BIG EAST CONFERENCE MEN'S BASKETBALL TOURNAMENT

March 12, 2026

Duke Brennan

Kevin Willard

Madison Square Garden

Villanova Wildcats

Postgame Media Conference

Georgetown - 78, Villanova - 64

THE MODERATOR: We'll start with questions.

Q. Kevin, overall what do you think went wrong tonight for you guys?

KEVIN WILLARD: Yeah, I thought a little bit of our offense late in the second half, late in the first half dictated a little bit of our defense, and that was probably the first time all year that our offense kind of shifted to our defense instead of the other way around.

Q. The performance a couple of weeks ago here against St. John's and then tonight, I'm not suggesting, I'm not drawing like a Madison Square Garden comparison or anything like that, but just a big game then against a really tough opponent, and then the setting here tonight.

KEVIN WILLARD: Yeah, I think, I think when you have a young basketball team that has played really well all year long, and has had some struggles in big games, you know, that's part of the growing process and the learning process. That doesn't stop you from boxing out though. I mean, I think, again, to rebounding, they had more offensive rebounds than we did defensive rebounds. So I don't think it was so much the setting this time. I just think, you know, Ed's done great job all year with this team. They have eight losses of four points or less. They beat Clemson at home. They went to Maryland and won. Before the big guy got hurt they were really playing well. So this is a good basketball team. And Jeremiah Williams, I'm happy for him, because he's back playing like he did when he was at Rutgers. When he's aggressive and getting in the lane, they're tough to stop.

Q. What have your early impressions of Malachi at the 4 been as he kind of settles in there?

KEVIN WILLARD: Yeah, I mean, I think Malachi's done a really good job stepping in for Matt. Where we struggle is when Malachi comes out of the game. So that's something that I have a couple days where I got to try to figure out where -- what we're doing when Perk's at the 4. We haven't had much practice time because since Matty's gone down, we've been very delicate in practice. So I think that was one of the issues we had with the offensive end is we just haven't been able to practice as good as we've been able to practice all year.

Q. I know this defeat is still kind of fresh in the mind, but you were mentioning how young the team is and how it takes to adjust like this. What adjustments do you make now that the Big East tournament for you guys is over and the NCAA tournament is likely ahead for you?

KEVIN WILLARD: Yeah, I think it's -- I got to help the young guys out a little bit in these games. We struggled a little bit to run offense when Malachi wasn't in there and we kind of got stuck going a little bit one-on-one. That's kind of what I mean. I got to help them a little bit with not being able to put them in that situation so much. And it was just unfortunate, with Malachi going out and Perk in there, we just we kind of get stuck with a very simplistic offense where with Malachi and Matt we were able to do a lot more.

Q. You guys were 7-29 from three. Was that, were you getting the looks you wanted?

KEVIN WILLARD: Yeah, I thought we got a lot of really good looks throughout the game. They're playing big drop coverage. They were in huge drop, so you got to take advantage of that and be able to do it. And unfortunately Dev had a tough night. But Dev's been great all year. So again, you got to take the shots that they give you, and I thought they did a good job in drop, just you got to make some of those shots.

Q. Your experience, have you found that the natural transition to the NCAA tournament cleans the slate for a team, or do you as a coach have to, you know, as you kind of referenced earlier, get the young guys --

KEVIN WILLARD: No, again, part of my message to these guys a little bit is just enjoying this a little bit. We'll let this one sting. We'll go back and watch film on Sunday. They're going to get a couple days off, which I think is well deserved. We'll come back Sunday and practice and watch film. And after selection Sunday, that's a whole, it's a whole new season. Yeah, you got to give Georgetown credit, they played really good tonight.