Kevin Willard quote book: Georgetown

On Myles Powell taking over late in the second half:
“That’s just Myles being Myles. I was worried about him this game because of the adrenaline of coming back, that first game is always easier, the second game, now you have to kind of burn real fuel. He’s just not back to where he’s going to be in a couple of weeks, but you just knew it was only a matter of time. He got a couple of good looks that he missed, and then we were able to get on the break. I thought Jagan Mosely did a good job on him early in the game. Jagan’s big, he’s physical, he’s always defended him pretty well, but we needed to get out in transition and I thought that was key.”

On how Myles Cale and Romaro Gill give Seton Hall an added dimension:
“It’s huge, especially Myles Cale, just because he gives us another guy on the wing that’s confident and can really shoot the basketball, and it really opens up things for Ro on pick-and-rolls. Myles Cale’s been working extremely hard, we’ve been really working on his release point the last two weeks and he’s been putting a ton of work in, but it just changes — it just takes a lot of pressure off Myles Powell — and Quincy was battling the flu the last couple of days, but for Quincy battling the flu, he played great, too. When those guys are playing that way, we’re a pretty good team.”

On Cale’s shooting development:
“We just ran the same play three times. They’re aggressive on pick-and-rolls, and they were going to be aggressive on Myles on pick-and-rolls, and we just put a single tag guy over there and just tried to put pressure on his guy and get help on the roll. We put Myles on the other side and we spaced them pretty good, and Ro had gotten a couple of good rolls, now he was able to get open and he took advantage of it.”

On Powell insisting Gill be interviewed with him postgame:
“I think Myles Powell’s starting to become a smart man, because I think he understands how much Ro does and how much he’s protecting all those guys down there. What I’m proud of (about) Ro is the consistency, back-to-back games — the second half at DePaul and now this game — we’re trying to get him the ball a little bit more around the rim so we can reward him for all the stuff he’s doing defensively, and I thought the guys did a good job of looking for him tonight.”

On playing without Powell against Maryland carrying over into Big East play:
“I think, for me, it’s been much easier for me to navigate having gone through a couple of games without Myles to know my rotation, what we could do and who I can depend on. When you lose a guy mid-game, it’s so hard to make an adjustment in college basketball mid-game, but when you have some time to sit there and say, ‘Okay, now we can adjust and we can do this, we can move the chess pieces around,’ I think, more than anything, it’s given me a lot of confidence in running different things for different guys at different times.”

On Cale’s impact:
“It hasn’t been instant, I mean, we’ve been working at it. If you look at his shot, he had gotten it down a little bit from his release point last year. When he was really shooting the basketball well at the end of last year, his release point was so much higher. We’ve been watching film and taping him shooting, and then watching film, and to his credit, he’s just stayed positive. He’s put up with me — when I get on those kicks, I don’t let him leave the gym — and he’s been in there for the last...we’ve been grinding since early December, and when you have to change a little thing in your shot that sounds like it’s a simple thing, but it’s almost like changing your golf swing, it just takes time and patience. To his credit, he has stayed patient, especially with me, and now he’s getting rewarded for the hard work he’s put into it.”

On challenge of playing at Xavier:
“The Cintas Center is great. I think it’s one of the best college basketball arenas there is. It’s a perfect size, the fans are into it, they’re knowledgeable, they’re always well respected, and I think the fact that you’ve got guys like Naji Marshall and Tyrique Jones — and the list goes on — they are as good a defensive team and rebounding team that we’ll probably see besides Butler, so we’re going to have a huge challenge on the road.”

On whether or not he sent Brian Custer the bottle of wine he said he would give him: (When Custer does play-by-play of Seton Hall games, the Pirates are 23-0 all-time, including Friday)
“I’m not going to tell you what Brian Custer gets, but he gets a lot more than you guys do, I’ll tell you that much.”