“I’m just trying to find guys to play with some energy. I’m trying to find guys that play with passion and want to be out there, and that’s what I’ve been preaching for the last week and a half since the Xavier game. This is big-time basketball. Everybody don’t have to play if you ain’t playing the way I want you to play. I’m okay now playing five or six guys. I just want guys to play hard. If you play hard, you give yourself a chance. Obviously I want to win every game, I’m a sore loser, I hate losing more than I like winning, but I just want to play hard. And we haven’t been playing hard, and that’s not my team, so it was good to see guys play hard in the second half. We got back in the game, and it’s contagious.”
On more of a small-ball lineup moving forward:
“I mean, it’s definitely something I want to do in segments. It’s tough, right? We’ve got three guys right now in there getting IVs (and) cramping, so I know tomorrow’s gonna be a wash and probably Friday, now I gotta go to Providence and try to win a game. But this game was important. We needed this game for a lot of different reasons, and we just kind of deal with what happens from there.”
On Isaiah Coleman’s second half:
“A lot of things were said. Zay had food poisoning, he got food poisoning at Xavier, so he’s been in bed for four straight days. He literally just got out of bed Sunday, so for him to come out and play—I knew he was gonna be sluggish, being in bed for four straight days with food poisoning—but I thought he gutted it out. The first half, he was awful—not from an offense standpoint, but from a defense standpoint and timing, so at halftime, we kind of had some talks with a couple guys. And like I said, we came out and just played hard, and played with energy and passion. If you do that, you give yourself a chance.”
On his own passion and his technical foul:
“I’m always passionate, man. That’s who I am. I’m not a coach that’ll sit back and not be into it. I didn’t want to get a tech—I think it’s the first one I got in two years, probably.”
Jerry Carino: “Since the game at St. John’s last year, when you rallied.”
Sha: “Jeez, you remember that? Since the game at St. John’s. And like I was telling Nathan (Farrell), and I think Nathan’s a good referee, but in a time like this, you understand I’m fighting for my team, it’s not personal. Just walk away, because I’m not saying anything disrespectful. But when you’re looking for it, you know what? I deserved it, so it is what it is.”
On Dylan Addae-Wusu’s confidence:
“Yeah, he needed that and we needed it, and it’s work. Him and I, we’ve been working this whole break with him and his game to get it better. It’s work, and I keep telling these guys, there’s no magic wand. What you put in is what you get out. You put work into the game, he’s been working for the last five days, this is what happens. We got Dylan some stuff towards the end when they were pressing, but other than that, I’m proud of the guys for just going out there and playing. They gave me everything they got. We were playing four-minute segments in the second half, so I said, ‘listen, this group is gonna stay in. I’m either gonna call a timeout or we’re gonna do a TV timeout. Four-minute segments, so give me everything you’ve got for four minutes.’ And that’s what they were doing, and we kind of chipped away, chipped away, chipped away.”
On Jahseem Felton:
“He gave up a lot of offensive rebounds. I didn’t like that he gave up offensive rebounds. He’s just playing hard, so you’re out there because you’re playing. You ain’t out there because you’re doing something great, you’re just playing hard, you’re doing what you could do, you could make a shot. And he’s got the confidence to go try to get a shot, and I like that about him.”
On Coleman’s three at the end of regulation:
“Thanks for bringing (Georgetown) back up! It’s a play we had, it’s one of my plays. We didn’t run it 100 percent right, but we ran it right enough and Zay stepped up and made a good shot, Prince had a good screen. But the whole thing was designed right. Dylan did his job by taking his man down, the five man who was guarding Prince kind of helped out a little bit, Prince set the screen and Zay took him right off. He made a big shot, and that’s something that we needed. Georgetown was supposed to be something completely different, and we actually had more time this time than we had with Georgetown. It was something completely different, and we learned from it. We watched it, but we’ve been doing it in special situations. You can’t expect people to know things just because they’re older, so you’ve gotta do a bunch of special situations at the end of practice for moments like this. And this week, we did a bunch of them and it kind of paid off.”
On Coleman’s food poisoning and recovery:
“So it started in the Xavier game, the day of the game. I’m not sure how he played, and when we got back from there, he was in bed all week into Sunday. Both him and Dylan and a couple guys are getting more than fluids. I don’t know what’s gonna happen, but I heard some noise in the back that I didn’t like.”
On Coleman and Addae-Wusu gutting it out:
“It’s college basketball. They’re supposed to do that, this is why they’re here. It just showed that they have the mental to do it, it’s the will. You just gotta want to do it, you gotta want to do it all the time, and those two guys—Dylan and Zay—were here last year. They understand that I’m gonna eventually do this, and I told them this was coming. We’re gonna play five, six, seven guys, so be one of those guys. And they gave me a lot in the second half, but not just for me. They gave the team a lot. Our guys just played basketball.”
On Seton Hall winning:
“They still didn’t play the way I wanted to play in the first half. We were down 20, right? But to be honest, I’m happy for them because we needed this game for a lot of different reasons. They needed it to feel that. We haven’t won in a minute, and hopefully—winning is contagious like losing is contagious—so now you win this game, and the way we won it, I think it gives them confidence for us to move forward.”
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