Kevin Willard quote book: Creighton

On attacking Creighton’s zone defense:

“I thought we had a really good rhythm, and I thought their zone really kind of got us on our heels. They hit a couple of good threes and then we just kind of got stagnant, and got a little bit on our heels on the offensive end. But give them credit, switching to the zone really kind of got the ball sticking a little bit, but it’s more a credit to their defense than our guys’ offense.”

On not playing Bryce Aiken down the stretch:

“BA has a minutes restriction a little bit still. He played great and he’s looking great, he’s been playing great in practice, but again, long stretches of time, he can’t play eight, nine minutes in a row. I thought it was really great having him out there. Him being aggressive really kind of, I thought, changed the tempo of the game for us, so I’m really excited about where he is.”

On not getting the ball to Sandro Mamukelashvili:

“They did a good job, Zach. They took him away.”

On defending Creighton’s 3-point shot:

“First, Bruce, it’s nice to see you and hear from you! I haven’t seen you in a while! I would say that proved to be a fail on all proportions by us, considering the fact that we gave up 17. (Denzel) Mahoney really killed us the last time, so we tried to make a little switch on the lineup and obviously it didn’t work out. And when (Mitch) Ballock’s going the way he is, he’s just a tough cover. He made a couple of tough ones in the first half, and then when he gets going, they do a great job of just looking for him, and I thought (Marcus) Zegarowski did a really great job of trying to find him. We gave up some second shots where he was able to get free, and again, he’s a great player. I’ve hated coaching against him for the last four years, but he’s a fun kid. I think everyone, all young kids who watch college basketball, should watch him because he’s always moving, he plays with a great motor, and he played great. He absolutely killed us.”

On encouraging a balanced offense:

“I think we’ve been doing a pretty good job offensively. We put up 74 against ‘Nova the last game, obviously scoring 81 against Creighton — who I think is one of the better defensive teams — I think we’ve been sharing the basketball really well, I think we’ve been working inside-out. This team has played unselfish all year, but again, this team has to figure out — and I said this at the beginning of the year — if we’re going to try to outscore teams, we’re going to have a hard time doing that because we’ve got to figure a way to kind of dig in and get stops. We haven’t been able to do that this year.”

On his postgame message to the team:

“That might tell me why my defense is so bad. I didn’t really get on them that bad, to be honest with you. There were a lot of good things that I saw. I just kind of said we’ve got to get better defensively, we’ve got to kind of get a better defensive mindset. I pretty much took all the blame, I kind of said, ‘You know, we’re not very good defensively, and that’s on me.’ We’ve been a top 20 defensive team the last seven years, I don’t even think we’re in the top...we might not even be Division I right now, so what I said to them, pretty much, was we’ve got to figure out how to get stops when the game’s on the line. It’s easy to get stops when you’re playing well, but when you’re not playing well, we’ve got to figure out a way to dig in and get stops.”

On responding for Saturday’s game against Villanova:

“Well, we lost a tough game to ‘Nova, and I thought they responded great. Now, we lost a tough one and we’ve got to respond again. So I thought they responded well in practice, I think the second unit is starting to get better and starting to understand it, but that’s life in this league. You never really have a night off, so we’ll see what they’re made of. So far, they’ve answered the bell.”

On players’ families being in attendance:

“I enjoyed having my family there, so I can just answer for me. I can’t answer for them.”

On staying consistent amid scheduling during the pandemic:

“It’s a good question, because early in the season, we didn’t miss any games, so I thought we got into a really good rhythm even though we struggled early coming out of the lockdown. I thought we got into a really good rhythm and were playing well before Christmas, and we’ve had some monster breaks where we were getting on the plane for Butler and we lost that game and kind of rebounded. I still think we’re playing good basketball, we’re just not playing good defensively, and we’ve got to figure out a way to play good defensively for all 40 minutes. But it is challenging. It’s challenging for the players, it’s tough when you don’t understand and you don’t know when — usually you have a bye week and you plan through your bye week and you know what’s coming — this has been a little bit different in the standpoint of when you’re getting mentally ready to play Butler and all of a sudden the game gets canceled, it’s a little bit of a scramble trying to get the right practice plan. But I think the guys have handled it great. I think they’ve been really good about it, and I think their attitudes have been great, they’ve been playing great. Again, we’ve just got to figure out how to play better defensively in a little bit longer stretches.”