Kevin Willard quote book: St. John’s

On Seton Hall’s effort:

“The four losses, if you look at who we lost to — we lost to Butler, who won last night, we lost to Georgetown at Georgetown and they’re in the semifinals, we lost at home to UConn, who’s now playing as good as anybody, and we lost at St. John’s, who I think was playing really good basketball, at St. John’s. My main goal coming into this tournament was to let our guys understand that although it didn’t end the way we wanted it to, we’ve been pretty good all year and we’ve got to come out better in the second half. That was my only message. I thought the way Ike played in the second half, how active he was, the blocks he had, I thought he gave us so much energy — which he hadn’t been doing — and I thought it energized our team.”

On Sandro Mamukelashvili:

“I didn’t know he played 44 minutes and 16 seconds. I thought he played extraordinary handling it, we worked through him in the post, and what I thought was probably his best, what he did better than anything tonight, was he kicked it out of the post and made simple plays, and we were able to get some drives on the weak side. He’s a phenomenal player. He backed up Player of the Year tonight, that’s for sure.”

On Jared Rhoden:

“Jared’s been playing great all year. You’re in the Big East tournament, and obviously getting the opportunity to be back in the Garden, being able to play in the best college basketball tournament, it got him really excited. And I think they were all excited to play St. John’s because we played really well for long stretches of the time Saturday, and Jared didn’t play well on Saturday, so I think he had a little bit of extra motivation to come out and play better.”

On Seton Hall’s overall resolve:

“I’ll be honest with you: Jahari Long should be up here talking. Jahari played phenomenal: 15 minutes, he hadn’t played, finds out this morning that he’s going to back up against one of the toughest defensive teams. He came out and I thought his first-half presence was phenomenal. He drove to the basket, got a layup, got Myles Cale a three on a kickout, defensively I thought he was great. And I think Tak had one of his better games. The stats don’t look at it, but man, Tak did a lot of good things for us out there. Really, one through eight, everyone did a phenomenal job.”

On returning to Madison Square Garden:

“I’m probably going to get in trouble for saying this, but I don’t care. This year’s been hard. It’s been a mental grind, it’s been a physical grind, the sacrifices that we’ve all made to be able to play, the sacrifices that schools have made, our universities, our leagues, what these players have done, really going back since last March, when we got punched in the stomach with all this as it started. Man, I walked into this building, I got on the elevator, and I haven’t felt that good in years. The energy, seeing the same security guards that were here two years ago when we made a run, it’s made everything — it’s hard to explain — it’s very emotional for the fact that I love this tournament, I love this league. We’ve had some great games in this building, and to be back was just an absolutely energizing feeling.”