Kevin Willard quote book: Big East media day

By Jason Guerette (@JPGuerette)

On Sandro Mamukelashvili being named to the preseason all-Big East first team, and his expectations:

“I think it's phenomenal, to be honest with you. It goes to show how much hard work he has put in. I think everyone started to see the player he was emerging to be. Obviously, last year, we had Myles (Powell), but he was our second-best player, very dependable. I think this whole (NBA) draft process gave him a lot of confidence, a lot of information for what he has to work on and what teams are looking for, and I love how aggressive he's been in practice so far. I'm expecting a really big year from him because I think he wants it, and I think he's ready for it.”

On preparing for COVID-19 related disruptions and potentially moving to a bubble:

“I think it's part of life right now. You just prepare to play games. We've been going since July 20, and we've been testing, we haven't had a positive test yet. I think Wojo (Marquette head coach Steve Wojciechowski) was surprised that he got one. I think we're all going to have to deal with it when it happens. I wish we would come up with a policy that we could keep moving forward if we did get one because we're testing, I think, every two days, so I don't understand why we're testing so much if we're not going to be able to use the test to get out of the 14-day quarantine. I understand it for the general public, but the general public isn't getting tested every two days. I hope as we move forward and testing becomes more available and quicker, we can use the backlog of tests to keep moving forward without such a huge disruption, right now it's 17 days until you can play another game. For my team, we're doing our best to really social distance, I think that's the biggest thing, trying to stay away from everybody. They understand it's a part of life right now, there's really nothing you can do. It's a virus, you can't really hide from it. I think we're all going to have to deal with it at some point, and hopefully as testing and policies get a little bit better, we can use the tests to make the disruption not 14 days, but maybe seven days. I think that would help the season dramatically.”

“They better have a lot of wine, Adam (chuckle). I think it could work. I think it would be a lot more feasible around February when we get all the other sports and all the other students back on campus. For right now, we're going to be the only ones on campus for almost two months, so we have to take advantage of that time. But as you get towards February, I think a bubble could definitely be an option.”

On feasibility of a season with 14-day quarantine recommendations, and whether a bubble makes more sense:

“It's probably going to be almost impossible. Let's just say Wojo just had one kid test (positive), so now he's under quarantine for 14 days. You need four days to get your team back, and then you're still going to be testing. What happens if another kid tests positive? Now you're down for another 14 days. It just doesn't make sense to me why we're not using the tests to keep moving forward. We're testing every two days, so we're going to know exactly where someone got it, when they got it. We can isolate that person, you can test in two days and know if they spread it, or if anyone else has it, so I think we have to use the fact that we're testing so much to our advantage. Football did it, baseball did it, hockey did it, other sports are doing it right now. For basketball, I think we have to use the history of the tests to keep moving forward.”

“I think eventually you might have to get to that point. You just never know. That's one thing that's been tough on our players, I think not a lot of people are talking about the mental health of our players. We had our MTE cancelled the other day, and I had 13 guys saying, ‘Why are we practicing? Won't the same thing happen again? The season's going to get cancelled.’ And I said, ‘Guys, we just kind of have to go with the flow.’ It's tough because, mentally, these guys are all ready to play, they're all looking forward to the season. They're excited to play, they want to play against someone besides themselves. But we have to figure out a way to do it. I think there's a way to do it safely, we just have to be smart about it.”

On the season being near after the trials of getting through the pandemic and offseason:

“I think it's great. A lot of people worked really hard on every college campus to get to this point. I'm just excited for the players. I can't tell you what it was like to be on the bus after the Big East Tournament and the NCAA Tournament got cancelled, dealing with 13 kids who put their heart and soul into this game that they love. More than anything, I'm glad for these kids because they've put so much work in to get back to this point. This game means the world to them, so for them to have this chance, that's what it means to me. We've just been focused on their mental health and their game, getting them back to before all this happened.”

On UConn returning to the Big East and what it means for the league:

“It sucks for us, to be honest with you. I didn’t vote for it, I voted against it. I’m still really not that happy about it. If you don’t know, no one in this league listens to me, so I’m not used to getting my way anyway. But for the league in general, I think it’s great...great program, great tradition, great history. I think the program, where it is now with Danny (Hurley), is on the rise. They have great players. I’m a big fan of what Dan does, how he coaches, and how his teams play. I think it’s only going to make this league better. We’ve been the best basketball conference in the country in three of the last four years, and I think that helps us continue that trend.”

On Bryce Aiken:

“Bryce isn’t quite back to practicing yet. He’s been full-go with individual instruction and lifting, he’s done dummy offense with us…our goal was always to get him back around this time. He looks great, he’s been a phenomenal leader even though he hasn’t been on the practice court with us. He’s been unbelievable off the court mentoring some of the younger kids. He looks great physically, it’s just going to be getting over the mental hurdle of the injuries, which is always tough. We’ve just taken it really slow with injuries, so we’re taking it really slow with him. We expect to get him back on the practice court in early November. He’s an older kid, he knows what he’s doing, he knows how we play. We’ve talked a lot about it, so I don’t think he’ll need that much time to get back into the flow of things.”

On this being a rebuilding year for the Big East:

“No. I look at the coaches’ poll, and I’m really high on a couple teams. I think Villanova’s the best team in college basketball with (Collin) Gillespie, some of the younger guys they have. I think they’re top-to-bottom really good. I like Providence with David Duke, their seniors are really good. I think everyone’s sleeping on St. John’s a little bit. I think they are much deeper, and they’re going to be used to playing like Mike (Anderson) does. I like my team, even though we lost who we lost. Jared Rhoden had a phenomenal summer. Obviously, we have Sandro, Myles Cale, I love where Shavar Reynolds is. You add Bryce, so I like where my team is a lot. I haven’t even talked about Creighton, as good as they are. We’re six, seven teams deep as always, and I think the bottom always gets slept on. I think this league is so balanced and so well-coached, it’s going to be as good as it always is.”

On Tyrese Samuel, preceded by a back-and-forth banter with John Fanta of the Big East Digital Network and Fox Sports:

“I thought you’d have a Browns question! I’m always so happy to see you, I don’t know why. You always make me smile, Johnny. You lost Odell Beckham, I thought we’d start off with that, you’re all excited tweeting about your guy Baker Mayfield, I thought you would definitely have a Cleveland question for me, but if we’re going to talk about Tyrese Samuel, I’ll go there. I have a burner account just so I can follow you and Zach (Braziller of the New York Post).”

“I love where Tyrese Samuel is. He’s gotten stronger. I think one of the reasons we struggled a little bit toward the end of last year was his ankle injury made us really thin at that spot. He had a really great freshman year. I expect him to make the same jump as Myles Powell did from his freshman to sophomore year. He’s going to be playing a lot more minutes. Without Myles shooting the ball 30 times, everyone’s going to get a lot more shots. So I think he’s going to have one of those production jumps almost like Sandro did his sophomore year. I‘m looking for him, he can be a 10-and-10 guy to be honest with you, because he’s got the physical ability, and I think he’s starting to get confidence in his game.”

On taking this year one day at a time:

“I think as coaches, that’s the way we’re looking at it. With my players, I’ve been aggressive in trying to get them to take a long-term look. I want them to be focused not only on the precious present… but also their futures, because I don’t want them to lose sight of what’s coming.”

On his conversations with last year’s seniors, and helping Myles Powell with his professional prospects:

“It was difficult. I had the team over at my house on Selection Sunday like I usually do for what we call a family meal, and just explained to them that as you get older, it gets more difficult in life and bad things happen. As far as helping Myles, we’ve been in constant contact. He’s doing great. His body looks great- he’s in great shape. He’s getting unbelievable feedback from the NBA teams. Romaro (Gill’s) on campus, I see him all the time, Quincy (McKnight) is doing good. I’ll get them back (to recognize them) as soon as I can get them back. They can come back right now, I don’t care. They’re family. If one of those guys gives me COVID, I don’t care, because they’re just like my kids. The end of the season was hard on everybody. It’s something that you can’t explain, but I think my kids have really bounced back mentally, and I think they’re excited for this year.”

On blending basketball with COVID-19 protocols:

“I feel I have one of the best athletic trainers in all of college basketball in Tony Testa. When we brought our guys back in July with all of the testing protocols, one of our main things was to try and make this as normal as possible for them. We’ve kind of gone more on the normal side than most people, to treat it as much like a normal year as possible while adding the protections to make sure our kids are safe. We don’t have team meetings anymore, everything’s spaced out on the court. Everything’s so much cleaner, that’s one of the positives of COVID. You try to keep them socially distanced from other kids on campus, but as far as the basketball side, we’ve tried to treat it as normal as possible, and Tony was very big on their mental health. He thought that we were not going to bring them back and keep it, like, one guy in the gym at a time. Eventually, we’re all going to have to jump back into the pool and swim together, and we did that right when they got back on campus. I think the biggest difference is how I interact with them. I don’t get within six feet of them anymore, none of the coaches do. We don’t have team meetings in rooms, we had a film session, and I used the whole Walsh Gymnasium for a film session. But for the most part, we’ve been normal. We had individual instruction all summer long. We just started team practice because I didn’t think they were in good enough shape to do team practice (earlier). I don’t start yelling until November 3, 4, 5, that area. They get tired of me really quick. Right now, we’ve just really focused on getting them back in shape, getting their games back because they took four months off. That’s a long time for a player. Normally, you take two weeks off, and you’re right back at it. We focused on individual instruction stuff. We didn’t do any team stuff until late September.”

On potential schedule disruptions:

“Scheduling’s a s***show right now. Anyone who’s saying otherwise is lying. I got a text right before I came on that I can play in an MTE with these three teams in one location, and then I got a text from another guy saying he had two of the same teams in a totally different location. It’s really difficult right now because everyone’s trying how to get to 27 games. I wish we wouldn’t tie in the MTEs. I love the MTEs, last year in the Bahamas was phenomenal, we were supposed to go the Charleston this year and I love Charleston. I wish we wouldn’t tie the 27 games into the MTEs. It’s making it really difficult because everyone’s trying to get into the MTEs to play as many games as possible, but no one knows who’s going to be in what MTE because of the cancellation of the ESPN one. So, I wish the NCAA would come out and say, ‘just play 27 games any way you can get them.’ Even if I had to play four extra conference games at this point, that might be a possibility. Right now I wouldn’t even use the word ‘disaster,’ because that would be too light of a term. It’s just a total, total s***show.“

On his concerns and expectations for Aiken:

“I’m not looking at Bryce that way. He doesn’t have to score 30 points a game for us this year. Sandro’s going to have a big jump in scoring, which he had late last year. I think Jared Rhoden’s going to be a first or second team all-Big East player by the time all is said and done this year. Myles Cale is a senior. We’re deep enough at all these spots that we’re not going to play the same way we played the last two years with Myles (Powell). Where I’m excited about Bryce is he’s — for the first time in a long time — he’s a point guard who understands the game at a coaching level. He sees the game and calls plays where I don’t have to do stuff, I don’t have to run the team or call plays, he’s just one of those who just has a feel. So if he can’t play a game or two, then Shavar Reynolds is playing phenomenal right now, he’s probably our best player on the floor. He doesn’t have that pressure on him, he doesn’t have to go out and score 30. Is he capable of doing it? Absolutely, and that just makes us, I think that much more dangerous. But he doesn’t have that pressure, or I don’t feel that pressure that he has to go out and do that for us. I just think we’re so much more balanced. I love Takal Molson, we haven’t talked about him, he gives us a layer of toughness and scoring in different ways. We’re going to run a lot of offense through Sandro in the high post, so we’re going to play a different offense than we have in the past. So Bryce doesn’t have that pressure. If anything, Bryce has total freedom, so when he goes out and gets 30 in a game, it’s going to be great, if he goes out and gets four points and 15 assists, that’s great, too. So he’s got enough pieces around him to where he doesn’t have that pressure, or I don’t feel like we have that pressure where he has to play like a Myles Powell.”

On Mamukelashvili being “the guy” this season:

“Absolutely. I think he’s ready to be the guy. I think Jared Rhoden’s going to be right there with him. When we won 10 in a row last year, Jared was starting for us and playing at a really high level. I think he’s taken his game to the next level. I think those two guys are going to be night-in, night-out guys. And Myles Cale is our best defender, and he’s a four-year senior. So those three guys are going to be my guys. I think the whole NBA draft process helped him grow up a lot. He got so much positive feedback from so many teams, and I think that helped his confidence. I think he realized that he’s a lot closer to achieving his goals than he thought, and I saw a huge difference just between the end of the season and when we came back in August, a difference in the way he carried himself. I think he’s really stepped up his personality, his confidence, to the point where he’s ready to put us on his shoulders.”