UConn 73, Villanova 56
THE MODERATOR: Alex Karaban, Samson Johnson, Coach Dan Hurley for UConn.
DAN HURLEY: I want to say what a pleasure it's been to work with John. Congratulations, John, on your retirement. You obviously have a lot of [expletive] to deal with me with the media, but I appreciate you. You've been great to deal with. Congratulations.
Obviously thrilled to win. I feel like at halftime we just weren't guarding very well, and we weren't playing very well. To be down only five at halftime was kind of encouraging. Obviously we were able to just put some game pressure on them, finally get the lead, and really execute well and get stops and go plus nine on the backboard.
THE MODERATOR: Questions, please.
Q. Coach, 47 straight games with double figures for Dixon. You ended it tonight. What did you do on defense to stop him?
DAN HURLEY: Well, I thought we made very few mistakes. Like pick and pops and him as a screener, with things we were switching, and then next up sending double teams. Honestly, for him it's just probably one of those nights. Obviously, Samson did a great job. Alex did a great job. Tarris did a great job. I just think as great a player as he is and as unhuman as he's looked a lot of the times, with the season he's had -- it's been so incredible -- I think we were fortunate, too, to get him on a night where he missed a couple.
Q. Dan, 34 points in the paint tonight. You've got Ryan Kalkbrenner tomorrow. Do you still believe that going to the interior is going to be your main route of attack for tomorrow?
DAN HURLEY: Yeah, obviously every game is different. Yeah, that defensive scheme is really challenging. I mean, I think there's opportunities in the paint. They may not be all the way at the rim. There's opportunities for us to drop, the deep drop that he plays, to get to the logo, which are tougher shots. But their scheme and what he is as a defensive player is obviously going to be a challenge.
Q. Alex, 15 of your 18 points in the second half, especially down that stretch, can you just take us through how you were feeling during that stretch and how your defense was able to turn into that scoring burst?
ALEX KARABAN: Yeah, I felt like I had to be more aggressive coming out of halftime, just be that player that the team needs me to be and just rely on my confidence.
Just a credit to my teammates for helping me find the ball, and credit to the coaching staff for drawing up what they drew up. I've got to be that player for us to step up, and I felt like I had to step up compared to the first half that I had. In general, everybody defensively played way better in the second half.
Q. Alex, it wasn't long ago we were talking about trying to get off that win one, lose one pattern. Now you've stacked three, four games in a row, you and the team. You guys feel like you're playing your best basketball this season right now?
ALEX KARABAN: Absolutely. It's March, so we got to. We're desperate for championships here, so we want to play our best basketball right now. There's no better time. We've stacked up five wins in a row now. We want to keep going.
Q. Alex, that 22-3 and then 22-5 run at the end, did that feel a little bit like one of those runs you guys pulled off last year? You are kind of famous for that, breaking open a close game and turning it into a rout real quick?
ALEX KARABAN: You definitely had flashbacks of last year when we go on the big runs. It was more so just trying to go possession by possession, break them down slowly. I thought we did a good job of that heading into the under 8 media time-outs. It was a good job collectively as a unit. We were able to break them down slowly and just play our basketball.
Q. You said that everyone played better in the second half of the game. What was it that made it difficult in the first half and at the beginning of the second half?
ALEX KARABAN: Yeah, it was guarding the ball, taking pride on the defensive end. We made a lot of mistakes in the first half, whether it was fouling or letting Poplar get to the rim easily or missing a ball screen defense. So we just tightened those mistakes up, and we just took more pride on the defensive end in the second half.
Q. Alex and Dan, if you can follow that up, as well, you talked about the desperation for championships now going into March. What is it about this month and the muscle memory, the championship DNA in this program that enabled you to just flip a switch so quickly and made such an impact doing so?
ALEX KARABAN: Coach talks about it all the time. Wearing that UConn jersey, you have to take honor and pride with it and play with that swagger. Especially in March now, there's no better time to give everything you've got right now and just play as hard as you can every single time, and especially in March now when you want to win championships. We try to take that step now, and we have a big one tomorrow.
DAN HURLEY: These games have pressure. These are pressure games now when you get to this, where it's like for players and coaches, like, your last conference game of the year. You don't want it to be that. You don't want Samson Johnson's career to end in the Big East. There's that.
Obviously, with the NCAA Tournament, you have to have a little magic about you as a program where you have this confidence when this time of year rolls around. You think you're supposed to win. You believe you're supposed to win.
Q. Dan, you've talked about the need for your guys to go off schedule at times offensively. How much do you think that's been responsible for the results of the last five games?
DAN HURLEY: Yeah, these guys have played off script so much better. They've created outside of the stuff that we try to execute. I thought we executed pretty well today. Obviously, we shot 58% from the field. I thought for the most part, we were pretty sharp.
I thought Aidan made such a difference in the game for us. I thought Aidan was a huge reason why the game was where it was at halftime. We could have easily been down 10 or 12 at halftime and a little demoralized his first half. He gave us great minutes. I think that trend is going to continue. I know he's excited to attack the rest of the Big East Tournament. I think he's going to play even better in the NCAA Tournament. I'm not sure that the wrestling matches that the Big East games are, I think when we get to more freedom of movement in the NCAA Tournament, Aidan I think is going to close the season great.
Q. Dan, you guys have had to manage Hassan's minutes for a while now. How do you square that with having to play twice in what amounts to 24 hours and maybe three times if you make it to Saturday?
DAN HURLEY: I mean, if Aidan didn't give us what he gave us today, we would be in big trouble. Like, if Hassan had to go 35 minutes today. The fact that he was able to play 22 -- and obviously guarding Ashworth is going to be taxing, but just to have a guy play as well as Aidan did behind Hass today is a really encouraging sign for us. I mean, really cannot understate how important it is to have him playing well.
FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports