	products recent interviews FastScripts archive about ASAP Sports

Our Clients:

Browse by Sport

Find us on

Subscribe to RSS

Click to go to
Asaptext.com

View our
e-Brochure

BIG EAST CONFERENCE MEN'S TOURNAMENT

March 11, 2010

Jay Wright

NEW YORK CITY, NEW YORK

Marquette Â– 80
Villanova - 76

THE MODERATOR: Coach Jay Wright, Corey Stokes, Scottie Reynolds.

COACH JAY WRIGHT: Well, great game. We gave all the credit to Marquette. They just continued to answer every play, every situation, every little adjustment we made, they had an answer for. They just did a great, great job. I have to give them credit.
We didn't play that poorly. Obviously, you know, a couple of times we lost, Johnson-Odom, we lost Hayward. But it's easy to say that when you watch the game. They do such a great job of making the extra passes, driving the ball, not taking the initial shot, making the extra passes. They get you scrambling. If you're not great at playing every possession for 35 seconds defensively, they're going to get you. I think that was the difference. We're good at it. We're not great at it yet.

Q. Coach, you know one thing about this tournament, 1-2 seeds got bumped off. It shows the competitiveness. More importantly, seeing each other as much as you have, talk about how that plays into it, maybe what happened today.
COACH JAY WRIGHT: I think that happens every year in the Tournament. I think that's what is great about tournaments. You don't have to worry about when they say you have to prepare one day after -- it's not a big deal. We've all played each other. We know each other. I think that's what makes the games great. It's been great games throughout this tournament. Our familiarity with each other is -- it makes it tough beating any team.

Q. Teams often will look when they are picking their brackets at teams that are hot and not hot based on the end of their conference and their conference play. Do you think that's folly?
COACH JAY WRIGHT: If I was picking a team, I would look deeper into that. I would look at games they played. I would look at, you know, how they played. You know, we just lost two games in a row now. I don't think we played that poorly. I think we played two very good teams. I would like us to be better at this point in the season. But we are where we are. I'm not disappointed. I'm just trying to be realistic about we are where we are. We have to keep getting better. I know we can get better. I still feel good about our team. I really do.

Q. Given the results of today, not just you guys and previous tournaments, what are your thoughts about the double bye, advantage or disadvantage?
COACH JAY WRIGHT: I think it depends on where your team is. Last year for instance for us it was great; we needed the rest last year. This year I thought it was good, too, because we actually needed the practice. I mean, we got better since our West Virginia game. We really did. We didn't get good enough to win this game, but we did get better. I still really like it.
And the other part of it is if we would have won, you only have two more games to win a championship. So we all know the NCAA Tournament is important. Your top teams aren't beat down. That's the other part of it that I think -- I think we would trade that. We would all trade that. Maybe sometimes not being ready -- but that's not fair. We're all ready. We've been playing so many games. There's still a great advantage to only playing three games in a tournament and having a chance to win it.

Q. Scottie, this is your last BIG EAST game. How tough is it for you for your career to end like this?
SCOTTIE REYNOLDS: It's tough, but, you know, that's basketball, you know. You have to go on to the next thing. We're just looking forward to the NCAA Tournament. You know, trying to learn from our mistakes and try to make them into positives. Marquette did a great job today. There's no shame in losing when, you know, when you're going up against a team like Marquette.

Q. Scottie, Jay was talking about the double bye. Was it enough time for you to sort of rest and get recuperated? Or do you think it was too long to sit around?
SCOTTIE REYNOLDS: I think it was plenty of time. I think it was good for us just to get back on the court and go over things that we didn't do so well in the West Virginia game and get prepared for Marquette and take our time with preparing for Marquette. Like Coach said, we didn't get good enough to win this game but we got a lot better since the West Virginia game.

Q. Scottie, you've been in a number of these games in these tournaments, in the BIG EAST Tournament. How much does it wear you down and how much does it pump you up for the next level?
SCOTTIE REYNOLDS: I think the BIG EAST season, it does wear you down because you see so many teams that are at the top and so many competitive teams just going at it night in and night out. You just got to prepare yourself mentally and physically and know that each team that you face is going to be a tough one, just like this one. We didn't expect anything different. You know, we try to have that mindset every time we step on the floor, that every game is going to come down to the last two minutes of a game.

Q. Jay, I guess Jay, you got probably a week now until your next game. How hard or easy is it going to be to get you guys to put everything behind you?
COACH JAY WRIGHT: I think one thing about this group, they've done a great job of all year, is just gotten on to the next game and taken pride in getting better in practice. We need to get better. I think we can. We'll take a day or so off here. But we'll have some good practices and we'll improve between now and the time we play our first Tournament game.
THE MODERATOR: Villanova, thank you.
COACH JAY WRIGHT: Thanks, guys.

End of FastScripts

ASAP Sports, Inc. | T: 1.212 385 0297