BIG EAST CONFERENCE MEN'S BASKETBALL TOURNAMENT

March 15, 2024

Kim English

Devin Carter

Jayden Pierre

Madison Square Garden

Providence Friars

Postgame Media Conference

Marquette 79, Providence 68

KIM ENGLISH: Good evening. Yeah, tough loss for us, tough game. Didn't play our best game, didn't play well as a group. Marquette obviously has a lot to do with that. I thought we did some things better than our last time against them. But it was the spurt in the first half that took the lead to 17.

Some of that stuff was self-inflicted. Some of that stuff was my fault. Some things we did differently to try to throw a wrench in them to try to slow them down, they were shooting at such a high clip. But we learned from it. We move on. I hate that our fate is out of our hands, but we got a little less than 48 hours to wait and see where our next destination is.

Q. Kim, physically it seemed like you guys were banged up but seemed like you all were playing in spurts tonight.

KIM ENGLISH: Yeah. Made some shots. First shot of the game, I've never seen. It is tough to get going when you're not getting stops. The game rewards teams that gets stops because then they can play in transition. Every team in this league is different.

The way Georgetown guards ball screens is different than the way Creighton does. You play a 40 minute games against Creighton, the way you feet, the way your eyes are fixed, they're different coming off a pick and roll.

Now, I think Marquette may be the best in our league at changing what they do in pick and roll. They switch, they hard show. They stay home. Sometimes it keeps you -- it keeps you off balance. So maybe that was a little bit attributed to the slow start.

Q. Coach, what do you think when you see a guy like Devin Carter out there fighting so hard taking so many contact?

KIM ENGLISH: Yeah, he's exactly what we want our guys to do, give it everything you have. He does that every moment he's on the court. And the scary thing with Devin is he's only scratching the surface of how good he can be. He's grown a lot this season. I'm excited to watch him the rest of this season and as he moves on in his career.

Q. Devin, how are you physically right now?

DEVIN CARTER: I took a few blows to my left leg, left calf. It just kept getting hit over and over in the same spot, unfortunately.

Q. Jayden, with Devin banged up a little bit, you led the team in shot attempts. That aggression, just no choice, right, tonight?

JAYDEN PIERRE: Yeah. Not really much of a choice. We know the situation we're in. This could be our last game playing, so why not leave it all out there. I'm going to give my team everything I got and just play hard for 40 minutes.

Q. Coach, I'm just wondering what's your message now for your team as Selection Sunday looms?

KIM ENGLISH: Yeah, we'll wait and see. Excited to see where we end up. I'm very optimistic that when the selection committee gets to the bubble and they look at teams at face value. Like I said, I highly doubt that the selection committee is sliding teams in and out based on the phanatical media frenzy. I think they are becoming more and more bracketologists on social media just to get more fans to follow them.

I think it's much more realistic to look at the eight or nine teams and their resumés and see the amount of quad one wins that all those bubble teams have, to see the amount of quad three and four losses. I'm going to say that one more time. I think that the selection committee is going to look at quad three and four losses and decide what teams are in the field and not.

Q. Devin, was there a point in the second half where you just decided I need to take over her, I need to carry this?

DEVIN CARTER: I mean, just coming into the second half -- I knew after the first half, I didn't really do too much to help my team try to get a victory. So I just looked at myself in the mirror second half and we had a talk in the locker room and I just decided to be more aggressive and it worked out.

Q. What was one of the things you talked about in the locker room at halftime to give them an extra push?

DEVIN CARTER: We were just talking, you know, just getting defensive rebounds. We gave them a lot of second chance opportunities first half. So we just talked about that and just being aggressive. Like we were kind of playing timid, not really wanting to shoot open shots. So just told everybody to start shooting open shots, start taking them and making them.