Kevin Willard quotebook: CCSU postgame

Seton Hall head coach Kevin Willard on whether he got what he wanted to see:
"The big thing why we went Friday-Sunday was I wanted to see how these guys, get these guys used to short turnarounds, preparation; see how they would focus in because we're going to have that during Thanksgiving, we've got Thursday-Friday-Sunday, so I wanted to make sure these guys understand the quick turnarounds. I thought they came out with good defensive intensity. We got up 24-4. We just need to be a little bit more, in times where we get the lead, we get a little loose with the basketball, we get a little careless on offense. We just need to kind of keep our offensive intensity going a little bit more."

On Myles Powell:
"He's getting it. He still has the jitters a little bit. There's a difference between practice and games, and that's the other thing. A lot of the younger guys got some tonight to get their feet wet a little bit, and he'll continue to find his stroke and find better shots and take better shots. His thing is he's just trying to get the shot off right now. Once he relaxes a little bit, he'll start taking better shots."

On 15-0 run early in the first half:
"I think the biggest thing was we got some easy buckets early, and we got them to take a couple of tough shots. When you can get teams to take tough shots and you can get easy buckets early, it takes a little wind out of the sails of the other team and I think that's something, again: We wanted to come out early and play well defensively, and I think we set a good tone. For the most part, they did what they had to do."

On improvement heading into Iowa:
"We've got a lot to improve on. I think the biggest thing is we've got to make sure, we have to somehow figure out how to create turnovers. We're not creating enough turnovers. That's two teams in a row that haven't turned the ball over. That was something why we got so good defensively last year. I think Isaiah (Whitehead) and Derrick (Gordon)...Madison (Jones) is a much better on-ball defender than both those guys, but he's just much more of a solid player; which I have no problem with, where the difference with Derrick and Isaiah was they knew how to gamble and create steals and get some easy buckets. That's what I'm struggling with now. We've got to find a way to get some easy buckets in transition, because we're not getting a whole lot of easy buckets in transition."

On raising a second Big East championship banner before the game:
"The one at Walsh for me was a little bit more special, just because it was on campus. Here, with the lights out, I thought the video was tremendously well done; but I thought at Walsh, with all the people, as tight as it was and with the history of Walsh...it was great, but it is time to move on and come back to reality."

On Iowa and how they match up with Seton Hall:
"Their length is really impressive. The way Fran (McCaffery) plays, he gets up and down, we're going to have to really be strong on transition defense. I keep forgetting this kid's name, (Peter Jok) I'm sure after the game I won't forget it. He's a heck of a player, he's got the ultimate green light, he's got great range, he scores in all different manners and ranges. It's going to be our first road test since...we haven't played a road game in a while, so it's going to be a great challenge for us to kind of get our feet wet on the road against a very good team."

On his rotation:
"Probably, it should be nine or ten most of the preseason, and maybe hopefully, I could keep it at nine or ten going forward."