Jan. 22, 2005

January 22, 2005
Villanova vs. Kansas
Post-Game Quotes

Villanova head coach Jay Wright...

On the game:

"Obviously I'm very happy for our players. I talk all the time about their resiliency and character, and that I believe in them. I think that you can see why on a day like today. There are a lot of good things about this game. It makes the fans happy and I know the NCAA people look at it, but mostly we try to value the things we do inside. For our guys to stick together and continue to work hard and play hard in a game like this is great. I'm happy they could experience that. This is why you come to college, why you come to Villanova. We've had some bad games in this building, so I'm just pleased the guys got to experience college basketball at its best."

On the team's defense:

"This is the second time this season we've done this in a big game against a good team. We happened to make shots and play well on defense. When you don't make the shots, you still have to play that level of defense. Our defense has been consistently pretty good all year, and to do it against a team like Kansas is an even better accomplishment. We played great team defense and the guys did a great job helping each other. I really liked that about today's game.

On what the win means for the program, and the adversity the team has faced:

"I'm never worried about the program. It's going in the right direction because we have good guys here and there are good guys coming in. The most important thing to me is that we've gone through all [the adversity] this year and now this is where we are."

On what the team talked about at halftime:

We talked about continuing to stick to the game plan defensively. We wanted to pressure the ball and guard Wayne Simien. I thought Will Sheridan, Marcus Austin and Chris Charles did a really good job on him, and Randy Foye did a great job on Keith Langford. We did the things we talked about. Also, we were able to get good matchups for Curtis Sumpter."