Head Coach Jay Wright Opening Statement
A tough BIG EAST game, it was an old school BIG EAST game. Ugly to watch, ugly to coach in but you have to grid those out and find ways to win. I thought our two seniors were tough and the young guys I do not know if they were ready for that physical of a game. We will learn and get better.
Jay you talk about the BIG EAST games being a grid, do you think your teams need that push in the regular season
Wright: I do not know if we need it but we are going to get it. It is coming this year. This Seton Hall team is a really good team and they got a lot of good guys that will be there for a while. We just went out to Creighton and they are a really good team, Xavier, you are going to get in night in and not out. That is what we are going to take from tonight game, there are going to be nights we are not making shots and we need to be able to do other things. I think that we rebounded really well tonight, it got away from us at the end, but I thought we rebounded really well first half especially. Which has not been so good. This BIG EAST conference is a long way from over; a lot of good teams in this league.
Jay in this type of game where the offense isn’t flowing and you had to rely on your defense, and the fact that you did not let them go on a run, how big of a help was that?
I told the guys at halftime I was really pleased with our first half defense. I thought that regardless of what we did offensively thought we could grid it out in the second half. But we didn’t, we didn’t put our defense together in the second half. This is where we are going to learn, learn how tough it will be. Good coaches make adjustments at halftime. I really think our good defense in the first half was really what kept us from being down because offensively we were so poor.
Ryan can you guys tell when it will be one of those grid it out kind of nights like it was tonight
Ryan Arcidiacono: We knew coming into the game that Seton Hall was going to bring it, just every single game that we have watched on tape they have brought a tough mentality. So we knew that coming into the game it wasn’t going to be pretty offensively and we were going to have to get those stops. Like coach said we did that in the first half and it got away from us in the second half when we started to make shots. We let the offense take over us rather than getting stops and continuing what we do defensively.
Daniel, do you like games like this where there are a lot of rebounds and you have to do a lot of dirty work in the paint
Daniel Ochefu: I love these types of games, and I know that our team loves them as well. Our practices are even uglier than this game, it is something we work out every day but we expect that type of game.
Ryan, how much of a help was Daniel especially in those tough stretches, not only on the boards but the offense
Ryan: That is what we expect from Daniel every single day. He does that in practice, actually in practice you can’t really score because Daniel is playing such good defense. We expect that, Daniel is an experienced player and we know every time that we can’t make shots we are going to make straight line drives and try to get him an easy basket. One thing about Daniel is he is improving his free throw shooting and is constant with it.
A tough BIG EAST game, it was an old school BIG EAST game. Ugly to watch, ugly to coach in but you have to grid those out and find ways to win. I thought our two seniors were tough and the young guys I do not know if they were ready for that physical of a game. We will learn and get better.
Jay you talk about the BIG EAST games being a grid, do you think your teams need that push in the regular season
Wright: I do not know if we need it but we are going to get it. It is coming this year. This Seton Hall team is a really good team and they got a lot of good guys that will be there for a while. We just went out to Creighton and they are a really good team, Xavier, you are going to get in night in and not out. That is what we are going to take from tonight game, there are going to be nights we are not making shots and we need to be able to do other things. I think that we rebounded really well tonight, it got away from us at the end, but I thought we rebounded really well first half especially. Which has not been so good. This BIG EAST conference is a long way from over; a lot of good teams in this league.
Jay in this type of game where the offense isn’t flowing and you had to rely on your defense, and the fact that you did not let them go on a run, how big of a help was that?
I told the guys at halftime I was really pleased with our first half defense. I thought that regardless of what we did offensively thought we could grid it out in the second half. But we didn’t, we didn’t put our defense together in the second half. This is where we are going to learn, learn how tough it will be. Good coaches make adjustments at halftime. I really think our good defense in the first half was really what kept us from being down because offensively we were so poor.
Ryan can you guys tell when it will be one of those grid it out kind of nights like it was tonight
Ryan Arcidiacono: We knew coming into the game that Seton Hall was going to bring it, just every single game that we have watched on tape they have brought a tough mentality. So we knew that coming into the game it wasn’t going to be pretty offensively and we were going to have to get those stops. Like coach said we did that in the first half and it got away from us in the second half when we started to make shots. We let the offense take over us rather than getting stops and continuing what we do defensively.
Daniel, do you like games like this where there are a lot of rebounds and you have to do a lot of dirty work in the paint
Daniel Ochefu: I love these types of games, and I know that our team loves them as well. Our practices are even uglier than this game, it is something we work out every day but we expect that type of game.
Ryan, how much of a help was Daniel especially in those tough stretches, not only on the boards but the offense
Ryan: That is what we expect from Daniel every single day. He does that in practice, actually in practice you can’t really score because Daniel is playing such good defense. We expect that, Daniel is an experienced player and we know every time that we can’t make shots we are going to make straight line drives and try to get him an easy basket. One thing about Daniel is he is improving his free throw shooting and is constant with it.
