BIG EAST CONFERENCE MEN'S TOURNAMENT

March 8, 2001

Craig Esherick

CRAIG ESHERICK: This is one of those games that you wake up in the middle of the night and you dream about having hoped that you never had. We certainly had it tonight. We could not shoot the ball at all. I thought Seton Hall got on a run in the second half and played extremely well and things just got worse for us from there. I felt we started off the game very well and I thought we played well in the first part of the game. But I'd say from the middle of the first half or two-thirds of the way through the first half until the end of the game we just couldn't do anything right. I certainly don't have an explanation for it. I thought Seton Hall played extremely well. I thought in the second half they shot the ball well. They forced a lot of the mistakes that we made with good defense. I thought we drove a couple times and we missed some layups because Darius and Eddie Griffin were there contesting shots and they made a couple of nice blocks also. You know, I don't know what else to say other than I want to get the heck out of New York right now, I can tell you that. Any questions?

CRAIG ESHERICK: Do I have a hangover now, yes?

CRAIG ESHERICK: I mean we've played -- we've played poorly before. We have to get ready to play again. I think we're going to be playing again next week. We have to be ready to play. I mean, there's a lot of things that we're going to have to do in practice to get over this game, and I think we will get over it but it's not going to be easy. It's not going to be easy.

CRAIG ESHERICK: I felt in the second half they got their confidence going and I felt defensively they played very well. I thought they got their confidence on offense and I thought defensively, the entire game, I thought they played better than they did the first two games at every position, point guard, shooting guard, the big guys played better defense. That caused a lot of our shooting woes, the defense they played. I thought they played very good defense.

CRAIG ESHERICK: Good question.

CRAIG ESHERICK: Good question. Well, Lee was going well, and I thought that we'd be better off with a smaller line-up to try and catch up. We ended up getting double-digit deficit. I thought we would be better off just going with the smaller line-up. That's why I put Lee in there. Lee's a good offensive player. I wanted to surround him with four good defenders and hopefully pick him up full court and force some turnovers, which we never did. We got a couple turnovers but not enough to cut the lead to a manageable size.

CRAIG ESHERICK: They'll be all right. I think the first thing I'm going to do is give them a day off. But I mean we're going to have to watch that film. I want them to see some of the things that we did, because I don't want to play this way again. I certainly don't want to play this way again in the next tournament that we're in. So, you know, there's some things that we have to work on, and I just have to get a feel for -- see how I'm going to treat the first day of practice. I don't know what I'm going to do right now.

CRAIG ESHERICK: His hand was bothering him a little bit but it was more Seton Hall's defense than his hand.