“Those questions are really kind of…they made some shots and we didn’t do a good job tonight. Give them a lot of credit, they’re a good team. They’re a really good team, really disciplined, got good guard play. They average 11 made threes a game, so you know that’s something that they’re gonna do. Our job was to try to contain it as much as possible, try to keep them off the offensive glass, but we just didn’t play well. We picked the wrong game to not play well at all. From an offensive standpoint, we were awful. I thought our defense was solid, they scored 64 points — I mean, we’re kind of keeping teams in that range, the sixties, whatever — so a team like that with a lot of power that they have, as far as offensive power, for them to score 64 points is pretty good. The problem is we couldn’t score.”
On Budd Clark:
“I thought having those two fouls early kind of got him out of rhythm. He was out of rhythm with two fouls early, he sat a lot, he’s not used to sitting. Then with him sitting down, we didn’t really get into the flow of the offense too much, and I thought in the second half, he came out aggressive, missed a couple shots. They got a couple runouts and then from there, we were trying to play catch-up. I’m still learning him, right? He had a tough game, and not just him. A lot of our guys had tough shooting games tonight. We just gotta get back, I know these guys gotta — this rule they have, they gotta get all these days off — so we gotta give these guys a lot of days off, then come back and have a short turnaround to go to Marquette.”
On shot selection:
“We missed a lot of layups, I know that. I don’t understand how you miss that many layups, but I have to watch the film more to see. I know we had some pull-ups…I know early on, Mike had some pull-ups, Budd had some pull-ups, shots that they’re capable of making. We knew they were gonna play that defense, they were gonna drop. But you just can’t have four guys and you’ve got one guy 1-for-11, another guy 2-for-11, 2-for-9. I’m not calling no names out, that’s just what it is. Those are our key guys, those guys gotta be able to make some plays for us, and they didn’t. Give Villanova a lot of credit tonight, but we’ll bounce back.”
On not having Najai Hines:
“To answer your question, it impacts us a lot not having him. A low-post presence, a defender, somebody to protect the basket, somebody that we could throw the ball to, a guy to get offensive rebounds. I thought Steph was good, but I think he played too much. I played him too much, he was tired. When you’re out there going over all those ball screens, man, I don’t care who you are. You’re gonna get fatigued. And I hope we have (Hines) back soon because we need him.”
On Hines’ activity between games:
“Yeah, he tried to do some non-contact stuff. He’ll get evaluated, I guess, when we get back (after Christmas) because after tonight, guys are going on break for a minute.”
To Adam Zagoria following up on Hines’ absence being called an illness, and on Kevin Willard:
“Yeah, sure. There you go. It’s an illness, yeah. You want to call it an illness? You know, you’re a funny guy. You know that, man? You know, welcome back, man! You don’t be here for all these games and you come back with that? Come on, man!”
“(Willard) did a good job, man. He’s a good coach, man, he’s a really good coach. I don’t know why people don’t understand that. He’s a really good coach, I’ve got a lot of respect for him, he did a lot for me in my career, I’m very grateful for it. We definitely talk, he’s a big supporter of mine, I’m a big supporter of his, but tonight, he was trying to beat me and I was trying to beat him. He did a good job tonight, but on to the next.”
On this game being a lesson to the team:
“I don’t think you ever could burn a tape, because you want to make sure you — I don’t think we played at the intensity we should have played at the whole game. We had spurts with it. I thought we could have really got after them, and we really didn’t. And that’s, like I said, it’s a combination of a lot of things, right? When you’re not making shots, you can’t get in your press, and that was kind of one of the things with us. We didn’t make no shots, so we couldn’t really get in our press, and then down the stretch, you’re kind of playing comeback, you’re getting some steals and you’re scoring, now you can get in your press. But we couldn’t score, so we couldn’t get in our press. And we didn’t get in our press because of a team like that, they’re running the shot clock and they run all these grenades — all these dribble handoffs — and they’ve got a point guard, a freshman, that’s phenomenal. He controlled the game. And they made shots. And when they make shots, they’re a hard team to beat.”
On Villanova’s Acaden Lewis:
“I thought he played well. I thought we didn’t do a good job of putting him on his heels, pressuring him and making him think. He was just kind of playing free, and when you’re playing free like that, I think he played well…what did he have, 16 points? He played well. I don’t know, fellas. This was a tough one, man. I’m disappointed in our effort, I’m disappointed in the way we played, I’m disappointed in a lot of things. The one thing I’m disappointed in is these guys were like, forcing a lot of things instead of just playing. They were like, ‘oh, this gotta go in,’ instead of just playing. You gotta play. I thought one of the good things is Josh gave us some positive minutes, so that’s a good thing. I don’t like the way we played tonight. I don’t think it was tight. Jerry, you’re the best, man. Both you guys are the best. I think because we weren’t scoring, everybody was like, ‘I gotta do it, I gotta do it,’ instead of just playing within the flow of the team, passing it and getting an extra one, then the next one, and getting a good shot for Seton Hall and not for me. I thought we had a bunch of me shots tonight instead of Seton Hall shots, and that got us in trouble. But we’ll get better.”
On Josh Rivera:
“I’m kind of the last guy to ask stuff like that because I’m a sore loser, because when you lose, it really doesn’t matter if someone played good individually. We lost. But for him, that’s a positive for him because he’s getting more confidence. He understands what I want from him. He’s gotta play like that all the time, not just sometimes. Play with that type of energy and that passion, and if he does that, he’ll see more minutes.”
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