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BIG EAST CONFERENCE MEN'S TOURNAMENTMarch 12, 2014Fuquan EdwinEugene TeagueKevin WillardNEW YORK CITY, NEW YORK Seton Hall   51 Q.  Coach, it seems like the game plan was to take Kellen Dunham out of the picture considering what happened a few days ago. Is that accurate? COACH KEVIN WILLARD: Yeah, we were going to give up jumpers to Marshall, maybe jumpers to Barlow, which we did. But he just killed us. You let him get going, and you're going to be in for a long night. We lost him a couple times, but for the most part, I thought we did a really good job on him. Q. How do you turn around lose by 17 and then turn around and win four days later? COACH KEVIN WILLARD: We watched the film and saw what we did wrong. These guys always bounce back pretty good. We looked back and saw our mistakes and said, look, if we correct these, we'll have a pretty good chance. We played them at home. We played them somewhat decently. We missed pretty big opportunities. This is the Big East Tournament. If you can't get ready for the Big East Tournament, there's something wrong with you. Q. Was there a bigger emphasis to go down low than Saturday? Seemed like you were a little more reluctant on the three ball. COACH KEVIN WILLARD: We put four new plays in in two days to try to get the ball to Eugene. They do a very‑‑ they are as good a defensive team as you'll see when they're playing the way we're playing right there. We put four new plays in. That's pretty much what we ran. Just trying to get him the basketball. They do a good job of doing it. But I thought our guys really focused in, and we put four new plays in in two days. Sometimes it's a little tough, and they did a good job. Q. Does it feel good to finally get one of these one‑point games? COACH KEVIN WILLARD: I've played in the Big East Tournament. I've now been here forever, coached it an assistant. It's awesome. It really is. Just playing the Big East Tournament, just getting a "W" in the Big East Tournament, it's a great feeling. Q.  I just wanted to ask you what it felt to know they're going to play at least one more game, these guys to your right. COACH KEVIN WILLARD: They can answer that. EUGENE TEAGUE: It feels great, you know. FUQUAN EDWIN: Yeah, it's a good feeling, just knowing that we're able to advance and continue to play for Seton Hall. We're trying to take it all the way, and we believe in ourselves. So we're going to work for it. Q. Can you just describe the steal at the very end, what was going on, what you saw? FUQUAN EDWIN: I seen him driving towards the baseline. I tried to read him, and I knew he was running into trouble on two of my guys, was right there stepping up on him. And I just anticipated the pass, and I came up with it. Q. Coach, this is probably the shortest turnaround to playing another team. When do you start preparing for the next game? COACH KEVIN WILLARD: I think we had a short turnaround last year, didn't we? We played South Florida at 11:00 at night and played Syracuse at 2:00. The great thing about this league‑‑ and this league is phenomenal‑‑ is the fact that now that we're out of the true round robin, everybody knows everybody. So for us to go back and watch film tonight, it's not like you have to learn personnel. We know James Bell, we know Arch, we know Pinkston. So it's not like it's going to be a whole new refresher, and I think that's one of the reasons why the games all year long have been tremendous is the fact that‑‑ FOX has done a tremendous job of putting every game on TV. So we all see it, and everybody knows everybody. I think it's made the league tremendous. Q. Kevin, I'm just wondering that last play, what did you expect Butler to run? And sort of what were your thoughts as that ball's in the air? COACH KEVIN WILLARD: You know, really, I was actually expecting them to try to curl Barlow and then screen in for Dunham. And then we saw Dunham take it out. Brandon did a good job of not letting him get it back. When the shot goes up like that, I think I've seen enough six overtime game against‑‑ back in the day. There's been enough shots made in this tournament, you just sit here and say, hopefully, this isn't one of those things that goes on, another 30 For 30 in 30 years. I'm proud of my guys. I think Fuquan and Eugene, the seniors, really did a good job of refocusing this group after the loss. They came out with great intensity. We didn't play great offensively, but you've got to give them a lot of credit for that. Q. Can you just discuss the way Eugene played. He scored all your points in the last nine minutes. COACH KEVIN WILLARD: Eugene played terrific. No one really knew this. He's been battling the flu since Saturday. I wasn't even sure he was going to be able to play as bad as he looked yesterday. The big fella has been key for us all year. That was a huge blow when we lost him with a concussion. He's played great basketball the last five games. To be honest with you, he's probably finally getting over the concussion, and more importantly, the Krispy Kreme doughnuts he was eating while he was out with a concussion. Q. Coach, what did you see out of Patrik today? What did they do to him to take him out of the game? COACH KEVIN WILLARD: Patrik got foul trouble. It was tough to get in the flow. He only played 17 minutes, and he really didn't play the second half. That hurt us, not having Patrik. In the second half of games, we run a lot of things through him, and not having him out there, we kind of stalled a little bit offensively because he made a nice high‑low pass to Eugene. He's able to handle the basketball in certain situations. They did a good job on Patrik. They made a nice adjustment. They dug much earlier on him, but he didn't get a whole lot of opportunities because of foul trouble. Q. I wanted to ask about, obviously, the end of the game with the steal, but the start of the game, you seemed to‑‑ I don't know, you were bouncing out of your shoes almost. Were you just so jazzed at the beginning? I mean, describe just a little bit when the game started, what you were feeling like. FUQUAN EDWIN: No, that's me every game. That's my role on this team. Coach calls it the "fool effect". I just try to bring my energy so my guys could feed off of it. If I could have everyone playing like that, having hands active. Coach preaches on deflections, and it just leads up to easy points. Q. Was it any different tonight, just knowing, obviously, any loss could be your last one? FUQUAN EDWIN: It was no different. I didn't play like that in my mindset. I just wanted to play hard and give them my all and leave it on the court. I think we all did that. Q. Eugene, just following up on what Kevin said, how are you able to cope with, obviously, not feeling well? EUGENE TEAGUE: This was my last go‑round. I wasn't going to sit it out. I was going to battle through it. Q. What will the schedule be like? How much of a walk‑through can you do? How much of a practice can you do? COACH KEVIN WILLARD: We'll get back to the hotel. We'll let these guys shower up and change. We'll come down. We'll eat. We'll watch our‑‑ we really probably won't watch personnel. We'll watch our defense against them, our offense against them. We'll make any adjustments that we want to. We'll do everything defensively tonight, and tomorrow morning we'll have an 8:00 walk‑through in the ballroom, have breakfast, and come back here. There's really not much else you can do. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports |
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