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BIG EAST CONFERENCE MEN'S TOURNAMENTMarch 8, 2007Will SheridanCurtis SumpterJay WrightNEW YORK CITY, NEW YORK JAY WRIGHT: Well, your season's got to end sometime, and you hate for it to -- you hate for it to happen anyway. But I think we just ran into an outstanding team. I think Georgetown is playing as well as any team in the country, and when we played them last time at home, they were just starting, we could see it and they have just continued to get better. I'm proud of our seniors, especially these two and Mike Nardi have carried a great group of young guys and hope we can keep playing. Q. What do you tell a team when you're down, and as a coach what do you hope to see for the rest of that game? JAY WRIGHT: Well, we've all been in it long enough that you know anything can happen. You just try to tell them, it's a long game, there's a lot of time left. They went on a big run. We can go on a big run and we've got to just keep -- keep playing our game. You know, you try to, you don't try to make it any big deal. You just try to make it like there's a lot of possessions left and we've got to have a lot of good possessions in this game. You know, I thought our guys did a good job of that. We didn't lose our composure. Maybe we were a little too composed to start. We didn't lose our composure to start. We kept battling and I thought we did it in a pretty organized way with some good basketball. But they were just too good to get a lead like that. Q. Did you see what you hoped to see considering the circumstance, at least in the way the final 26 minutes played out? Did you at least see what you wanted to see? JAY WRIGHT: I saw what I expected to see. I expect our teams to play for 40 minutes, whether we are up 20 or down 20, and to play together and with some pride. That's why I'm proud of them. I'm proud of these guys. Q. Have you seen another D with the kind of length and athleticism in close to the basket; how difficult do they make it? JAY WRIGHT: I think that is their greatest strength when you talk about their physical makeup is their length and athleticism. And then around the basket, they make it very difficult, but as you see, Scottie Reynolds shot 4 for 14. They were switching Roy and switching Green on to him and those guys are well coached enough and disciplined enough that they keep enough space from smaller players that they can use their length. Sometimes if you play longer athletic guards that are not as disciplined they will jump in and you can go by them and we couldn't. I think that's a credit to John and his coaching. Q. When you get in a stretch like you were in at the beginning of the game where it's almost like a bad dream and you can't wake up from it, what's going through your mind in terms of what button can I push, what can I try, how is this going to end? JAY WRIGHT: Well, when you have guys like Curtis and Scottie who are great scorers, just find something to get them going because you know once they get going, they are the leaders and something good will happen. So just trying to push a button, run a play, do something and get one of those guys going, you know they are the guys that have the confidence to get you out of it. Sometimes when you have younger guys, you need a guy like Curtis to step up and Curtis actually scored the first couple baskets but we still struggled. But you described it pretty much like it is, how is this going to end; we've got to end it. Q. Did the two blocks set the tone that in the back of your mind said, we have a game on our hands? JAY WRIGHT: I think if I had a big guy like that or a couple big guys like that, that's what I would want them to do in the beginning of the game, set the tone, you're not coming to the basket. We tried to keep coming and that's what we wanted to do. They did a good job, they blocked a couple and we wanted to keep coming at them. Dante got some great looks inside early, shots he normally makes. Sometimes you have to shoot them up and sleep in the streets. Some nights you've got to keep shooting and sleep in the streets. That's what we have to do tonight is we're going to sleep in the streets. Q. What do you take in this game looking forward to next week, good and bad I guess? CURTIS SUMPTER: I would say just setting the tone at the beginning of the game, try not to get down so early. Just basically those things. Just keep being aggressive. I don't think we did anything wrong at the start of the game or throughout the game really. We just had a couple of bad possessions and Georgetown just took advantage of them. Q. Talk about the young leadership you had out there and the senior leadership you had out there, and then the second question, tale of two years, you and UCONN were on top of the BIG EAST last year and both teams this year, UCONN out first round and then you guys out this round here. Talk about the depth of the BIG EAST and how great of a conference it is. JAY WRIGHT: Reynolds for a freshman plays with a lot of poise and composure and he's done a great job for his first two games in the BIG EAST tournament, very proud of him. But you need to have upperclassmen to advance in it tournament. And we're very fortunate to have these two in bump and Curt. I've never experienced before what it's like to have ten freshman and sophomores and three seniors, to try to control all of them and teach them. It was an amazing job by these guys. I told them at the beginning of the year, you have every excuse to say, hey, it's my senior year, I'm stuck with ten freshmen and sophomores that have not played; or you can really step up as leaders, almost like parents and say, I brought this group along, I am proud of what they did this year and probably what they do in the future is going to be based on what these two and Mike have taught them. The conference, hey, it's just never a surprise to me. We've gotten beat by West Virginia in here playing great basketball, Pittsburgh was playing great, Georgetown. The thing about it is when teams beat us in this tournament, they are great teams. It wasn't like we didn't come to play or the other team got by in a sloppy game. If you get beat here, usually you get beat by a great team and we have the last three years. Q. Do you feel like you've eliminated any chance -- inaudible? JAY WRIGHT: I hope so. I hope so. I really didn't -- I honestly didn't think about that and I haven't thought about it; you made me -- Q. Sorry. JAY WRIGHT: Again we're going to sit back now and look at all of this stuff. I'm not great at knowing where everybody is in this. I hear what everybody says. So I'm going to start to learn about it now. I've got a couple of days to do that, where we stand. Q. Did you feel a momentum killer in the second half, did you feel a point when the momentum was changing, that something stalled that; did you feel a stall at any point? JAY WRIGHT: No, I really didn't feel a stall, but I did feel that we had that one chance, we had that big chance where we got the steal in the press and Scottie got the open three. That one would have blown the roof off this place and would energized our guys. I think that one would have got it to three maybe, I think it was. That was the play. Not that we quit, but that was our chance right there. He got an open one, great defensive play. We could have had a one-possession game. But, you know, when you put yourself in that position, you only have a few chances, and that was our shot. Q. Knowing that you've got another game to play, how important was it to let the young guys know that we can't just get rolled by Georgetown, we have to come and play the rest of this game to carry into the next game you're going to play? WILL SHERIDAN: I think that we as leaders, myself and Curt and Mike try to instill in them it's a great tradition to play hard and never quit and never give up. I think they understand that and they definitely bought in. We came out and played as hard as we could in the second half. We had our pride at stake. Q. You obviously hope to be an NCAA bid, but would it excite you to come back here in three weeks for NIT? JAY WRIGHT: I would definitely be excited to come back here and I would be excited to practice more with this team. I said this before, we are going to go back and practice. I think this group can start getting better. Curtis is just starting to come around and Reynolds and Redding, we want to keep practicing and playing as long as we can with this group. Nothing against the NIT or Madison Square Garden, we'll be happy as hell as long as we're playing. I would like to go to the NCAA Tournament, I think the team deserves it but I understand that there are other teams that do and we'll have to wait and see what the committee says. End of FastScripts |
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