NCAA MEN'S BASKETBALL CHAMPIONSHIP: REGIONAL SEMIFINAL - MICHIGAN VS VILLANOVA

March 24, 2022

Jay Wright

Caleb Daniels

Justin Moore

Jermaine Samuels

AT&T Center

Villanova Wildcats

Sweet 16 Postgame Media Conference

Villanova - 63, Michigan - 55

THE MODERATOR: We'll get started with questions with head coach Jay Wright, Caleb Daniels, Justin Moore, and Jermaine Samuels.

Q. Jermaine, what was your approach coming into the game to try to deal with Dickinson? You ended up on him quite a lot defensively. What did you want to do, and how did it play out?

JERMAINE SAMUELS: I wanted to stay mobile. I understand my teammates are right behind me. They're going to make plays for me. That gave me all the confidence in the world. He's a phenomenal player. He's going to get great looks at the basket. Knowing I had my teammates behind me, that gave me all the confidence I needed.

Q. Jermaine, what did Jay tell you when he took you out of the game at the very end?

JERMAINE SAMUELS: That I was very tough and that we had to keep it going. That's as simple as it was.

Q. Jay, what did you tell Jermaine when you took him out of the game?

JAY WRIGHT: Basically the same thing, just that I was proud of his toughness. We got more work to do.

Q. Caleb, what got you going in the second half?

CALEB DANIELS: Just knowing that my brothers are going to find me on the perimeter and just constantly being on the attack for 40 minutes. That pretty much started defensively. We stepping up for each other and just constantly always being on the move and being able to step up for each other. That's what pretty much got me going the second half and knowing they have confidence in me to make plays like that.

Q. What did you all do differently defensively? The score may not indicate that, but it seemed you put a little more pressure defensively. Just speak on that.

JUSTIN MOORE: I think we tried to pressure the ball a little bit more and not get into the paint for post-ups easy. Just being tough in the scoring area. We know they like to drive in the paint. Pressuring them and making them take tough shots.

Q. Jay, what did you think of Jermaine's overall performance tonight?

JAY WRIGHT: It was awesome. I was really proud of his effort on the defensive end. We asked a lot of him on the defensive end guarding Dickinson a lot, but then on the offensive end we were trying to move Dickinson around, which it sounds good unless you're the guy that's got to do it. If you're the guy that's got to do it, you're running around setting screens, cutting to make him follow you.

So we were really concerned -- I mean, one time -- he never wants to come out. One time he said, I've got to take a blow. So it was a balance. Eric did it for some part of the night, but mostly it was Jermaine, and that was a gutty effort, man. I know he's exhausted.

Q. Jermaine, how were you able to stay out of foul trouble despite being matched up with Dickinson almost the whole game?

JERMAINE SAMUELS: I just tried to be as solid as possible. We work on habits every day in practice, and that gives us the best chance to not get fouls. Also, he's going to find the ball at some point. He's going to get the ball at some point. You just try to make it as difficult as possible. Then once he gets the ball, just try to be as solid as possible. Know that you have help behind you and try to get him to take a contested shot.

Q. Jay, kind of on that, it will be said Michigan missed a bunch of layups, blah, blah, blah, but how much of it in your opinion was that on initial contact your guys weren't really backing down, they were kind of right in there?

JAY WRIGHT: Yeah, I think that's important. I've actually been pretty impressed with their answers. They sound like coaches, which makes me feel good. I think Justin was making a good point, they're a very well coached team. They have great timing offensively. Hunter Dickinson is used to getting the ball at certain spots at specific times on his cut.

And as Justin was saying, our ball pressure was taking that timing off a little bit, so when he was catching it, he was catching it a little bit off his spot, and we were trying to hold our ground. You saw a couple times he backed us down, it was automatic. We were trying to hold our ground, so instead of taking a five foot jump hook, it was an eight, ten foot jump hook.

Or like Jermaine was saying, sometimes he had to make a quick move and was moving a little quicker than he normally did. That's what we were trying to do.

He's still a helluva player and a difficult guy to scheme for. He kicked it out of there for threes. He offensive rebounded. He's tough.

Q. Jay, all year Michigan kind of knew what it was going to get from Dickinson and Brooks. If you wouldn't mind sharing, was there a third guy for Michigan you were kind of particularly concerned about going off today?

JAY WRIGHT: That was interesting. We thought there were a lot of guys capable. We definitely thought Houstan. We were worried about Dickinson kicking it out to him for threes. We thought that Jones, who we knew, because he played on Caleb's high school team. We thought Jones could get it going at any time.

We thought that Terrance Williams, we knew him, we recruited him. When he hit that one three, we all said to each other, okay, got to get up on him. I feel they have a lot of guys who can get it going. We concentrated on Brooks and Dickinson to start. Then we said whichever one of these guys gets it going, we're going to adjust to.

Q. Last time you all were in Texas up against Baylor, that was pretty hard on you all. Was that a turning point for you, that and the loss to Creighton? It seemed like you all were a different team tonight.

JAY WRIGHT: It wasn't a turning point. It was the end of an incredible run where I was feeling like maybe our schedule -- I put our guys in a tough spot because that was the last of our preseason games was at Baylor, and right after that, our first Big East game was in Omaha at Creighton, a very good team obviously, who we've all seen now, but people didn't think it then.

So I was thinking to myself, and I said this to the guys, like I may have put us in a bad spot. I felt like we were worn down, and we were in finals, and Baylor played great, great. And that place was rockin', if you were there. That place was incredible.

I don't feel like -- I said to them, we can't be down right now because I put you in a tough spot. We battled. We never gave up in that Baylor game. And I think we learned some things from the Creighton game. After that, I think we got it going.

But I never think we got down. We just knew we had a really tough preseason schedule.

Q. Caleb, you had eight points, nine rebounds, a steal, a block. Even on a day when your shots weren't necessarily falling, how were you able to make an impact?

CALEB DANIELS: Just find other ways to impact the game by just defending. That's what we pride our program on, just defending the rebound for 40 minutes. We don't care if our shots go in or if our offense is flowing nice, we just care about getting stops. That's one thing I want to take pride in as well. I was able to come out the second half and get stops and defend the rebound 40 minutes.

Q. Caleb went on his little run when Eli Brooks was starting to make some shots. When you're in these important games, how important is it to make baskets at the rim when you're just not getting a lot throughout most of the game there?

JAY WRIGHT: Yeah, that was huge. We have a saying, shoot 'em up, sleep in the streets. We're okay, if we've got open shots and got open threes and we miss them, we've got to go home because we missed them, we're okay with that. I thought that was a really critical point because, as you said, Caleb had missed a couple good ones. Then the first one that started, he got a ball reversal that he caught to shoot it, and they flew at him, and he took it to the rim. Then he got another one after that. I think that got him going, and that was really important because we were getting shots, we just couldn't make them.

Then he decided I'm going to use my shot to get to the rim. Those were some really important buckets for us.

Q. Jay, got a couple questions for you. One, can you talk about the grind of going through the Big East and then getting ready for the NCAA Tournament? Can you just talk about how that prepared you guys for tonight?

JAY WRIGHT: It always does, David, and especially the Big East tournament. We always talk about the fact you play in Madison Square Garden, the environment is incredible, the teams are tough and physical, like this team tonight, this Michigan team.

I have to admit, though, we didn't run into anybody anywhere like Hunter Dickinson. Man, this dude is a handful. He's got size, girth, strength, skill, intelligence, competitiveness. We run into some good ones in the middle, but I think he's the best we've run into this year.

Q. And how can you guys build off of tonight going into the Elite Eight on Saturday?

JAY WRIGHT: I think we're beyond building. We're going to rest. We're beat up. We've got to rest up. We can learn a little bit watching film. It's about surviving now. We've got to rest up, learn a little bit by film, and then come out and be intelligent against whoever we're playing against because we know we've got a great team, whoever it's going to be.

Q. You talk about rest and all that stuff. What's the main goal for tomorrow to get you guys really focused on Saturday because it's going to be a tough game whoever you play against, Arizona or Houston?

JERMAINE SAMUELS: I think it's all about, first and foremost, taking care of our bodies, hydrating, getting the proper sleep, and then just doing whatever we can to keep our bodies in check, stretching, ice, cold tubs, whatever it takes to make sure we're ready to play and play at our full potential.

THE MODERATOR: That's all the time we have for our Villanova student-athletes and Coach Jay Wright. Congratulations. We'll see you tomorrow.