NCAA MEN'S BASKETBALL CHAMPIONSHIP - FINAL FOUR: VILLANOVA VS KANSAS

March 31, 2022

Jay Wright

Caesars Superdome

Villanova Wildcats

Semi-Finals Media Conference

THE MODERATOR: We're joined by Villanova head coach Jay Wright.

COACH WRIGHT: Hello, everybody. Good to see the Philly locals here and everyone else.

We're obviously thrilled like everyone to be a part of the Final Four, especially being here in New Orleans, one of my favorite Final Four towns as an assistant coach and a head coach going to the coaching conventions. Never been here as part of a Final Four as a team. We're fired up about that.

We've had good practices. I think we're starting to get comfortable without Justin. We miss Justin Moore. He'll join us down here on Saturday. But we are preparing for a great Kansas team that has proven themselves all season in every situation.

They're going to be one of the fastest, quickest teams we've played against. And always a Bill Self team is incredibly intelligent defensively and tough and we know we're going to have to be smart offensively against them.

Q. Is there a player or two that you must stop for your team to be successful against Kansas? Can you mention a few more things that are consistent with a Bill Self team?

COACH WRIGHT: If you look at inside/outside you have to say Agbaji and McCormack. The beauty of their team you've got Remy coming off the bench and is as high powered as anybody right now. So you can go through any of the positions.

And I love Wilson, how he plays. He reminds me of like a bigger Josh Hart, which is nice unless you're playing against him. When you see that it's, like, wow, Josh Hart but bigger, and that's pretty cool except we've got to play against that guy.

And so I think the strength of their team is in their balance inside/outside; Braun, great shooter and driver.

And if you talk about the consistencies of Bill Self team, I would have to say they always play hard. They're always outstanding defensively, always very intelligent. And they're great in after-timeout situations, end-of-game situations, the sign of all well-coached teams.

Q. Your guards, the way they post up, is relatively unconventional. How much of an equalizer is it going against a team like Kansas when you're undermanned?

COACH WRIGHT: You hope it is. You hope it's something that can be effective. We've actually had games, the Houston game was one of them where we couldn't do it because their defensive scheme. We do have to have other answers to that.

I think we get a lot of credit for that. It's just a part of what we do. We can be successful without it. But it's something that we like to use.

One of the things about Kansas that concerns us is if you look at Braun, Agbaji, those guys, and even Harris, they play with length and size. And they always have a Lightfoot or McCormack around the basket to protect the basket. That's going to be difficult. So we're going to have to be creative in finding ways to get our guards down there. If we can it's going to be good for us. If we can't, we have to have other answers.

Q. When you look at Caleb's journey to school, through everything he's been through, what's it been like to watch his journey and get to see him in his hometown, get to be able to play in the Final Four?

COACH WRIGHT: There's a lot of great feelings about coming to the Final Four. But watching and experiencing Caleb come back home and playing the best basketball of his career is really heartwarming for me. He's been through everything. He's got COVID twice. He had myocarditis. All the things we feared that you test for, that you worry about young athletes getting, he got it.

He was out. He was literally out from September, I mean from April to September, he couldn't do anything. Nothing. He couldn't even shoot free throws.

And then he comes back this year and he gets COVID again. And he's missed so much. And to see him playing at the level he is right now, and to be back home in New Orleans is awesome.

What's been so impressive is I think it's his faith and his mental toughness. It never -- you never saw him down. You never saw it, even when he was coming back from injuries and stuff, you didn't see him frustrated. It's incredible. And it's why he's in the position he is in now. And as I said he's playing the best basketball of his career.

Q. First about Maalik Wayns, I'm curious what does it mean for you to you have him be at a Final Four, and for a former star point guard to be doing really sort of menial stuff, do you explain that to him in advance? And the other part is about Cosby-Roundtree, have you noticed him grab a mop and do (indiscernible) duty during timeout? What's his role on this team and what does it mean to you?

COACH WRIGHT: Maalik Wayns is a great story for us. It's what our program is all about. He was a great player here. Went on, had a great professional career in the NBA and in Europe. And then he was one year from his degree. And he came back. And he was a great student while he was here. Just after his junior year went to the NBA.

So he just had one year to complete. And he came back. And I just said to him when we were doing our Wildcat Walk while we were at the bus, he and I were at the back of the line. I said look at this, how about you going to a Final Four as a coach? Who would have ever thought you would have impacted a team as a coach? Because he was a little bit of a hard head as a player, in a good way. It's what made him good but you wouldn't have thought he was going to be a coach.

But to see him come back and go to class -- like he joked with me one day, he's like, I just came back from class; I'm 30 years old and sitting next to Jalen Brunson's sister in class.

And the humility and the intelligence for him to go through that, and it's such an impact on our players, because they know he's such a great player. They know he played in the NBA. He brings great wisdom to them every day.

So it's really a big part of our program's pride to have a guy like that coming back, finishing his degree, being a coach, impacting the team, doing all the little things he's got to do.

Like you'll see him sometimes when we get off a plane and we're getting the stuff, the bags from the plane, he's helping the managers carry the bags from the plane to the bus. And every once in a while I'll say to our guys, that guy played in the NBA. Look at his humility. Look at what he's doing for our team.

And Dhamir Cosby-Roundtree, he's the same way. He can't go five days in a row, but he'll give us, in practice, two, three days where he can go against Eric Dixon and he'll take Eric Dixon all the time by himself, work with Eric Dixon. And he'll walk through it on the scout team.

So on day of the games, our scout team, if we eat breakfast at 8:00, our scout team is down there at 7.00 a.m. going through the stuff. He's down there doing it. As a fifth-year senior. He does all the little things and he's still a great leader on this team.

Q. Your two guys, Caleb and Collin were asked about one-on-one game they played when Caleb was visiting. And I guess it was pretty competitive. And Caleb was actually up 13-0 until Collin realized, wow, this kid's pretty good. I need to come back against him. What are your thoughts hearing that? Speak to Collin's competitive fire, I guess.

COACH WRIGHT: That's funny. I didn't know that. I could see a game, if you gave Caleb the ball first, especially at that time in his career, I could see a game where he could go up 13-0 because he's explosive and incredible offensively. At that time, when he came in, I can't see him stopping Collin in many possessions, to be honest with you.

But it's funny to hear that because I can just picture that and I can see Collin saying, all right, this is it. I've got to win this. I've got to find a way to win this.

His competitiveness would allow him to do that. Whether we get this recruit or not he might not like me, but I'm going to find a way to win. Did Collin win the game? Did he say?

I'd like to see them do it now because Caleb has learned a lot and he's bigger and stronger. But that's a great story. And about where those guys were at that time, Caleb came in, incredibly skilled offensively, not really a refined defensive player, I would say. And Collin was a competitor and was probably thinking I've got to hold up the Villanova reputation here. I can't let a guy come in from the outside and beat us.

Q. Can you take us back to what point did putting your guards in the post become a priority? And I guess over the years, how do you teach that? And how do players build up the skill? What sort of work do they do?

COACH WRIGHT: I should probably look back. In my mind -- I might not be right about this, because I steal everything, and a lot of the stuff we do comes from our players -- I remember that Ryan Arcidiacono was good in the post, so we started posting him up. That's what I remember. We started posting him up.

And Jalen Brunson -- so we saw he had a strong lower body, and he was really tough in there and he had great footwork. So we started using him in there.

Then we started using Josh Hart in there as a guard. And in that season, that was the -- it was probably around '15, we started to use that. Jalen came in in '16 and would go against Arch in there. And when they would go against each other they were both pretty good.

But then after Arch left and we started using Jalen more, Jalen took it to a whole nuther level, how to get into the post. Jalen was posting up bigger guys. Sometimes if they would switch and put the 5 man on Jalen he'd post him up.

Then we started taking all the things that Jalen and Arch did, putting them in drills and playing a lot of one-on-one with our guards in the post drills, and seeing of the guards that came in who was good at it and who wasn't.

And now Collin got his butt kicked by Jalen in there all the time and started to get really good at it. So over the years we've just found -- some guys aren't that good at it, and it's okay. But we'd still do drills to try to teach every one of them to be good at it.

Q. Kevin Durant question. Did he text you about Justin? And can you take us through that? And did Justin get back to you about what that meant to him?

COACH WRIGHT: I called Sean Ford at USA Basketball to get Kevin's number. And Kevin, I texted Kevin. He called me. And Kevin said, I was watching that and it looked just like -- I knew it when he went down it looked just like mine. So we talked for a while about it.

And what was so impressive to me was he said, I'd like to talk to him, talk to the parents about the process. I want to tell him that -- he listed himself, Klay Thompson, a couple other guys, I can't remember -- he goes, look, these guys had it in the NBA. And people in the NBA know now that you can come back from that.

He said earlier, before me, when that happened to you, NBA people thought you were done. But so many people have come back from that now, I want him to know that he's not done and NBA people know that, too.

We talked about the process coming back. He said I'll explain it to him. Anytime through his process he wants to use me, I'll do it for him. So I said great. And I gave him Justin's number and he Facetimed Justin. And they had a great talk. Justin said it was really comforting to know and to know that he's got him as kind of an advisor on his way through this.

Q. Does it mean anything to you to be here with Kansas, Duke, North Carolina, three of the most historic programs in college basketball history? Jermaine was saying, growing up, seems like every Final Four has one of those teams. And do you feel like you've kind of put your program on the track to be one of those teams for future generations?

COACH WRIGHT: To answer your first question, do I feel anything about being here with them, hell yeah. We have great respect for them. We have great respect for their tradition, their history and for the teams that they are right now. And we watch these teams. These are obviously the three best teams that are playing the best basketball right now. That's what the tournament is, right? We all know that. It's like who is playing the best basketball right now?

And we never aspire to be one of those programs. As a matter of fact, we fight the urge to try to be like them because we're just so different. We just try to be the best Villanova we can be. But when people on the outside connect us to them or count us as part of their legacy and tradition, we love it because we have so much respect for them.

Q. The 2018 matchup is remembered by Jayhawk fans as 18 and 2018, the two were draining, a record-setting pace. Obviously different cast of characters but similarities and differences in your team this year? And might be more difficult but what's different about Bill Self's team in this matchup?

COACH WRIGHT: I think they're really different teams. It's funny, Kansas fans are so passionate and I'm not in the Big 12, so I hope I'm correct, but they seem so polite. Like I know we've gone out there, we've played and after the game they always tell you, you have a great -- they beat you but they tell you you have a nice team, really good team, good luck.

But even after that, I see them around. They say, wow, that game was amazing. We remember that game. You guys were great.

In our minds, that game -- I don't know if it happens so much when you come to Philadelphia, that's my point. But my recollection of that game was it was just one of those games. We just made -- it was ridiculous. And we've been on the other side of that. I remember looking down at Bill thinking, I've been there. It just so happened in a Final Four game.

It happened to us this year at Baylor, happened to us this year at Creighton. They just made every shot. We made every shot. We don't even count that as -- we were just lucky that happened.

But I do think this year, really different teams. We don't have the firepower that that team had. Kansas is a way faster team and much more explosive and much more perimeter-oriented than that team. So it's almost like we're flip-flopped in terms of what the teams are like. So different.

But I think the things that are the same, those teams, what always impresses us is the intellect defensively and the execution in dead-ball situations is always, coaches get off on that stuff. So it's always impressive when you see that stuff.

I don't know how much players like it. But when coaches are watching other coaches doing it, that's pretty cool. They do good stuff.

Q. I know you play in a lot of arenas and a lot of domes. Is it extra special to come here to what we consider an iconic building to play in this venue this year?

COACH WRIGHT: Absolutely. My wife and I were talking about it this morning. We're, like, it looks so good. Did they knock it down and build another one? No, this is the original. This is the one you see the Super Bowls in and Final Fours in. It is really special playing here.

And like I said, I've been here as an assistant coach, even as a head coach, at Final Fours. This is one of my favorite towns to come to the Final Four -- good restaurants, good music. Usually you're out of it so you're here for a good time. But you're watching games in here.

And to get to play in here is really special. And to say that you played here -- I can't tell you how thrilled I am for Caleb Daniels. He's just one of my favorite people as a player because of everything that he's been through. And he's also a 3.8, 3.9 student. He's incredible. He's the most amazing kid. For him to come back here is really special. For us to be with him, really cool.

Q. You mentioned this a little bit ago about the field here. But Bill said yesterday that KU-Nova feels like the undercard to him, and he said he's great with that. I wonder, does it feel that way with you? And do you share his joy in that?

COACH WRIGHT: You know, when you say it, I get it. Somebody else did say that to me. I'm so worried about Kansas, honest to God. When I get out here, I have to answer the questions, I think about other things. They're so fast, and what's really impressive about them is there's teams that play in transition fast. There's a lot of teams that do that. In their half court offense they cut so fast.

I remember watching a game just on, like, a Big Monday game or something, they were playing Texas Tech, it was the end of the game. It was in Lawrence. And they had to get a 3 and they passed and cut and passed and cut. And I was like, holy, man, I'm glad we don't have to play them. Now here we are.

So I'm not into the -- I don't think about that at all. I'm so into our game.