“You’ve got to play an A-level game, and I really thought offensively, we were kind of stuck in the mud a little bit in the first half. I thought our offense kind of gave them too many opportunities, too many easy opportunities in the first half, it just kind of dug us a hole. You’ve just really got to play a good A-game.”
On Seton Hall’s mindset:
“We’re definitely disappointed. We had good opportunities against really good teams, but I’m really impressed with how they bounced back today. I know they didn’t play good, but the loss the other night was tough. That was really a ballbuster, to be honest with you, but I thought they bounced back. I thought we played hard today, I thought we did some good things, but we had a hard time mentally getting going early in the game, and against a good team like Villanova, they’re just going to keep attacking you. So I think we’re disappointed, but we also know we’ve got a lot of college basketball to be played, we’ve got a whole month and a half, so that’s about it.”
On significance of next week’s matchups:
“At this point, I think every week’s big. Once you get to February, you stop being happy and you start kicking the dog. It’s just one of those things, there’s no more, ‘Hey, it’s December and you lost a game, that’s okay.’ We’ve got to rebound, we’ve got to come back and get after it — on the defensive end more than anything — and get ready to play two tough games.”
On Seton Hall’s perimeter defense:
“I would call it terrible, and that’s an improvement from horrific the other night. It’s really mind-boggling: We’re working really hard on the defensive end, we’re doing a lot of good things, our guys are in position, and we’re having little breakdowns that have really been, at times, with the wrong guys. That kills you against really good teams, and so I’m frustrated a little bit for the fact that we’re just having little breakdowns, it’s like a little hole in the boat is causing it to flood. We have to somehow get better at it, because if we don’t, we’re going to continue to struggle. So I don’t know if that’s the correct answer. I think it was terrible, but from horrific, I guess that’s an improvement? They only made 10 (3-pointers), Creighton made 17, so it’s seven less but I think it’s the same percentage, which is still s***ty.”
On making up games against Xavier and Butler:
“We’ll take tomorrow off. That’s our normal after the Wednesday-Saturday, we’ll take tomorrow off, practice Monday and Tuesday. I’m pretty sure the Butler game is getting rescheduled, I doubt we’ll get the Xavier game. Maybe we do if something else happens down the schedule and someone gets shut down, but you kind of get lucky if you get shut down early, to be honest with you, because if you don’t get shut down early, then you lose games and they’ve already made up all the games. I don’t think we’ll make that (Xavier) game up, to be honest with you. We’re going to play two, then we have a bye week and then we have three, then the Butler game’s going to be played, so that’s six, right? And then I wouldn’t be surprised if we move one of the March games into late February, so I think we’ll have a normal February. I just think we’re going to lose our bye week on February 7, if that makes sense. I think we go 3, 6, 15, 18, 21, and I think the Butler game’s somewhere around the 24th or 25th. It’s kind of a normal February for us, if that makes sense.”
On feeling good about Seton Hall’s mental state:
“Oh, absolutely. We just played at Creighton, at DePaul, at Villanova, home Creighton, home Villanova. We just went through the gauntlet. We didn’t survive it very well, but we just went through it and we had two chances to win games. We should have won both of them, and Villanova played really well, they outplayed us, so that’s part of this league and I think the good thing about a veteran team is they’ll be ready to bounce back on Monday.”
On moving March games into February:
“Just because I think of getting ready and having to be able to test for the Big East tournament. There’s always a possibility that one of the 3rd or 6th, depending on — and again, it’s so easy for me to say that and that’s what we’re talking about as a league, someone else gets shut down, there’s no way to plan for that right now. I think everyone’s trying to plan for making sure everyone can get into New York for the Big East tournament, if that makes sense.”
On Sandro Mamukelashvili:
“Sandro’s been a warrior. He’s played great all year. What he’s going through is something every top player goes through at some point. He’s getting double-teamed, everyone knows what we’re running for him, it’s the same thing Myles went through his junior year, same thing Myles went through last year. I do think he’s forcing it at times, but that’s just because he hasn’t been through this. He’s playing great, I think he’s giving great effort, I thought he rebounded the ball well today. It’s just that everyone goes through this. He had to play against Damien Jefferson, who I think is one of the best defenders college basketball, and he had to play against Jermaine Samuels, who’s one of the best one-on-one defenders. He’s had to go through it, and I think he’s going to be fine.”
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