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BIG EAST CONFERENCE MEN'S TOURNAMENTMarch 13, 2014Ryan ArcidiaconoJosh HartJay WrightNEW YORK CITY, NEW YORK Seton Hall - 64 Villanova - 63 COACH JAY WRIGHT: That was a great college basketball game, great to be a part of it, great atmosphere. The Garden was rocking. We had a lot of fun. Seton Hall, they just played great. It was a great college basketball game. They played better. They made the plays at the end. We made a play. They made a play a couple times. I just thought they played extremely well. We started off the game not shooting the ball well. We had good shots; didn't make them, battled back. That's what tournament time is all about. They made a great play; give them credit. I think that game was about Seton Hall really executing and really playing well. I don't think it was about us playing poorly. Q. Jay, you guys, as you said, missed a lot of shots in the first half, but you kept getting to the line and pounding it in there and getting free throws and chances. Did that make you think at halftime you still had a pretty good shot to come back and take the game? COACH JAY WRIGHT: We have a good team. I know they're not going to quit. We were getting shots we wanted. We were getting to the foul line. We missed free throws. We missed shots we normally make. But good teams find a way to win anyway. We've had other games like that this year where we didn't make free throws, didn't make shots, and we found a way to win. I thought we came back, Darrun hitting that shot gave us a chance. They came up with a better play. I think it's one of those games we've just got to give them credit. Q. Coach, how concerned would you be, this is the third time playing this team? Does that get in your head? COACH JAY WRIGHT: Probably in the back of my head, yeah, you think about all those things. Once the game starts, you've got to concentrate on this game. We had a tough game with them at their place. They're a very, very good offensive team. I thought they played smart defense tonight, gave some of our guys shots that they wanted to give shots to, and we let those guys take them. We just didn't make them. I thought they were a very smart defensively tonight. And it paid off for them. Q. What does this mean for your NCAA Tournament? Probably won't be a 1 seed, but might be a 2 now. Going into the Tournament, how will you guys feel? COACH JAY WRIGHT: You've all heard me say this before: This was not about 1 seeds, 2 seeds. This was about we wanted to come to Madison Square Garden and win the Big East Tournament. Winning the Big East Tournament would mean much more to us than a 1 seed. This is a great tournament. We want to be here until Saturday. I think we're most disappointed about that. The NCAA Tournament seedings, my belief is 1, 2, 3, it doesn't matter that much. You're going to play great teams. Q. For Ryan: You and Bell and Hilliard obviously struggled to shoot in the first half in particular. Was it anything they did, or did you just feel like you weren't on your game today? RYAN ARCIDIACONO: No, we just took open shots. We just weren't making them. I know Darrun and Josh had a couple of them. I made my first one and then got a couple of other elbow jumpers and an open three. It just didn't fall for us. The second half we find of picked up our defense, and that's where we got some easy layups, easy buckets, and we started making it in the second half. We got the shots we wanted to. They just weren't falling for us. Q.  Coach, about a month ago, in an interview, you were talking about the teams in the Big East, and you actually had mentioned that Seton Hall, if all their players could play, could beat the best teams in the country. And this kind of proves your point, right? COACH JAY WRIGHT: Yeah, I didn't really want to do that today (laughter). I'd rather have been wrong, but I do believe that. I really do. I also said DePaul. You saw that last night. I know how good these teams are. I think my quote was, "Nobody would want to play these guys on these teams in a one‑and‑done game." I just know the quality of coaching in this league. I know the quality of play. I think some of the teams that finished in the bottom of the league early in the season had injury problems, had suspensions. Just early in the season in nonconference play, they weren't at full strength. So it didn't make any noise nationally. But then once we all started playing games and they got to full strength, they were really good teams. Q. When you played Seton Hall last month at your place, you guys really torched them inside in the paint. What was the difference in their defense tonight? COACH JAY WRIGHT: I thought Teague was really good defensively tonight. We had trouble scoring on him. For some reason, he was not as effective defensively the last time we played them. He did a really good job. We got the ball into JayVaughn a number of times, and I thought he had some good looks, and he contested them. JayVaughn got to the foul line ten times, so this time he didn't make free throws. The difference between winning and losing is so close. We missed ten free throws. We're a pretty good free‑throw shooting team. If we made free throws, we might be sitting here talking about a different outcome. That's the game. As I said, I think they played smart. There were times‑‑ they got real physical with JayVaughn in there, rather than worrying about Teague getting in foul trouble. He finished with four. There was a play there at the end he might have had his fifth, but they called it on somebody else. It was just smart on their part on how Teague played. Q. For Josh and Arch, you guys went on a 16‑0 run, took the lead 47‑44 on Hilliard's three. Did you both kind of feel like the momentum has swung, we kind of flipped it, and we're finally where we want to be? Did you kind of sense that? JOSH HART: Yeah, definitely a little bit. We picked up our defense in the second half. So that really gave us a chance to be in the ballgame. So when we go on a big run like that, it always gives us momentum. Q. Arch, is a loss like this pretty dramatic? You guys had that big pushback, as we said, and a lot of teams would probably have wilted in that situation, but they punched back. But getting a loss in this kind of environment, a few days removed from Selection Sunday as you prepare for the tournament, can it serve as something positive, just as a painful gash or a reminder? "The tournament is next week; we can't afford to have any performances like this going forward." RYAN ARCIDIACONO: I guess you could say that, but for us, we want to win when we're, like, during games when we're not shooting the ball as well. We didn't play as well defensively as we could have in the first half. In the second half we picked it up. But like you said, in the NCAA Tournament, it's one and done. We have to bring it right from start. We can't have Coach call a quick time‑out. We have to bring it. It comes from practice every day and just going at each other. Q. How important is it for you to come back here in the East region, if you can make it to the Sweet 16? Would you like to come back? COACH JAY WRIGHT: You know, honestly, any of that stuff in the NCAA Tournament, I really don't care about. There's so many variables in the NCAA Tournament. We played a first‑round game twice in the Wells Fargo Center, and we're down in the second half. I thought it was tough playing at home. I thought there was pressure on us. And then we had other times in the second‑round game at the Wells Fargo Center against Arizona in '06, we never would have won that game if we didn't have the crowd behind us. There's so many variables, we don't worry about any of that. We're happy to be in there. We'll play anybody anywhere, and we don't talk about that stuff. Q. You alluded to the free throws a couple of minutes ago. You guys have been struggling from the line recently. How much of that is a concern for you right now? COACH JAY WRIGHT: We work on it every day. We've always been a good free‑throw shooting team. I don't think there's anything more you can do about it. I think it's who we are. We've got to play that way. When certain guys aren't making free throws‑‑ like JayVaughn's been like 78 percent from the foul line. So he just had a bad day. It's just who we are. Like I don't make it a concern, like, oh, that's going to be our Achilles heel. We'll just play that way, knowing that sometimes some of our guys don't make free throws. Thank you, guys. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports |
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