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NCAA MEN'S 1ST & 2ND ROUNDS REGIONALS: TAMPAMarch 23, 2008Dante CunninghamScottie ReynoldsCorey StokesJay WrightTAMPA, FLORIDA COACH JAY WRIGHT: I'm just thrilled. Thrilled to be here. So proud of this team. Really proud of our juniors. We have a junior class of Frank Tchuisi, Dante Cunningham, Dwayne Anderson and Shane Clark. We don't have any seniors, and we put a lot of pressure on them. I heard Tom Izzo say yesterday he actually feels sorry for his kids. I heard him say that and it made me feel better because I was glad I'm not the only one. We just put so much on these juniors. I thought sometimes they were going to crack, and they didn't, and they've carried this team. Obviously, we've got a lot of other contributions, but I have to say those four names and mention that class. They're just great Villanova basketball players. Q. Friday night you played a football team with Clemson, now you come out and play the gazelles and you're looking down at a point guard. How much of a difference was it for you? SCOTTIE REYNOLDS: It was a little bit different. He gets into you. Moore got into me. He speeds you up a little bit more. But, you know, as a point guard and as a leader out there on the floor, you know, you just have to be consistent of making plays and who gets shots and you have to get your own, too. You can't just be passive out there, and I just wanted to go out there and be aggressive and get us off to a good start. Q. There's that old saying you can't win with freshmen, but they're winning with you, and with Corey and obviously Scottie's a second-year player. What do you think of that? The fact that you played beyond your years? COREY STOKES: I just go out every game and play hard. Me and my teammates we get better each game. We just stay focused mentally, and we just go out and just play hard. Q. You jumped out to a big lead playing about as well as you played in the second half against Clemson. Then there was a long period where you kind of had the walkabouts. How difficult is it to teach a young team to play as well holding a lead as they did getting a lead? COACH JAY WRIGHT: That's a good question. I want to say I think Siena is very smart about the way they play. Fran, he really gets it. They did that to Vanderbilt. If that team gets a lead on with their guards and the way they can handle the ball and pass it, you're in big trouble. We were scared to death to get behind them early, because we weren't going to be able to press them and turn them over and take them out of what they do. That was important. Then that's where I think our leadership of our junior class came in and Scottie. Once you get that lead, it's so hard to keep playing every possession and not take a break. It's the hardest thing to do in sports, I think. It's harder than coming back. When you come from behind, you have nothing to lose. But there's a lot of game pressure on you. There's a lot of tension when you have that lead. Our juniors were awesome there, and Scottie, I thought was great. Q. At halftime, when you went in you were up 10, but it didn't seem like a 10-point game. Looked like Siena had a little momentum. What did you tell yourselves at halftime, and how did you come out in the second half? SCOTTIE REYNOLDS: Yeah, when we went into the locker room, we were kind of -- we weren't upbeat and everything. We knew we made some mistakes, but we was up 10. We played okay, but towards the end they made a run, but we were still up 10. That's what I told everybody. Tried to get them fired back up. And just tell them that we're up 10, and we didn't close out the first half like we should have. I think everybody responded in the second half. DANTE CUNNINGHAM: We just told them the first five minutes we had to come out and keep the pressure on them. You've got to bury them. You can't give them a chance to even get back in the game and get their momentum going. We had to keep fighting and keep clawing at them to make the lead bigger. Q. Dante, when you got the ball down low, it seemed as though they had no answer for you, and some buckets came relatively easy for you. Did you feel that way? DANTE CUNNINGHAM: Not really, I mean. He was a big guy. He definitely moved me out of the primetime a lot. He was a wide body and hard to go around. I had to keep making second and third moves around him. Q. Just talk about, you guys are considered one of the last teams into the tournament, now to be heading to Detroit. Just talk about the emotion of now getting to that point. SCOTTIE REYNOLDS: Well, you know, Coach always said from the beginning, you know, we want to be the best team at the end of the season. You know, we went through some ups and downs during the season, but we always stayed consistent about what we were trying to accomplish. Right now the last two or three weeks we've been playing our best basketball and we stuck together. We had that mindset where if we're going to go down, you know, it's going to be a dogfight. You know, these guys, guys like Dante and Dwayne, and Shane, and Frank Tchuisi have done a great job with this team and they've brought me along as well as anybody. I think that the way we're playing right now, it goes to those guys right there. Q. Following up on that, you scored all your points in the second half. What did you say to yourself coming out after halftime? DANTE CUNNINGHAM: You know, Scottie and Corey Stokes, they had a tremendous first half. You know, just trying to weave a little pressure off them and get inside a little bit and pound them. Make it easier for them to get their shots off. Q. Dante, is there anyway you can compare this run to the run two years ago in the tournament, or are they completely different? DANTE CUNNINGHAM: Besides the fact that I'm a little more responsible for, I guess, what goes on on the court, not really. It's two different times. I'm actually a lot more responsible. So besides that, I mean, there's definitely two different times. Q. Dante, Coach Wright talks a lot about the leadership of the junior class, and he talks about you specifically as having grown as a leader on this team, how do you express that when you're on the court? You don't seem like that verbal a guy. Is it a lead-from-example thing? Obviously, in the second half, you took a lot of it on yourself. DANTE CUNNINGHAM: I'm definitely more try to get it done. Show them by example. It's always necessary. You have to be able to talk to them, get in their face a little bit. And sometimes it's not as verbal or visible to most. But I grab them, tell them, you know, get in their face a little bit on the side. I tell them, just put them on the spot or anything like that, but I just let them know they're not getting it done or something's not going right. Q. Describe the difference, I mean, you guys owned the paint today, 42 points. Describe the difference between playing Clemson in the paint, and playing Siena in the paint? COREY STOKES: Clemson was a lot bigger and tougher, and it was more difficult to get rebounds against them and stuff like that. And Siena, they're a lot smaller, so it was a lot easier defending them and getting rebounds. DANTE CUNNINGHAM: Just like he said, they're a great guard-oriented team. You know, it was just they were in our guards and it made it a lot easier to penetrate, stop, pivot and make second passes, and second cuts to make second passes. Q. Corey, could you tell early on that you had your offensive A-game today? COREY STOKES: My main focus coming into this game was to shut down their guards. Coach talked to me before the game. He just told me to focus on defense. He told me my shots would come. Then when I got the ball when Scottie was in trouble, I just came out aggressive. Drove the ball a lot more this game, and it worked out well for me. THE MODERATOR: Thank you, gentlemen. Now we open the floor for questions for Coach Wright. Q. Three Sweet 16's in the last four years. That is something that Duke, UCONN, Syracuse, elite programs haven't even done. Do you consider the Villanova program now on that pedestal with the premier programs in the nation? COACH JAY WRIGHT: It's an honor to be mentioned with those programs, but we just try to be -- Villanova's just a really unique place. We just try to be the best Villanova we can be, and that's a pretty good thing. So it doesn't, you know, I don't really care about that. But when people mention it, we're honored. We have great respect for those programs. But I think Villanova's unique in its basketball tradition. We take it very seriously to uphold that tradition for the former players. That's what's important to us. Q. I'm going to assume Friday night you got your players back probably around 2:00 a.m. Talk us through your preparation as a staff getting ready for Canisius from 2:00 a.m. to today? COACH JAY WRIGHT: Well, I got you, I got you. I was there, I know who we played. Canisius is a good team, too, that's all right. That was probably one of the things I was most nervous about. As a coaching staff you made decisions of how, what you're going to do in between. But we watch all these press conferences, I saw Coach Krzyzewski say we had a good practice the day before, and I got a little nervous because we didn't. We were so beat up. We had guys with IV's in them. We were shot. We got back about 2:30, and we decided no practice, sleep in, watch film, have meetings. It was actually Brett Gunning, our associate head coach who knows, if I have a choice between a lot or a little, I always go for a lot. He said we need to rest these guys. Our trainer, Jeff Pierce, and Lon Record, our strength coach, put them in the pools, they did hot/cold contrasts. The whole thing was about rest. You said, I think, we played a football game Friday night, and then today was a track meet. These guys were really good and quick. It worked, but I would have been really upset if we didn't practice and we lost this game. Q. At halftime what was going through your mind? It was a ten-point advantage but it seemed like Siena was getting some momentum going. How did you approach the halftime and early in the second half? COACH JAY WRIGHT: We were very concerned about the foul situation that they were just getting to the foul line. We knew in the second half that if we were going to have a lead and they were going to be coming back, if we were stopping the clock all the time and they were scoring on the foul line, we were going to have trouble. So, like Scottie said, we didn't feel great at halftime. We were up 10, but they missed a lot of free throws, and they really hadn't hit a lot of threes yet. Now in the end, we did a good job from the three-point line. But we said they're going to get some threes, and they're going to look for them, and we can't keep putting them on the foul line, so that was our main goal in the second half. Q. At what point did you decide that going to the Phillies game yesterday would not be a real good idea? COACH JAY WRIGHT: I wanted to go, and I didn't have anything to do. I was watching film. My film was done. But my whole family and everybody, we had a lot of people, they all went. It wound up getting rained out in the third inning, so I didn't feel as bad. Coming in here I said the best weekend we could have is if we win two, we could send the team home and I could stay and watch the Phillies tomorrow, it would be a dream weekend for me. But now I'm chickening out. I can't stay. I've got to go back with the team. Q. Your program's known a lot as a guard program and they get all the attention and your bigs don't get a lot of love. You talked about Dante's growth as a leader, and obviously, you didn't want to get into a jump-shooting contest in the second half and get some easy buckets. His development and your team's development this year is similar, it seemed like, in terms of growing. Do you see it that way? Talk about what he gave you today. COACH JAY WRIGHT: Against Clemson when the game got tight at the end and they were really doing a great job on Scottie, and Scottie was getting worn down, we went to Dante. He made that big play. That left-hand lay-up driving was huge. Same thing today. Siena's guards were outstanding. When you're a coach and they're getting in you, you know, you complain. You think you're getting fouled. But when you go back and watch film, you see they're just doing a great job. We couldn't. Their guards were just in us. We went to Dante down the stretch, and he really delivered. I think that's made us a better team. We have an inside-outside game now. And we've always wanted to do that, but players have to get it done. And Antonio Peña's done the same thing for us. He's stepped up in that area and really played well inside. Q. Coach Purnell made mention of the fact that if you were a 12 seed, he wants to talk to the Committee. Do you put a lot of weight into that? Or is it just who shows up you play? COACH JAY WRIGHT: I know what he means because I felt the same thing about them being a 5 seed. But I also know what the Committee has to do. There are issues with the Big East schools in. They have to move us so we don't get matched up. But I think we all know now the seeding doesn't mean anything except if you get an advantage in the pod system. That's the only way it helps you. Other than that, come on, you look at these games it's crazy. Like last night, there was Texas A & M-UCLA, two great teams. So that's what's so great about the tournament now. That's why I do think we should expand it. There are so many great teams, the seeding doesn't even matter, really. Q. Could you talk about your Tampa experience here? How did it grade as a host city, and just your Tampa Bay experience here? COACH JAY WRIGHT: I said it yesterday, our fans thanked us as much for being in Tampa as they did for making the tournament. We've just had an outstanding time. The people that work this tournament here, I told the athletic director at South Florida, I said the people here in terms of their efficiency and getting everything done is as good as anywhere we've ever been and any tournament, any NCAA Tournament. It's just been professional, classy, and really friendly, which is nice. You can tell people are doing their job, but they're very friendly. We could have taken a little bit more sun yesterday. But everything else was perfect. Just perfect. Q. Can you tell us a little about you and Fran, your exchange there at the end of the game meeting at half court. COACH JAY WRIGHT: I just told him that he's got a great team and they're as good as any team we've played. And they're going to be good for a long time. No one asked me this so I didn't say it, we're a young team. We don't have any seniors. They're younger than us and they're here. They're playing and beating Vanderbilt, who is an outstanding team. Giving us a game. That team is going to be good for a long, long time. They really know how to play basketball. They put fear in you. They have their style of play. That game looked like we controlled it some, but we knew the way we played, it could have turned in a second. When they get a lead on you, it's over. It's over. He's an outstanding coach. I'm really proud of him and happy he's a friend. Q. You saw Hasbrouck the other night, just talk about your concerns about the guard match-up going into this game. And how well Corey played on the offensive side? COACH JAY WRIGHT: Well, their guards, I think I told Edwin. Edwin went to prep school with Dante and Dwayne. We looked at them there. But what I knew of it was when we got there, they said he was going to Siena. When someone says somebody's verbally committed, we just stop. Then someone told me later he was mad we didn't recruit him. Well, that was because they told me he was going to Siena. I said to him afterwards, we missed on you, man. Because he's great. And those other two guards, Ronald Moore, I recruited his brother, and Hasbrouck, they're Big East guards. They can play in the Big East. That is exactly how we approach the game and our guys knew it. I didn't even have to tell them. They watched film, they watched that game yesterday and they knew it. Corey Stokes is a big time guard. He's a big time guard. He's playing like a McDonald's All American. He did it the hard way. It wasn't easy for him early. He didn't get playing time early. He's an old school story. He just worked hard and learned like a freshman. I'm really proud of him. Q. Another preparation question, have you at all thought about Kansas? If not, when will you start the preparation? COACH JAY WRIGHT: Honest to God, I have not thought of it. You know, until the end I didn't even think about who we were playing. But, obviously, I've seen them. I know how good they are, and both their guards were on our USA team this summer. They were in the trials. And it's always my fear to get matched up with one of those guys that didn't make the team. The guys from Marquette killed us. I didn't pick them. I'm just the coach. The Committee picks the team. Let's get that out there. Now I have to face these guys. They're great kids. Great players. They've got bigs that can play, too. Hey, we're playing a 1 seed. What can I say? We know how good they are. Q. You touched on this team's youth, how did you get them to buy into not just coming here to get some experience for next year, not thinking about the future, but doing something in this tournament? COACH JAY WRIGHT: Well, I think that was really in the hands of the juniors. Normally when you come here you're playing for the seniors. And every program does that. Your seniors mean so much today, they've given so much. We knew coming into this we had no seniors to talk about. So we had to get the juniors to get a sense of urgency. Especially this class that has been to a final 8, NCAA Tournament. I didn't want them to get comfortable. I think it's really a representation of their character, maturity, and also their competitiveness, which really shows me something. I think that is probably a trait that is hard to find in kids these days, real competitiveness. That's why this junior class is really special. End of FastScripts |
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