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NCAA MEN'S 1ST & 2ND ROUNDS REGIONALS: PHILADELPHIAMarch 18, 2009Dwayne AndersonDante CunninghamJay WrightPHILADELPHIA, PENNSYLVANIA THE MODERATOR: We're joined by Villanova student-athletes. We'll take questions for the student-athletes. Q. How is preparing for a game like tomorrow's, where you're a 3 seed, different from last year as a 12 seed? DANTE CUNNINGHAM: Well, I don't think it's any different. You know, I think every team in here, you know, is just equally as good as the next team. Regardless of their ranking or anything like that, you know, every team's in here for a reason. So there's no team, a 13 or 16 seed team, doesn't mean anything. We go out there, we're going to play and prepare same as it was last year. Q. Just talk a little bit about you've been here for four years together, now you're about to begin your final journey as teammates. Just reflect upon that a little bit. DWAYNE ANDERSON: We're very grateful to be in this position four years in a row. We know what it takes. Last year we were the No. 12 seed. We had the underdog mindset. So we're going to have the same mindset for this year. We're just happy to be here and we can't wait to get on the floor. DANTE CUNNINGHAM: Just like he say, we definitely understand what it takes to get here. Our seniors, previous years, taught us well. Hopefully we're teaching our younger guys, you know, how to continue this tradition that we've set. Q. The teams that play in the Big East are roughly your size or taller. The American University team tomorrow is basically smaller in every position. How much trouble will that be to cope with their size and quickness as opposed to their height? DWAYNE ANDERSON: I mean, it will definitely be a challenge for us because no matter your size, they're going to play with a lot of heart. Our job is to match their intensity and match their toughness. We have a confidence that all of our players that step on the floor will do that. It just starts every day in practice. We don't just turn on the switch right now to compete; we've been doing that all year. That's what we do tomorrow. DANTE CUNNINGHAM: I feel that, you know, our team, we have such great depth on our team that, you know, we can line up pretty much any kind of style. We have enough guards to go with a small lineup. We have enough bigs to go with a bigger lineup. One of our strengths is our depth as a team. Q. In the course of watching NCAA tournament games, have you seen a high seed, 1, 2 or 3, struggling in a game, and you can see the tension on their face or on the bench? Have you thought that at all going into this tournament? DWAYNE ANDERSON: Of course, you see it. There's a lot of tension because there's a lot of pressure. But what made us get to this point that we are at, we don't crack under any type of pressure. We've been down against Clemson, LSU, for example, Georgetown last year during the regular season, and we never seem to come into huddles, we don't point fingers, blame anyone. We just step back on the floor and we know what it takes. That's something I really admire about each and every one of my teammates. DANTE CUNNINGHAM: Yeah, just like he said, you know, our huddles are never, You did this wrong, you weren't here. Never point fingers. We have just a great understanding of next play. As a basketball player, you got to have a short memory. You can't worry about anything that you messed up on previously. You got to continue to get to the next play, keep playing ball. Q. Dante, growing up in Washington, did you follow American very closely? Did you know much about the program, being close? DANTE CUNNINGHAM: Yeah, actually, just being in the WCAC, you know, St. John's, that league and everything, we had a couple of our championship games there. So, you know, I kind of had a good feel for them, you know, as a school, you know what I'm saying? One of our assistant coaches actually, you know, coached there for a little bit and still is. So, uhm, you know, I have a good, you know, understanding of the team and, you know, know everything about them. Q. Talk a little bit about how your role has changed from freshman this year, going from a role player to more of a go-to guy and a scorer? DANTE CUNNINGHAM: Yeah, freshman year it was more Alan Ray, Randy Foye, understanding that, you know, they are the seniors, they take all the shots. I get rebounds, play defense, things like that. As the years went on, things change. Developing as a player myself, understanding what the team needed to win more games, you know, I just had to become more of an offensive threat. Q. Was that easy for you to do, to make that transition, being the guy who needed to demand the ball in certain situations or have plays run through him? Did you find you had to step up both on the court or in huddles or the locker room? DANTE CUNNINGHAM: Honestly, I think it wasn't too hard, you know, just because I put in the time, I put in the time off the court working, my individual game. So when the time came for me to step up as an offensive player, it really wasn't that hard. You know, the team has been behind me the whole time. The confidence that they have in me to put the ball in my hands makes it even easier. Q. In both games during the Big East tournament, you came out in the second half and got taken to it by the other team, I think 17-2 by Louisville, 24-12 by Marquette. How much have you talked about that, worked on that, focused on that in the last couple days? DWAYNE ANDERSON: It's definitely something we focused on, especially playing against the Big East teams. You can't do that, as we found outplaying against Louisville. We talked about it so much. We watch a lot of film. So it's definitely in the back of our minds. When we come out tomorrow, we're going to try to do the same thing, but in the second half we cannot slip up for that little time, just to relax. DANTE CUNNINGHAM: Definitely, that's something that we talk about. 40 minutes of Villanova basketball, we've got to have it. We can't have the slips where the team come out and get their first shots off and they're wide open or they get easy buckets. Can't happen. Q. Can you talk about Jay...Gucci, Armani. Have you ever done anything all dressed up one day or dressed down one day or stolen his suit or anything like that? DWAYNE ANDERSON: You definitely don't want to cross that line. He's one of the best dressed coaches out there. When it's our time to dress up, I learned we don't step over our boundaries. DANTE CUNNINGHAM: Coach is a very smooth guy. We never did anything like that, mess with any of his suits or anything. THE MODERATOR: Thank you. We're now joined by Villanova head coach Jay Wright. Coach, we'll ask you to make an opening comment. COACH WRIGHT: Like everyone else, we are thrilled to be here, thrilled to be in Philadelphia, trying to keep our focus with all of the nice attention that's going on around us here at home and get ready for American, who I just am very impressed. The more and more film I watch, with their experience, intelligence, toughness, it should be a great game. THE MODERATOR: We'll open it up for questions for coach. Q. You mentioned the nice attention you're getting around here. Good news/bad news. How have you been able to keep the team focused? COACH WRIGHT: You know, it has really been a challenge. We thought we were prepared for this because we played here in '06. We're trying to take time when we practice, after the media leaves, to actually have a meeting. You know, even at the hotel where we stay, we've stayed there before. So everybody knows us. Everybody's coming in -- everyone that works there, how excited they are, which is beautiful. But we're just trying to take our time that we're on the court now to be a meeting time and then a practice time. Q. At this time of year, you have all these teams that have worked so hard to get top seeds, then they have these first-round games, and so many of them are so tight. Aside from the obvious, that they don't want to be upset, what do you attribute it to? Can you judge or get a sense from your team whether they're headed down that road or whether they're okay? COACH WRIGHT: I asked our assistant coaches about that because I don't see it in our guys right now. A lot of times the assistants have a better feel than I do. The assistants are telling me, Hey, these guys just look at it as the next game. It is one thing that this group has really impressed with me, is their ability to get onto the next game after a loss, but most importantly prepare for the next game as if it's the biggest game of their life. We've done it all year. And I really hope that that continues for this American game, because it's going to be important. If we don't, you know, they're good enough to beat us. But this senior class, this has been their strength, is preparing one game at a time. Q. In the Big East, you've played a number of bigger guards, but some of the smaller guards like Andre McGee, Dominic James, Tory Jackson, under six feet, is there anybody from American and their starting guards that might remind you of anyone you've played in the Big East? COACH WRIGHT: Yeah, definitely. When we've talked to our guys, we've talked about Mercer as a Johnny Flynn or a Jackson from Notre Dame, the kind of guys that are just real thick and tough and strong with the ball and get into the lane and make things happen. They can score. They can create for their teammates. And Carr really reminds me of Abrams, who we played from Texas, to be honest with you. Moves extremely well without the ball. His size does not become a disadvantage for him because he has the depth to move out further, where it doesn't matter how tall you are. You don't guard him out there. He's got a quick release and he makes 'em. That's what we struggled with Abrams when we played Texas, is he shot from deeper than we really expected him to and didn't stay as tough on him as far from the basket. Those two guards are really good. We've really been impressed with them. Q. Can you talk about Corey Fisher and his progression from last year to this year. How much better does he make your team this year? He shed some weight, got in better shape this year. COACH WRIGHT: He really did. He's completely changed his body. He was playing at 205 last year. He's down to 193. He changed his eating habits. He doesn't drink soda. He doesn't eat candy. I didn't do that when I was in college. For a kid that age to be able to do that is very, very impressive. And on the court he's always been very coachable. He just had today-- we practiced earlier today, his best practice of the year. Keeps getting better and better every day in practice. I just think the sky's the limit for him. He does, he makes us a much, much better team for us now that he's really learning how to defend, he rebounds well. We're just thrilled with him, as you can tell. Q. It's become indicative of your teams, how hard they play. People say how tough they are. How much of that is something that you look for in the kids that you recruit and how much of it is cultivated once they're here either by you or players who have come before them? COACH WRIGHT: You hit 'em both. We look for guys like that. We want guys that want to come to the Big East and compete. If you're gonna play in the Big East, you've got to compete every possession. When guys get in our program, one of the things that we expect from the older guys is to, every time they step on the floor, let them know how hard we compete, but also talk to them off the floor about how important that is in the Big East and how important it is in our program. You can't wait till you get into a game when you're young and get beat up and then learn that way. So it's both. We look for that. Even though you look for it, and you recruit it, you still have to learn it when you get there. Q. This is an American team with five seniors. Almost knocked off Tennessee last year. How much does that play a role? This is their last chance at it. COACH WRIGHT: We talked to our team about that. We watched the Tennessee game with our guys last night. We watched the Holy Cross game with them. You're watching that game. We're thinking, that's not really giving them a good feel. We watched that Tennessee game. We said, Look, these are the same players, and they're back at seniors and they're much better than this team you're watching. They played great against Tennessee. They played great. I remember when I was at Hofstra, our first year making the NCAA tournament, we played Oklahoma State. We were a little bit happy to be there. The next year we played UCLA. I know the mentality of our guys; they were going in there to win it. We played a great game against UCLA almost got 'em. I'm sure this team is the same way, same kind of make-up. They are tough. They're really tough. I know everyone says to me, of course you're going to say they're good. They're good. They are. I think when everybody sees them play tomorrow, they're gonna know. Q. Could you talk a little bit about Dante's progression from role player all the up to this year. Is that an adjustment you feel he made easily or did you have to talk to him a little bit about being more aggressive about wanting the balls? COACH WRIGHT: We are all surprised, our whole staff was surprised, at how long it took for him to become a go-to guy because when he came in as a freshman, he initially accepted all the responsibilities of being a Villanova basketball player, immediately. He defended. He rebounded. He played hard. He was unselfish immediately. And he played a lot as a freshman. In his sophomore year, we tried to get him to start think more of as a scorer; a guy that wanted the ball at the end. His whole sophomore year, he would have some big games, you could look at his stats, he had a game against Notre Dame, we scored 102 points at home, and he had 20 some. He was unstoppable. Then the next couple weeks he wouldn't shoot. He would always give the ball up. Even halfway through his junior year, same thing, he'd give the ball up in big situations, not out of fear, just out of respect for Scottie and Dwayne and the other guys. Finally towards the end of his junior year, he really started to take pride in being a go-to guy. He came in this year from day one, you could tell, This is my team, I'm going to make the plays at the end. We've been really proud of him. Q. You always talk about how the Big East is tough after every win. Were you surprised when there were three No. 1 seeds? COACH WRIGHT: I really wasn't surprised at all. The only thick that surprised me was going into the Big East tournament, nobody asked me about it, probably nobody cares what I think about it, but I kept saying to our staff, I can't believe that no one is talking about Louisville being a No. 1 seed. When we were going in, everybody was talking about Pitt, UConn, North Carolina, Memphis, Michigan State. It seemed like nobody was talking about them. After they won the tournament, all of a sudden, bang, they're the No. 1 overall seed. That was the team all year in the Big East that I always thought, their defense could keep them in a game whether they're making shots or not. The rest of us, we're not making shots against a real good team, we could struggle. But I was not surprised about the other teams because they were 1 or 2 in the country all year just beating up on each other. It was an incredible year to be a part of that conference. I know we'll all talk about it for the rest of our basketball careers. Q. When you left New York, the one thing that was stuck in your head was in both games you guys got really pounced on at the start of the second half. Very unVillanova basketball like. Why did it happen and what have you done since then to make sure it doesn't happen? COACH WRIGHT: Honestly, I really don't know why it happened. We watched film and we just talked about the situations. You know, what happened. But I don't think we figured it out. I think we need to go play a game and have it happen again and play through it because, I mean, everybody seemed focused. The one thing that I could say is offensively, we weren't aggressive. It was like everybody was kind of waiting for somebody else to step up and make a play. I thought defensively, we played hard. I guess the only thing I could come up with is, offensively we weren't aggressive. And it was an issue in both of those games. We've chosen to just move past it and say, Next game. Q. If you could just reflect back when you played in this building three years ago in the Monmouth and Arizona games, what you remember about those two games, that experience here. COACH WRIGHT: Well, in the Monmouth game, I remember us coming in here a 1 seed, they were a 16 seed. We were playing well. We were all happy thinking we were going to play well. We played well in the first half. Second half they started making a run, and the building turned on us. I never really try to pay attention to the crowd. But it hit even me. So I knew it hit the players. I was thinking, This is our fans turning on us or is this everybody else jumping on Monmouth? I realized it was all of the other teams going for the underdog. So I definitely remember that. I remember the Arizona game. I remember thinking, If we played that game anywhere else, I don't know if we would have won that game. They were so good. They were underrated. They were an underrated 8, man. They were so good. We watched film of them, thought they were good. When we got on the floor with them, we thought, Man, this team's great. Our crowd really pulled us through that. This place was rocking at the end. We hit a couple big free throws. Randy Foye hit a big shot. Anywhere else, I don't know if we would have won that. Q. Marquette and Louisville had 23 threes in the two games against you. Any adjustments you feel need to be made guarding against the three-point shot. COACH WRIGHT: It's definitely a concern playing American, definitely. But I thought there was two reasons for that. In the Marquette came, Acker got it going in the second half. It wasn't a guy we were going to give him shots. Once he got it going, you know, we couldn't stop him. That was a mistake. The Louisville game, most of their threes came from our turnovers, them getting out in transition. I thought in our halfcourt defense we did a decent job defending the three. We've got to take care of the ball, then we've got to recognize if one of those other guys -- we know how well Carr and Gilmore can shoot it. The other guys coming off the bench can shoot it. If one of those other guys gets it going, we have to get after it. End of FastScripts |
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