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NCAA MEN'S 1ST & 2ND ROUNDS REGIONALS: TAMPAMarch 20, 2008Dwayne AndersonDante CunninghamScottie ReynoldsJay WrightTAMPA, FLORIDA THE MODERATOR: Questions for Villanova. Q. I just want to know Scottie, and maybe if the other guys could address this, do you have to resist the urge not just to be happy to be here given your season, what you've been through, the struggles and 3-3 over your last six games? Resist the urge to be happy not to be here? SCOTTIE REYNOLDS: Definitely, I think everybody in this tournament is happy to be here. I think the great teams that go on to win and be champions are the ones that are not satisfied. So, you know, we're just trying to be humble and enjoy the experience, but at the same time, we want to come out and play Villanova basketball for 40 minutes. Just prove to each other that we're in this, we're not satisfied yet. We've got more to go. DWAYNE ANDERSON: Yeah, we wouldn't be satisfied. We were happy for that day just when our names were called to enter the NCAA Tournament. But as soon as practice game, the happiness was over, and it was time to go back to work, and that's what we're going to do as we continue to move forward. DANTE CUNNINGHAM: Just like they both said, we've just got to continue to be hungry, and continuing to after it. Q. Could you talk about seeing Clemson's press on tape, and do they remind you of any Big East team? And how do you go about dealing with the press? SCOTTIE REYNOLDS: You know, they're very long and athletic at every position. I guess you can kind of, in the Big East I think you kind of relate them to maybe Louisville as their pressing style, and just kind of get up in you. They trap. They have so many different presses, how they deny the one man or they let the one man get it, pass it up, and then deny them again. So there are different variations of their presses that we've been working on. You know, with them being so long across the board, you know, that's something that we're taking into consideration. Q. Could you talk about playing against Clemson's big men, what problems do they create for you guys? DANTE CUNNINGHAM: They're great inside post players. They look for each other a lot. So they like to put up on the glass, and then the other one will go get it. Or if one of them gets trapped or double-teamed, they like to look for each other. They're excellent rebounders and they're all over the offensive glass. Q. Does this feel any different this year as compared to the last few years coming in? You guys are a 12 seed, you weren't even sure you'd be in the tournament this year, how does this compare? DANTE CUNNINGHAM: It's definitely a little bit different in the beginning. Selection Show Sunday, just waiting on the our names to come up and everything. Years before freshman and sophomore years of mine, we kind of already knew that we were in the tournament, we just wanted to know where we were, what rank and where we were going. And you know, this year is a little more nerve-racking, you know. But regardless of the fact, we were just ready to play whichever game was next. Q. You have the most wins as a lower seed of any school in the tournament. I'm wondering what that means to you, what it says about Villanova basketball? SCOTTIE REYNOLDS: We kind of knew that after everything was kind of set, it was a privilege and an honor that the Committee saw that we were playing pretty well. The Big East got eight teams in? So that tells a lot about the Big East, and what competition we were going up against. I think us playing well at the end of the season did a lot for us, and, you know, we just stuck together through the last couple of weeks and came together and we're now playing our best basketball right now. Even though we slipped up in Georgetown, we felt that we played pretty well, but we know we can get a lot better. And you know, this is our next game. So we feel privileged to be in this position right now. Q. What have you seen on film of Cliff Hammonds? SCOTTIE REYNOLDS: Oh, you know, he does everything. He can score it, pass it, shoot it, drive it, everything. He kind of makes the team go. He's a lefty, so he can go either way as well. So he kind of carries that team offensively, who is getting shots and things of that nature. He's just very diverse in how he can score and get his team shots and easy shots at that. Q. What about defensively? SCOTTIE REYNOLDS: Yeah, defensively he's very feisty. He's going to get up in you, and he's going to make you change directions a lot. You can't play with the ball at all or he's going to strip you and go the other way for a fast-break opportunity. THE MODERATOR: Thank you, gentlemen. We'll continue with Villanova head coach, Jay Wright. Q. You talked earlier in the week about the Clemson press. What is it that makes it so tough? And without giving away any secrets, what do you have to do to prevent it from hurting you? COACH WRIGHT: One of the things that's unique about the press is they can have guys like Mays and Booker up front. You don't see too many presses where you have 6' 9", 6' 7" guys that are long and athletic at the top of the press. That makes it difficult inbounding the ball. Make it's difficult on your guards when they do get trapped getting out of the trap of the long guys. And even KC Rivers and Hammonds, these guys, they're long and athletic. I also think they're conditioned well. I think Oliver has done a great job with this team. They can do it for 40 minutes. Q. You've got more wins as a school as a lower seed than any other school in the NCAA Tournament. What's that say about Villanova basketball through the years? COACH WRIGHT: That's a great stat. I've got to get that for recruiting purposes. I like that. But this university's got a great tradition in the NCAA Tournament. All the coaches going back to Coach Severance who was in a Final Four, and Coach Kraft was in a Final Four. Coach Massimino, and Coach Lappas had success. It's the school. It means a lot at Villanova. The basketball program means a lot, but also the kind of guys that you get when you get to the NCAA Tournament, they know that there's a lot expected of them. And they take pride in that tradition. I hope we can keep that up in this tournament. Q. What were you doing 23 years ago when the miracle against Georgetown unfolded? COACH WRIGHT: I was down there for the coaches' convention. It was my second year as a coach. My wife had just graduated, was a cheerleader, she was at the game. We were dating at the time. And I actually left after the semifinals. Went back to Rochester, where I was an assistant coach, and watched the game on TV with tears in my eyes, man. I worked at Villanova camps in the summer, so I felt a tiny part of it. And I think it was one of the most inspirational events that I've seen in terms of wanting to be a coach. Q. Obviously none of your players were alive when that happened. Do you ever bring that up to them? COACH WRIGHT: Yeah, we do. And everywhere at our university it's evident when you walk into the pavilion there is a huge mural of that team and that experience. We're now in our new practice facility, the Davis Center, and as you walk in there's a great tribute to the Final Four teams and the National Championships. And we had Eddie Pinckney as our assistant for a long time. So I'd make those guys watch him play in those short shorts just so they'd remember what a great player he was, and a great tradition at Villanova. Those guys are around all the time, Harold Pressley, Dwayne McClain, Harold Jensen, Chuck Everson, Eddie, all of them. They're around all the time. It's still a big part of Villanova basketball. Q. Terrence Oglesby of Clemson is a player that will put it up just about anytime, anywhere. How do you defend against a guy like that and how does he change a game? COACH WRIGHT: When we have team meetings and we're watching film, we want our guys to be serious. We try to teach our guys that if there's a time to have fun, and we want them to have a lot of fun. When we get down to basketball, we've got to be serious. The first time we showed them clips of Oglesby, I watched a couple of them laughing at just how deep those threes were, and just trying to hold it back, you know. They were amazed. And I think he's very difficult to defend. If he gets it going, it's just not natural to guard somebody that far from the basket, and he can always get them off. That's I think the toughest thing about him because he'll move back. I can't remember exactly, it might have been the Virginia Tech game where he came in in the first half, had four, he shot 4-for-5 from three, and just changed the game. I think it was their last home game. And every one was almost touching that tiger paw. It was incredible. So once he gets it going, you've got to guard him wherever he is over half court. Q. After not knowing whether you're getting in, and then the emotion of getting in, are you at all concerned or do you have to guard against possible letdown of now that you're in and just not coming to play or having that kind of being on edge there? COACH WRIGHT: We're not concerned right now, but over the last three days we have been. Just the way we practiced yesterday, and practiced today, I feel like the guys, they get it. They're ready to go. Since Monday, I'd say Monday, Tuesday's practice we were concerned about that. We talked about it a lot, you can't count on tomorrow. You don't know what tomorrow's going to bring, and this whole team's coming back. They hear people say it's a young team, and they all know they're coming back. We want them to understand these opportunities in life only come up once in a while. Nothing else is guaranteed. They've got to take advantage of it right now. I think they get it. But we have spent a lot of time talking about that. Q. We talk about the depth on your team, but sometimes the bench gets a little short. What do you plan to do tomorrow night as far as depth, playing a lot of guys? Or are you just going to stick with a 7- or 8-man rotation? COACH WRIGHT: It gets short sometimes based on the game and the personnel. I think this is a game because of Clemson's style of play, that we're going to have to use the bench. I feel we have it, you know, at the guard position, and up front. So I think our young guys are going to be important in this game. They're going to have to play good minutes and they're going to have to handle Clemson's pressure and we're going to have to keep the starters fresh, definitely. Q. Is there any difference coming in as a 12 seed as opposed to when you have the higher seed? Is there any difference in the mindset? COACH WRIGHT: I think there is. I don't know if it has to do with the seed. I think it's usually what you've done to earn that seed. We played in this game a few years ago. We were the 5 and New Mexico was the 12. We heard everybody talk about that 12-5 upset, and you're on the other side of it. And now you hear people talk about it and it excites you a little bit. So I think what affects your team the most is really the mindset. It's not their seed, it's how they're playing coming into the tournament. I think that our guys feel like we're playing well. Even though we lost that game to Georgetown in the tournament, we withstood a barrage of 10 threes in the first half, and took the lead in the second half, and Scottie Reynolds went down. And, you know, we felt like we were in good shape there to that point. So I think our guys feel good about the way we're playing. I don't think we're concerned with their seed. End of FastScripts |
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