like he means to your team?

JERMAINE SAMUELS: Originally I didn't know what had happened. I still don't know what's necessarily going on, but I knew something wasn't right. It kind of gave me a flashback to when the same thing happened to Collin last year, where it was like a numb type of feeling.

Things happen. It's part of the game. We were just grateful, I was just grateful to be able to celebrate with these guys, get the victory in a tough environment and be able to do it for him.

Q. Collin, first half you weren't forcing the action. You were moving the ball around. You only took one shot. Was that all what their defense was giving? Was that what you thought you'd do in the first half? Did your own physical condition play into it at all?

COLLIN GILLESPIE: They did a really good job of pressuring the ball and blitzing ball screens. Whenever we got in the post, they blitzed a little bit as well. They definitely took away some things that normally we're used to getting. I was just trying to make the right play. More times than not, it was giving the ball up, letting somebody else make the play or make the decision because they were soft blitzing me.

I've got a lot of confidence in the rest of my teammates, and they put a lot of work in, and we work on that stuff every day. Yeah, I was just trying to make the right play and give it up to those guys.

Q. Caleb, just talk about the defense. They shoot 1 of 20 from three. Basically, they were missing shots, but were you all doing anything to pressure them?

CALEB DANIELS: I would just say it's just us being connected defensively. We're not going to be perfect defensively, but we're together. I think that's the beautiful part about our program and what we do.

Obviously, it wasn't perfect. They would miss some shots. We kind of messed up our coverages a little bit, but we stepped up for one another. We were defending and rebounding hard for 40 minutes, and that's all we can ask for.

Q. Kelvin earlier said that was two great cultures out there tonight. From your standpoint, the culture that you guys have had, how does that translate to your ability to execute what you want to do late in these close games because it seems like you guys do that a lot in March.

JAY WRIGHT: I hope part of our culture is humility, and at the end of the game, I think Mike was asking Collin, we realized that they were taking him out of it. They just weren't going to let him score. So he didn't have to prove that he could make the big shots. He could get shots for his teammates, and that comes with humility. If you're arrogant and you feel like you've got to show what you can do, then maybe you don't make good decisions.

Then some intelligence. We try to teach them how to be intelligent players and make the right decisions at the end of games. But I think the humility has got to come first.

Q. 28 percent from the field, Coach. Has there ever been a game won so ugly? I know you think about no such thing as an ugly win. Did you break it down in the last two minutes, three minutes about, hey, it's going to be a make a shot game or stop a shot game at that point? What were you thinking? What was the whole process?

JAY WRIGHT: We didn't talk about it just at the end. You just knew watching this team defensively, like you weren't going to come out and just outscore them. You were going to have to shut them down, prevent them from getting to the offensive glass.

We really weren't talking as much at the end about how we were going to score. We were talking about how we were going to stop them. It's not just that they're very physical and very quick and athletic, but they have great schemes. Kelvin's got them really dialed into personnel and to the plays you're running. We were calling our plays, and I would hear him yelling to them the play, they knew it.

So you know someone's going to have to make a shot, but what you can control is trying to get stops yourself.

Q. How did you and the players kind of, if you did, manage the environment? That was not a typical East Regional final game. It was fairly pro Houston, and it got loud, and every time it got loud, you guys pushed back. How did you manage that aspect of it?

JAY WRIGHT: I think our season really helped us. You never know when you make a schedule. I think I said to you guys earlier there was a point in the middle of the season when we went to Baylor, went to Creighton, and I thought maybe we overdid it a little bit with the schedule, playing at UCLA, at Baylor. We have our Big Five games on the road.

When we went to Creighton, it's 20,000. Everywhere we go in our conference, it's sold out, and I think our guys get used to that. We talk about that. Being able to control what we can control. I think you heard Caleb or Collin was talking about, we can't get caught up in emotion. We've got to stick together, and we've got to talk to each other about sticking together, and I thought the guys did a great job of that.

Q. Jay, each of these Final Four teams has kind of had an identity. Just in your mind, what's the identity that differentiates this one?

JAY WRIGHT: I want to give you a good question, but I don't know if I've figured that out because we keep trying to grow and keep getting better.

I think that's the part with this group. I think they're getting better every day. Guys are getting -- like Caleb's really coming along. Jermaine's still getting better. Eric Dixon's getting better. And guys keep improving. And I think Brandon Slater can keep getting better, and that's what we've got to do this week. We've got to get better this week.

THE MODERATOR: Thank you for your time, Coach, and congratulations.