Kevin Willard quote book: Providence

On Seton Hall’s second-half comeback:
“We didn’t come out very focused, and they did. I thought Alpha (Diallo) was great early, I thought he came out with a really strong focus that kind of got them going, and not only him making shots. I thought he was really good on the defensive end, I thought he set a tone and we just didn’t respond to him or them, and you give them credit. They just had a tough loss at St. John’s, and they came back out and played well.”

On slow starts:
“It’s happened to us a little bit too much. We’ve gotten down in the first half a lot and we’ve been able to kind of claw our way back, but we just couldn’t do it. We couldn’t get over the hump today.”

On maintaining a lead in the Big East standings and Saturday’s loss being easier to take as a result:
“We’re going to go through...I’ve said that the second half of our conference schedule is the hardest of anybody’s, and we were going to have our little bumps in the road. Everybody does in conference play, and right now, we’ve had a couple of tough bumps, but that’s not going to negate the fact that we’ve really been good all year long. It’s part of the process.”

On how the season can change suddenly:
“Yeah, I think it goes back to — I know in our conference and in a couple of other conferences — you have no night off. The Big Ten’s on after us a lot, so I’ve watched the Big Ten, I’ve watched us, and I think the Big Ten has one bad team, but for the most part, we don’t. Every night’s a grind, and you’re going to have some nights where you hopefully don’t come out the way we came out, but I just think, top to bottom, our league is so tough that if you’re not ready to play, you’re going to get smacked around a little bit.”

On Seton Hall’s last five regular season games:
“There’s no hiding it, we’ve got to go out and we’ve gotta refocus, kind of get back in and get back to what we were doing. We were defending at a really high level for the first eight games, and now we’re not defending very good, and I think that’s probably the biggest difference. We’ve got to get back to defending and being better on the ball.”

On Myles Powell overcoming shooting woes:
“What him and Markus (Howard) go through, they’re the only two guys in the conference that get the attention these two guys get. The other night, Markus was 4-for-15 at one point before he got it going. These two guys are getting attention that no one else gets and no one else prepares the way these two guys are getting, and I think at times, you do press a little bit. We saw a triangle-and-two the other night, and two guys were on him.”

On Romaro Gill’s recent play:
“I just think it’s a strength of ours, and teams are doing a good job of kind of clogging up the lane a little bit and making us shoot from the outside. I thought we had five or six really good looks late in the second half, where it was a 4-point game, 3-point game, that we’ve just got to make, but I think teams are loading up the lane a whole lot more than what they were because he was doing such a great job of catching it, and guys were finding him. It’s something that we’ve just got to keep trying, getting him the ball a little bit, because he does a lot of good things for us.”

On Jared Rhoden’s consistency:
“I think the biggest thing with Jay is he’s always been a guy that brings great energy, but I think he’s bringing a consistent effort right now on both ends of the floor. He’s just bringing such great energy to everybody out there that good things are happening.”

On Ed Cooley and Providence:
“They’re 7-6, that’s a good basketball team. Alpha’s a senior, Pip (Luwane Pipkins) is a senior, I think David Duke’s going to be one of the best players in the league next year, by far. He had a tough game, but his upside’s unbelievable. This is a tough place to play, the crowd was into it. You’ve got to play well on the road in college basketball to win, and we’ve done a pretty good job.”