St. John's University Athletics
Postgame Quotes: St. John's 53, Marist 56
12/17/2005 12:00:00 AM | Men's Basketball
Dec. 17, 2005
Postgame Quotes: St. John's 53, Marist 56
St. John's Head Coach Norm Roberts
On today's game: "Give Marist a lot of credit. They did a great job of shooting the basketball in key situations. They took good shots. They did a good job of getting the ball inside. Their big guys are not known for being scorers inside, but they made good moves. They made shots. I thought we did a good job of moving the basketball against the zone, but we just have to do a better job of making shots. We have to step up and shoot it. We made some early. What happens when you have a young team is that when you make shots you forget about defense and when you don't make shots you play defense. We have to do both at the same time."
On three-point shooting: "We talked about it at halftime. We said we were taking too many three-point shots. We have to be more confident in throwing the ball inside. Give them credit because when we did go inside they put two guys on our guys inside. Our big guys know not to force it up. I thought we could have done a better job of fanning the ball out, re-posting and getting it inside."
On Jared Jordan's missed free-throw at the end of the game: "It ricocheted off the rim hard. We should have been alert and gotten to the basketball. We were a half a step slow. It is a little difficult but they played with a little bit of more energy than we did in key moments and that shouldn't happen. We have to understand what our identity is. Our identity is to guard. We are not a great shooting team. We know that. We have to play to our strengths. If we do not, then we are an average team. We have to understand our strengths and play to those strengths."
On team defense: "There is always moments in games where you have to make plays offensively and defensively. When we needed to get a stop we did not get a stop. We have to get stops to win games like this."
Marist Head Coach Matt Brady
On today's game: "Let me start by saying that I have an awful lot of respect for Norm Roberts, his program and the staff he has. I think they are all terrific guys. We are happy to get out of this building with a win. We didn't always play well, but I thought we played hard. I thought we gave us a chance to win the game with some of the loose balls we came up with. I'd just like to say we are happy to get on the winning track because we lost some tough games recently. Games like this that we have lost to some quality opponents were one possession game. Today was but the ball bounced our way."
On the second half: "We still have a pretty young team. We were down 17 in our opener at Seton Hall but it turned into 14 lead changes in the second half. What I said to the team when I took the timeout was that they are a good team, we are a good team, but they are just making shots. They are not going to continue to make shots at this pace so let's just keep blocking out and taking care of the basketball. We are going to have a lot of leads in a lot of games this year. I thought we were going to have a lead in this game. We are going to get a good lead, because I think we are a good team and a team that enjoys playing together. With a young group it is more mental than what the Coach is going to change on the floor."
On the importance of this win for the program: "It is great, anytime you can come into New York and beat this team, this program. You are not going to do it making a lot of mistakes. We are excited we have a win. For us, it is a building block. Our kids believe in themselves, we believe in our team and we believe in how we play. I think Norm does a really nice job. They have a tremendous defensive team. He gets the most out of them defensively. We have shortcomings and I think Norm has some shortcomings and I think he would be the first to tell you. Today we were was just trying to play the game close, keep it close until the end of the game and hope that we get a bounce."
On three-point shooting: "I would be happy getting into it (a three-point) contest with anybody. I think that is not one of their strengths as a team, but they have a lot of other strengths. So for us, it was obviously trying to mitigate their strengths and keep the game close and keep playing hard. In the first half, they made more threes than I expected. I told the team at halftime, we have been in this before with Seton Hall. They made more threes than I thought they would ever make and they haven't made that many since. I said to the team that at some point we have to pick and choose our battles. We are going to draw the line. We are going to defend the line as best as we can but we are going to control the lane. That is what we tried to do today."