Kevin Willard quote book: Vanderbilt

On Ismael Sanogo setting the tone defensively and starting over Michael Nzei:
"Mike's been playing great, but I just felt like that first unit needed a little bit more of a defensive spark. Mike covers Angel (Delgado) offensively, but I felt as the games were going on, I needed to cover him defensively, and Ish does the best job of that."

On recovering from Thursday's loss to Rhode Island:
"We were a little disappointed after how we played. We didn't play good last night, and I think it had a lot to do with how Rhode Island played, but we had a great film session this morning, we had a great walkthrough this morning. This team's motivated to keep getting better, so it wasn't hard."

On Desi Rodriguez:
"I have twelve plays for him, and depending on what he's doing, I can put him in an iso at the elbow, I can put him in the post, I can put him on the wing, I can put him in a pick-and-roll. He's just not a one-dimensional player, and it's kind of depending on who's guarding him. If a bigger guy's guarding him, then we'll go outside. If a smaller guy's guarding him, we'll go inside. He's got the skill set where I can take advantage of multiple positions on the court, and he's starting to learn how to really make plays off that."

On what Seton Hall's bench gave him in the second half:
"I thought the bench was tremendous. They gave us great energy. I thought Sandro (Mamukelashvili), Eron Gordon, four assists, no turnovers -- Myles Cale was really good defensively. I just thought they gave us a nice little energy boost, and I thought they popped the ball and we got some easy buckets off our defense."

On importance of winning without major contributions from Khadeen Carrington:
"That's -- as we get better defensively, and we've taken some strides -- the second half last night and obviously today, the fact that you can have Khadeen Carrington score one point and win a game by double digits shows you that there's great depth on this team and there's someone there to pick him up. I told Khadeen after the game I thought it was the first time he played like a true point guard, because he set the tone defensively. He picked up full court, he dogged the ball, he changed our mindset defensively, I thought, and to me, that's what a great point guard does. He changes the game in a way that no one else can, and I think the guys really fed off how he was working defensively. He just has to get used to having the amount of attention he's getting, but he's gonna get it. He's going through the same thing Isaiah (Whitehead) went through his sophomore year, the exact same thing. He's going through the same progressions, the same struggles. The only difference is he's playing a much tougher schedule, so he's getting it a little tougher."

On what he can take from Friday's game moving forward against Texas Tech and Louisville:
"I think these games are going to help us tremendously in January and February, and that was the goal of the schedule, to test us early. We're not -- Texas Tech is phenomenal. They're a lot like us, they're a senior team with a lot of good, young guys. Obviously, Louisville's Louisville. I watched Rutgers play the other night, I like Rutgers, I love the job Steve (Pikiell) is doing. VCU is playing tremendous, they're at a different pace than what they're used to, so we're going to have a lot of opportunities and it's good for us going forward."

On his main takeaway over Thursday and Friday:
"I loved our attitude. I loved the fact that we had a really, really tough loss and we didn't play well -- we had guys play well, and we woke up this morning with a great attitude that we -- no matter what, we were gonna get a victory, and that was the mentality all day. To me, that's a huge step forward for us mentally, because I would have struggled in years past to get them rolling, and I didn't have to do much today besides tell them what I really wanted them to do."