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NCAA MEN'S 3RD & 4TH ROUND REGIONALS: MINNEAPOLIS

March 26, 2006

MINNEAPOLIS, MINNESOTA

THE MODERATOR: We are joined by Villanova head coach Jay Wright and student athletes Randy Foye and Allan Ray. Coach, if you could make an opening statement.
JAY WRIGHT: I want to first give Florida Gators and their team, coach the credit. They played an outstanding game. I mean, we ran into a team today that played better basketball than us today. I think we, obviously, can play a lot better, can shoot a lot better, but when that happens, usually the other team has a lot to do with that. They were really good.
Joakim Noah was outstanding. We just -- we had a tough time disrupting them because he gave so much balance to them, and just kept them under control. I want to make sure -- I know we have to answer questions, but I want to make sure that our guys and our team feel great about this great season they have had and how I think they got everything out of what they had, and that's all we can ask of them.
We asked these guys to give he is everything they have. This team did. And care about each other, love each other, and they did. So we are going to suck up this hurt a little bit tonight, but I am going to make sure these guys feel real good about themselves. I am going to start working on that right after this.
THE MODERATOR: We will take questions for Randy and Allan.
Q. Randy, Allan, I know it is early for perspective, but can you just talk a little bit about how you are feeling right now and what you feel like you did accomplish in your career here.
RANDY FOYE: Right now it hurts like to know that we are not going to be able to play next week in the Final Four. Not even that, just knowing that when coach has the end-of-the-season meeting and gets ready for the individual work-outs, that the same class is not going to be here.
It is just hurt thinking about that. What we accomplished, I think that we accomplished a lot like in our four-year career here. At the beginning it was a struggle, but these last two years for the senior class and the junior class that they went through with us has been great.
ALLAN RAY: Like Randy said, this is going to hurt for a while, you know. If you look back at the year we had, you know, we can't be disappointed. We had a great year. We did a lot of good things. Just like he said, it just hurts, you know. We are going to look back later on and just look at all the good things we did throughout the year and we went out fighting today.
Q. Allan, you had a number of shots that went in and didn't stay down. Did you feel like you were getting good looks during the game or did they do something defensively to kind of you get you out of your comfort zone?
ALLAN RAY: I got a lot of good looks today. Like you say, a lot of them were in and out. It is part of the game, you know. It just wasn't falling for me today.
Q. Can you guys talk about when you came out, you hugged Coach Wright and had words exchanged. Can you share what you guys said to each other?
RANDY FOYE: I just told Coach Wright "Thanks for the ride, thanks for pushing me these four years for me being the man that I am today." He just told me just keep my head up and keep working hard, and he would always be there for me.
Q. Randy, could you just comment on Noah a little bit, your impressions of him. I noticed you were assigned to guard him at the beginning of the game, just his impact.
RANDY FOYE: His impact to the game is he brings like a ton of energy. He is always running the floor, always on the glass, offensive glass and defensive glass and he is out there. He is the leader. He is always out there talking to the points guard, talking to the point guard, he has to keep his head up. He is like the floor gym for them. He keeps everybody calm on the whole team out there.
Q. Randy, you did have it to 3 with 11:37 to go, you had just scored. In your mind, can you remember about the next three or four minutes what happened? Was it something you were doing that you couldn't do anymore? Did they do something? How do you feel about how it got away from you after that?
RANDY FOYE: After we cut it to 3, it is just like Florida is a great team, like all great teams are left, so we made a move, made a run to cut it to 3. Much credit to Florida, they did what they had to do on the offensive end and defensive end and turn it over and against us.
Q. This is for Randy and Allan. Allan, you said you had some decent looks, but it looked like both of you were working awfully hard for your shots, that you certainly didn't get one right away and you had to work a lot for them. Can both of you talk about that a little bit?
ALLAN RAY: The defense also did a great job. You can't take nothing away from Florida. Every shot was contested, you know. There were very few open looks. Florida did a great job in contesting our shots and make sure that we took tough shots.
RANDY FOYE: Just like Allan said, Florida did a great job finding our shooters, defending the 3-point line. Every time we took a shot, they made sure it was a contested shot.
Q. Allan, can you explain a little bit what happened on that technical foul after Nardi went in for a lay-up?
ALLAN RAY: Just a little pushing and shoving that went on and a couple words were exchanged.
Q. You guys pride yourselves on being able to rebound and stick with bigger teams rebounding. You guys weren't that big on the boards tonight. How do you explain that or account for that?
RANDY FOYE: When you look at the stats, they can make you upset. When you look back, you think what you could have done to change it, but you can't do nothing now because the game is over with. Florida, they are great. They are a great all-around team. Joakim Noah and Horford, they are just great on the glass.
THE MODERATOR: Allan, did you want to add to that?
ALLAN RAY: No.
THE MODERATOR: Questions for the student athletes.
Q. In a game like this you guys want to walk away and feel like you left everything on the floor. Do you leave the court feeling that way?
RANDY FOYE: Yeah, I feel that way. We never gave up. We were fighting to the end. Like he said, a lot of shots didn't fall, had a lot of bad breaks, but we can't blame no one but ourselves. We know we didn't do it. As far as a team, we feel like we left it out on the floor.
ALLAN RAY: Florida, they matched everything we did, you know. We made a run. They came out and stopped it, you know. If we missed a wide-open shot, they came down to score, the transition, they got the stops when they needed to, and they grabbed the big rebounds at the times that they did. Florida just did a great job today.
THE MODERATOR: Anything else for the student athletes? Okay. Randy, Allan, thank you.
Questions for coach.
Q. Coach, can you talk about Florida, obviously, having the four sophomores pretty much played with a lot of poise tonight. Have you seen a team like this this young play as well?
JAY WRIGHT: No, obviously, we have only gotten beat five times. They beat us pretty good. That is a good point, they did play with great composure. I think their team is very unselfish, and I think that adds to playing with composure when it's very obvious no one cares who gets the shots or the credit.
I also think Joakim Noah and even Horford, for big guys, they handle the ball against our pressure. That really helps guards with their composure because it was always an outlet. Anytime our guards got into their guards, it was always an outlet to one of the forwards. They made some more plays. I was very impressed with their composure.
Q. Jay, obviously, it was hard to score in the paint, especially in the first half. I am sure you credit Noah and Horford. What else factored in there?
JAY WRIGHT: I think in the first half we were getting to the rim and we were getting shots inside. Joakim Noah only had three blocked shots at half time, but I think he might have changed maybe five or six shots.
A lot of the plays where Kyle Lowry gets to the rim, fouls or scores, he was -- Joakim is long enough that he could just change his shot without fouling. Even Will Sheridan got in there a couple times, extra passes. You can tell when guys miss shots above the block, when the ball hits above the block, that means they are trying to get it over a shooter. He changed a lot of shots. You have Horford in there, too. They really did a good job of using their length to change shots.
Q. How much can you see frustration level-wise?
JAY WRIGHT: We talked about that at half time. I said he has three blocked shots. Keep taking them. If he blocks them, he blocks them. Don't change shots. That's easy to say as a coach. When you are a player, you know, you go by your instincts. You go to put it up, you see a big guy there, you lost it higher. That's where I think he is good.
I think both of them, there were a number of times in the second half where we drove, drew him, dumped it to Will Sheridan and Jason Fraser, and he recovered and blocked that shot. So he is a unique player. He is -- there is not many like him. I don't remember anybody that good defensively and offensively in the perimeter and the post.
Q. Jay got 73 shots before the game. If you knew you were going to get 73 shots, you have to figure you are going to win this game, right?
JAY WRIGHT: It's what we try to do. We try to get our shooters shots and take care of the basketball. We only had six turnovers. You know, at this point in the season you are playing against great teams. You have your -- you get your small chances. Getting it back to 5 at half time, I thought as poorly as we shot the ball, I thought we couldn't shoot it as poorly in the second half, as was mentioned earlier, and we got it to 3 and I thought, okay, we are not making shots, we are battling, we are at 3. Now we are going to get this.
We had a couple looks. We had an open 3 that went in and out, and we had another break-away that we missed. I think somebody blocked it or changed the shot, and then that was your chance. When you don't get that against a great team, then they got an and-1 and I just -- you know, you only get so many opportunities in a game like this, and we had them and didn't take advantage of them and they closed us out.
Q. Jay, I was wondering if you could talk about the technical and how it seemed also at that point in the game it was back and forth, and it sort of took the momentum out of your hands and it seemed like it put it in theirs.
JAY WRIGHT: Yeah, it did. It was a big turnaround because we had the ball. I still don't understand what was called there. I never got a clear explanation. I think they are correct. I just didn't understand it. But we had a break-away, a foul was called, then the technical was called and they got the ball back. And they hit a 3. Brewer hit a 3.
That's early in the game. Those things happen. They usually even out in the second half. You have to recover from that. That was early enough. If something like that happens late in the game -- but that was early enough. You have to recover from that. That's what good teams do. That's what happens all the time.
Q. Jay, I don't know if there has been a player in college basketball who has gone through what Jason has gone through, and he probably played the best game of his season today. I was wondering if you could just reflect on what it means for him to have come up the today the way he did.
JAY WRIGHT: I knew someone was going to ask that. I don't have an explanation for how he does what he does. You know, he spends so much time on his body to just get himself able to just be 75, 50 percent of the player he was. He works his butt off. He really made an impact today defensively and on the offensive glass, a lot of our missed shots, he retrieved and gave us extra opportunities.
He did a good job on Horford. I thought he did a good job, even though Horford is a heck of a player, but he was a presence. That's something we don't have unless we have him in there. Florida has two of those guys. Jason gave it to us tonight. I was really happy for him. He is a beautiful young man, and I know he will feel good about his last game.
Q. Jay, is Taurean Green an underrated asset for them?
JAY WRIGHT: Yeah, he probably is because, you know, you don't talk about him a lot, and he is very steady. He just controls the game, gives people the ball, and you have to guard him because he can drill 3s, and he made free throws down the stretch.
I think one of the unique things about Florida, even as good as Joakim Noah is, you can't say we are going to stop this guy. They are a team. Billy and I talked yesterday at practice about how much we both just love our teams, the kids. We love the kids. They love each other.
It is just a joy to coach them. You can see that preparing for them. We told the team going into the game we have to play a better team game than them because they play great team basketball. Taurean Green is one of those guys. He could be a guy that gets 19 threes up a game because he is that good of a shooter. He does whatever is necessary in that game. Having that weapon is valuable.
Q. Of course, not to harp on the technical, but did the official give you an explanation as to why you didn't get the free throw? That ended up being a 7-point swing.
JAY WRIGHT: They say it was a -- I still don't know if there was a foul called on the shot or if the guy -- I don't know if there was a foul called and we didn't get the ball or shoot fouls. Again, it was so early. That stuff, you know. You can recover from that early in the game easy. There could have been a play later in the game that went our way that we don't talk about because it went our way. Billy would probably tell you one of those.
If something like that happened at the end, we had plenty of time to recover from that. We still shot 24 percent from the field so -- that wasn't a big deal.
THE MODERATOR: Thank you, Coach.
JAY WRIGHT: Thank you guys.

End of FastScripts...

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