By Jake Copestick (@JakeCopestick)
On Villanova not participating in the Big 5 starting next season:
“It’s really disappointing, to be honest with you. I enjoyed being in the Big 5 last year tremendously. Understanding the history of it and being a part of it last year was awesome. Unfortunately, it really wasn’t a Villanova decision. Either you wrote a really poor article, or people can’t read your article. This wasn’t a Villanova decision, we wanted it. From a month ago, we thought we had a deal. I think you need to talk to the Temple AD and get your stories right, because this was not a Villanova thing. Villanova wants to be in the Big 5. They are the Big 5, but unfortunately, either people are illiterate, which I don’t think they are, or you’re just a bad writer.”
On keeping the Big 5 format:
“No, the format’s stupid, let’s just put it that way. I wanted two things. I wanted to have a banquet the night before the Xfinity game. I thought it would be great to have a Hall of Fame. The other schools couldn’t afford it, supposedly, or didn’t want to do it, and then I wanted the games to lead up to the Xfinity game. I wanted to have continuity and the fact that people would know when we were playing, so that we can actually get people to the games. We played La Salle and there was 500 people. Penn played St. Joe’s and there was 2,000 people. My whole thing was I just wanted to make it the way it was, but the other schools wanted us to play on the road every year. I have to do what’s best for my program. I thought that the format that we agreed on was pretty good. The lowest NET teams of the six, the three would get home games, so that doesn’t mean that we were guaranteed not to be on the road. I just guess that the other schools didn’t think that would ever happen. Not my issue. We want to be in. We did everything to do it. Talk to Temple. Talk to those guys. It wasn’t Villanova.”
On Villanova playing Big 5 games in the future:
“I’d love to play in The Palestra. I’m going to call Fran (McCaffery), hopefully get a home-and-home with (Penn) going or something like that. But I’m not going to go to La Salle and play in front of 400 people. That’s not going to happen.”
On Villanova possibly playing Big 5 games next year:
“Obviously not. Again, you’re talking to the school that wanted to keep it alive. The other five schools broke it off. So again, I know the only way (Jeff Neiburg) could get clicks is put Villanova in it. If he didn’t put Villanova, no one would click on his article. Talk to the other schools. This is not a Villanova issue. The other schools opted out. They didn’t want to play us. Talk to them. I know I’m here and you’ll get clicks because we’re here, and I understand you wouldn’t get clicks if you put someone else in the headline. I know how it works, but this is absolutely not true and totally false.”
On what was false in Jeff Neiburg’s story in the Philadelphia Inquirer:
“We didn’t opt out. We had a format. I passed on two huge games, and I saved that Saturday for next year for the Xfinity tripleheader, and I saved the date before that for a game. I missed two huge scheduling opportunities. We were there. Last month, my AD told me that the deal was done, save the dates. Again, talk to the other schools. Your own headline says it. I’m still perplexed that people didn’t read your article. I’m not perplexed, I now know why. It says that the five other schools decided to opt out. It wasn’t Villanova opted out. Villanova was all in. They opted out, and again, talk to Temple. They killed it, but you know, no one would click on the article.”
On Jeff Neiburg’s clarification if the reporting in his story was wrong:
“Yeah, we didn’t opt out.”
On Carter Fisk’s play:
“Carter’s great. It’s tough having freshmen out there. Luigi’s still a freshman, he’s still figuring it out, he’s getting better everyday. Adam has been practicing good. When you go against a team that has four guys returning and are really good and experienced, it was good for them. I think Carter’s upside is tremendous.”
On struggles to break the press, resulting in 16 turnovers:
“That was my fault. Bad coaching.”
On getting more scoring outside of Devin Royal and Tyler Perkins:
“Once we get Kwame back, you can kind of run more stuff a little bit. I think Nico has progressed great. When KJ is back on the floor with Devin and Tyler Perkins, it kind of frees up Jake a little bit. We don’t have to do so much to get Jake shots, because Kwame can really handle the ball. KJ has practiced the last five days and it’s just that we’re a different basketball team when KJ is out there. He’s so skilled and he can shoot it. That’s kind of a work in progress.”
On Royal’s play:
“Devin’s a warrior, man. He’s not ready to play 33 minutes against them and try to take the ball out and try to break the press. In practice, Abdou was doing a great job, but he’s coming off surgery. The end of the first half where I had Devin out and no one else in, that really hurt us. They did a good job. They did a really good job with their small lineup. When their big guys went out and we had to go small, we’re not built right now to be that small. We will be, though.”
On Kwame Evans playing in Rome:
“I have no comment.”
On Royal’s eight turnovers:
“Virginia is really good defensively and aggressive. He was a little tired doing all the stuff he was doing. I thought some of his turnovers were late. He had three turnovers late. I’m not worried about his turnovers.”
On the benefits of playing preseason exhibitions:
“I think there’s huge benefits. Playing a road game and seeing how guys are on the road and react on the road, and also seeing how guys react at home. This is the first time we had a crowd, so it was interesting to see how some guys reacted. I think you get to learn a lot about your team in those situations, and you get to play against a really good team. That team is good. Virginia is ranked for a reason. They’re really good, and we’ll get there. I’m not worried about us. We’ll get there, but we’re not ready. We’re not there yet. It just shows how good retention is. They did a great job of retaining those four guys that are the backbone of their team.”
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