Kevin Willard quote book: Sacred Heart

By Jaden Daly (@jadendaly) and Jason Guerette (@JPGuerette)

On Sandro Mamukelashvili and his shooting stroke:
"When you're around your guys as much as we're around them, you start to see tendencies, and I think the biggest thing for Sandro is he's taking good shots. It's not just technique. All his shots over the last couple of games have not been rushed shots or quick shots, they've all been within the flow of the offense, and he's a good shooter when he takes good shots. He's got a good percentage of making them."

On flipping point guards in practice, playing Anthony Nelson with the first unit and Quincy McKnight with the second:
"Just to give -- more for Ant -- to give Ant some time with Myles (Powell). It's just more or less, there's been times when I think Ant is in there with Myles, he's missing him, and I just wanted to give Ant some time with Myles Powell. That's it."

On Seton Hall's guard depth:
"Q, for us defensively, does such a great job and then Ant has a unique ability to get in the lane, and the more he embraces being that eight-assist, two-turnover guy, that's kind of what I expect from those two. I thought Q got us off to a great start defensively, and I thought Anthony did a really good job just kind of getting everybody involved in the offense."

On Darnell Brodie and his progression:
"He's doing good. Darnell's doing terrific. The big guys, you've just got to be patient with. It's not -- big guys, I've always said you've got to be patient, you've got to keep working with them -- he's progressing really well offensively. The biggest thing with Darnell is getting him a little better defensively, which he's been working hard at, so I like all of our big guys. They're really progressing nicely."

On Shavar Reynolds' 10-point game:
"Shavar's been stuck in kind of no man's land, because Myles Powell has been so important for us to be out there. It's been hard to get him minutes, but that's -- I think he's a good little spark plug for us. None of us played well defensively, but usually, he's the guy that can give us a little spark defensively, too."

On Saturday's game at Maryland:
"I think handling their front line is going to be critical, and I've been so impressed with how (Mark) Turgeon's got them so locked in defensively, for technically a pretty young group, I think they're really good defensively. So we're really going to have to play offensively with a good tempo, we're going to have to take care of the basketball and get good shots because they're locked in defensively right now."

On why he scheduled Maryland:
"Oh, when did I see Mark? I saw Mark in the airport in July, one of the last recruiting periods. He was looking for a good home game, I was actually looking to start a series on the road, but I didn't want to travel, I wanted someplace kind of close and it's kind of hard if you're not traveling. There's not that many teams, and I needed to start a high-major series, and we just started talking about it and it made a lot of sense for him. It's just a good home game for him, and conversely, it's a great home game for us next year but it's another true road test, and I thought we needed to get tested on the road again."

On being able to win while only playing Myles Powell for 26 minutes:
"The only thing I don't like about the schedule is that we haven't had enough home games like this, where the guys who are working really hard and doing well aren't getting rewarded with minutes on the floor. It's the only negative. I think I've learned a lot about this team from the way we've scheduled, but I think the negative to it is we haven't had a whole lot of games where we could throw four guys on the bench out for five minutes. We just haven't played anybody that way."

On what a win over Maryland says for Seton Hall's resume:
"I don't worry about that stuff. One game at a time. We'd be 9-3, right? 9-3 would be one game off where I thought we would be. I'd like to tell you which way it was going to go. I think we've emerged from the non-conference, no matter what happens on Saturday, in pretty good shape from the standpoint that we're battle-tested, we've played every type of style of basketball, we've played big teams, small teams. I think we're very well-prepared for Big East play, and that's what I wanted for this team."

On how much Seton Hall's defense has improved:
"If we could start defensive rebounding at -- we're never going to be a great defensive rebounding team and part of it's my fault -- I hate box-out drills, it's a great way to get a guy hurt. I hated it as a player, and if I didn't like it as a player, I don't do it as a coach, but if we become a good box-out team, a good defensive rebounding team, then I think our defense can get much better, because right now, we're making teams work. They're taking bad shots late in the shot clock, but we're not rewarding ourselves. If we can get to that next level there, then I think our defense could be pretty darn good. I think we have the personnel that could do it."