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BIG EAST CONFERENCE MEN'S TOURNAMENT


March 13, 2008


Dante Cunningham

Jay Wright


NEW YORK CITY, NEW YORK

COACH WRIGHT: I just wanted to start by congratulating Georgetown. They were great today. It's a team you love to compete against. If you beat them, you know you beat a great team. They win with class, and when they -- I should say they win with humility. When they lose, they lose with class. They're a great program. I love what John does with them, how they play. They just were great today, they're great. We did not play a good basketball game, but you've got to give them a lot of the credit for that. And we've got to go back and keep getting better at the things we do.

Q. You know with the gun-slinging mentality, you live by the three, you die by the three. You knew you had a chance to come back. Talk about that second half when you came out and the momentum seemed to be going your way somewhat.
COACH WRIGHT: We didn't feel bad at halftime, believe it or not. We're down 11. But we were getting the ball inside. We thought we kind of established, and were taking the ball aggressively and getting to the foul line. We felt good about it. I think they made ten threes at halftime, we thought all right, they can't keep making all of these. But in the second half we didn't get to the foul line, and we weren't as aggressive, I guess.
And they just kept making them. And we had our chances. We had our chances. When you play a team like that, if you don't take advantage of it -- they're such a great passing team, when you get behind on them, you're not going to press them and turn them over.

Q. Coach, when Scottie Reynolds got cut, did he bleed enough for the Selection Committee?
COACH WRIGHT: I don't know. We're definitely, we're an NCAA Tournament team, but that's not our decision. We'll let the Committee make their decision, and we'll accept whatever they do. That's the way we want our young men to conduct themselves, to live, you know. You control what you can control.
We had our chance here today. We still think we're as good as any team in the country, but not Georgetown today. And whatever the Committee decides, we'll accept it. We'll be happy to play another day wherever we are.

Q. You've always done a very good job limiting Roy Hibbert, what is it today that stopped him?
COACH WRIGHT: We let everybody else make threes so he couldn't score. That wasn't the plan though. That wasn't the plan. I thought a lot of it was in the first half, getting him in foul trouble. We did a great job getting the ball inside. We were attacking them. We really felt pretty good at halftime. We felt like, you know what, we're getting the ball inside. We're getting to the foul line. It just didn't -- second half, we didn't get there. We didn't get to the foul line and we didn't make our threes. You can't live and die with the threes. If they weren't making those threes, I think they would have gone to him a lot more. But it was as much of them making threes, they didn't need to go to them.

Q. How difficult will the next game be just waiting to find out, you're going to play another game, but just waiting to find out your fate?
COACH WRIGHT: You know, this has been such a long season. We went to Canada at the end of August with these young guys. I think these three days are going to be good for this team, believe it or not, I really do. I think we're going to rest up. We're excited about playing together more. That's how we're going to look at it. I'm going to try to get them to look at it. It's probably going to be tougher on them.
We have a lot of young guys that came to Villanova with the dream to go to the NCAA Tournament and the expectation. That's part of our job as coaches. We've got to teach them about life here. That's the great thing about being in college. If we were NBA coaches, we'd probably be fired after a game like that. But we're in college, and people at Villanova like us to teach lessons.

Q. Coach, playing Georgetown today and the last time you played them, what was the difference?
COACH WRIGHT: I think they really attacked our pressure to get threes. They started the game that way. That's a very confident mentality. They kicked it up. Didn't go to the basket. Reversed it, and just shot threes.
Their first three they missed we didn't rebound it. We got lazy, gave up an offensive rebound, and on that play they kicked it for another three. Little things like that. You don't get that many chances against great teams like Georgetown. And then once they got that confidence, they just attacked. They didn't try to go to the basket for lay-ups, they tried to get threes and did a great job.

Q. Jay, yesterday Scottie said he felt like Mike Nardi out there. Today there was a whole lot more of what you referred to yesterday of yelling at him. How much of it did you think it was Georgetown being a little bit more experienced and how much of it was Scottie?
COACH WRIGHT: I think there was a perfect combination. I thought there was a period in the first half where they made some threes, and Scottie got a little -- he lost his poise a little bit, and tried to take it to the basket and got his head cut doing it rather than running the team. But then I thought he came back from that play and having his eye bleeding and continued to try running the team.
So, two stories in that game: Little bit of youth, great experience by Georgetown, but then I thought a great response by Scottie, you know, finishing the game strong.

Q. Scottie kept coming back, coming back, but 11 minutes to go you had to take him out because he was bleeding again and Georgetown went on that final run. How tough was it not to have Scottie in there?
COACH WRIGHT: Well, correct me if I was wrong, I have to watch the film for everything so I hate to be like a football coach and say that to you, but I think it was 51-50 we were up or down?

Q. 51-50 down?
COACH WRIGHT: 51-50, we had the ball. We had to take him out. And we turned the ball over next play, and they got an and-one. But if you're a good team, you don't do that. You've got another player to come in there and make the play. So you've got to give Georgetown credit. They had guys that were out. They played without Chris Wright, and he was huge today.
It's not an excuse, we're just not -- we just didn't respond as well as Georgetown did today. But you can't make excuses. There is probably something going on in Georgetown, but you don't know it because they respond. That's part of the game.
But I'm proud of our guys. I'm proud of Scottie the way he handled it. We want to keep playing basketball together.

Q. Dante, can you just talk in general about this season, you as an upperclassman being sort of a leader, helping these young guys along.
DANTE CUNNINGHAM: I mean, being an upperclassman, being that we don't have any seniors this year, it was kind of hectic at first just because we haven't actually had to go through such a young squad. We're juniors, me and Dwayne and Frank and Shane, we just had to take them on. We had to just keep rebounding with them, keep fighting with them. It was back and forth for a little bit, you know. But definitely you could see it in a lot of their plays. Corey stepped up a lot. Corey Stokes and Corey Fisher. They're definitely coming along. They have great attitude out there, so.

Q. Do you feel having to play last night when Georgetown had the day off had any effect in this game? After the last 12 minutes it seemed like you were a little slow and just couldn't make a run after them after while.
COACH WRIGHT: Yeah, I was hoping that was going to be to our advantage, to be honest with you. I wanted to try to use our depth a little bit more. I was hoping they'd be a little rusty, miss some shots early. But it just went the other way. It can work both ways. Sometimes you could be on a run and be feeling good. What happened is when we got behind, certain guys we have to play when we're playing catch-up. We didn't get to use our depth as much as I would like to.
Just didn't go our way this time. Because they came out, and the rest obviously did them well. When they started drilling shots like that early, you know, that made the biggest factor.

Q. You said before they had another guy come in and another guy and they stepped up. I hate to keep leaning on the age thing, but they're older than you overall. Do you expect to see this team being one of those where you can put in another guy, another guy?
COACH WRIGHT: Yeah, I do. I really like the depth of this team. As I said, we were willing to use it tonight, today if we could have kept the game closer. But once we got down after that spurt, I think after it was 51-50, I think they hit six straight threes, they were on a run. Now we're down. So there are only certain guys you can play. We would have liked to use Casiem Drummond more. But you're not going to go out and press with a 6' 10", 280 pound guy. So we didn't get to use him. But I do think we're going to be that kind of team. We have great respect for Georgetown, and we think we're going to be back at that point very quickly.

Q. It is out of your hands what happens now, but if you were going to make your case to the Committee, which they're not going to give you the opportunity to, but if you were, what were a couple of points that you'd bring up? The back end of the season last 15, 16 games you have been streaky both ways.
COACH WRIGHT: Yeah. I would just say if you look at the top 65 teams, if you're going to pick the best 65 teams, you're not going to worry about how many come from a conference, how many mid-majors. And you just look at teams that we've beaten and how we've played everybody, everybody that we've played. That I think we're one of the best 65 teams. I really believe that.
It doesn't matter what happens with the other games. I was a mid-major coach, I know who is who. I know we're one of the best 65 teams. However, with that said, I also know that it really doesn't come down to that. There is a lot more to it, and we knew that at the beginning of the season. So you've got to accept that. We're going to accept whatever the Committee decides. No arguments.
If you get to this point, and you put it in their hands, then you've got to accept whatever they decide. Life's not fair, but we had our chance. Now we'll take what medicine we get here.

Q. Can you talk about the team's growth since the tough loss to St. Joe's and now, and how far you guys have come?
COACH WRIGHT: Yeah, I'm really proud of this group. Especially these two right here. Dwayne and Dante have become big-time players, and big-time leaders. They were both kind of role players. Now I think they've become outstanding players in this league. Then they took that and took on leadership roles. I think Scottie's really become a big-time point guard in learning how to be a leader. We like each other, we want to keep playing. We know we can get a lot better.
As I said, we're going to rest up from this. Lick our wounds. This was a tough loss to take, but as I said, it is the best thing about being in college. You get to learn from this. These guys are going to learn a lot, and we're going to get better.

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