“I think the good thing about it is everyone’s had seven games now with him, or eight games of watching him on film. I think we were the second game he played, I think they beat Michigan and they came to us, so they play totally different than before he was there. Now, you can game plan for him, and I think you have to game plan for him because he’s that good. So it was a little bit easier this time because we kind of knew what they were going to do with him, where last time — you don’t get a trade in college, but it was like they got a trade halfway through the season.”
On Maryland's physicality:
“If you watch us play, my guys play really hard. They’re really good defensively. We have really struggled shooting the basketball this year, it’s just been one of those years, unfortunately. We’ve been in every game, we’ve missed some tough free throws, we’ve missed some open shots at the end of games. We just kind of practice it and we know that there’s a pretty good chance that we might not make that shot, so the best thing to do is just go get it. And so we’ve kind of gotten used to when we shoot it, we go get it. It’s kind of our best offense.”
On Maryland's 3-point shooting:
“I think we were getting some really good open looks to start, and we just kept talking on the bench, ‘hey, guys, the offense is really good, defense is really good.’ Something that we’ve really talked about as a team is just not getting down when we miss 3-point shots. If you watched earlier in the year, we would go through some tough stretches when we’d miss shots that would affect our defense. We’re much better now when we miss shots, we’re not getting down as much as we were before. I just think we’ve gotten used to missing shots. I guess that’s a little bit of it, too, but that’s really the big thing.”
On Rutgers’ field goal drought of nearly 12 minutes:
“We’re the fifth-ranked defensive team in the country, so we’ve had some really, really good runs. Even going in at halftime, I thought we really should have been up 18 or 20 with just how well we played defensively, and that’s kind of been our Achilles’ heel. We’ve defended everybody at a pretty high level, and it was good. Again, this time of year, you could either pack it in a little bit and have a s****y attitude, or you can try to keep on fighting and make something happen. And these guys have had — we practiced for almost three hours yesterday, I mean, I got on them — we practiced for three hours and they responded. It’s good to see. They’ve had a great attitude all year and we’ve played hard all year. We’ve just struggled in close games.”
On Jersey Mike’s Arena and Rutgers’ crowd:
“Yeah, I hate this place, Jerry. I’m really hoping I don’t have to come back next year, to be honest with you. This is — I think my last year at The Hall, I had to come here, and I think we got smacked.”
Jerry Carino: “By 20.”
Willard: “Yeah, thanks. This is — I know it’s an old building and I think they’re trying to build a new one or maybe redo this, but I really hope it doesn’t lose its character because the student section is great, they’re right on top of you, the fans are great, they’re right on top of you. I think this is an old-school college atmosphere that Steve has done an unbelievable job building. It wasn’t like this before Steve got here, so the fact that Steve’s built it so well and it’s become a place where it’s really tough to win.”
On winning comfortably after struggles in close games:
“We’re 20 points away from probably being like, the 10th team in the country, as crazy as that sounds. That can get a little frustrating, and that can make you kind of go the other way. I think what’s great about this is that these kids have stayed extremely competitive, extremely hungry to win. I think you saw a team that hasn’t given up, which a lot of teams can this time of year, so to go out and play well, and get rewarded — because we’ve played well, I thought we played really well at Wisconsin, we played good at Illinois, had a couple tough calls in both those games that changed momentum late — so to see these guys come out and play well, I think it’s very rewarding.”
On four double-figure scorers:
“I just said this on the radio: DeShawn (Harris-Smith) and Jamie (Kaiser) are doing exactly what I hoped would happen. They’re no longer freshmen. They’ve really grown, you could see the confidence that they both have when they’re on the floor. We’re playing two freshmen a lot of minutes, and in today’s college basketball, that’s very rare. So to see those guys kind of take a jump and have the confidence they have at a place like this and a defensive team — I think Rutgers is sixth or seventh in the country in defense — so to be able to do it against a really good defensive team, it feels great for those guys because they’ve gone through their lumps.”
On responding after Rutgers drew within 10 points:
“We kind of knew they were going to make a run. Again, they’re a good basketball team, they’re a competitive basketball team. They went really small and kind of messed with us a little bit, so just making a little adjustment to try to get the basketball into Juju (Reese) a little bit and just try to make them guard us a little bit, I think that was the big difference.”
Postscript:
Willard: “Jerry, I had an unbelievable Italian meal last night.”
Carino: “You beat me to it!”
Alex Schiffer: “Where at?”
Willard: “Right downtown, right across the street from the hotel.”
Carino: “Here?”
Willard: “Yeah.”
Brian Fonseca: “Catherine Lombardi’s?”
Willard: “Yeah, it was that place.”
Fonseca: “I took my girlfriend for Valentine’s Day there.”
Willard: “It’s expensive. You must be doing really well!”
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