St. John's University Athletics
Postgame Quotes: Texas 77, St. John's 76
11/17/2006 12:00:00 AM | Men's Basketball
Madison Square Garden
2K Sports College Hoops Classic benefiting Coaches vs. Cancer
Texas vs. St. John???s
St. John's Head Coach Norm Roberts
On tonight???s game:
???We played a lot of better. They (Texas) are a terrific basketball team. They can really shoot the ball. We came out on fire shooting the ball and they came right back. (Kevin) Durant is one heck of a player. I was really happy with our guys. I thought we really battled, we shared the ball, played hard and tried to rebound much better than we did the night before. We just have to take care of the basketball better. We turned it over a little too much today.???
On the last play:
???We were only down one. We wanted Ricky (Torres) to flash high after the ball screen and then throw it to Monty (Lamont Hamilton). (Anthony) Mason had a wide open shot with his feet set. He has been shooting the basketball pretty good.???
On bouncing back from last night:
???I think every time we play we have something to prove. We talked about playing with pride. It is all new every year. We didn???t respond to the level of play last night. Give Maryland a lot of credit, but we talked about pride. Our guys did a great job of coming back and playing with pride against a terrific team like Texas.???
On moral victory:
???They scored more points than we did so they get the win. When we play that hard and play that much together I can sleep a lot better when we do that than what we did the other night.???
More on bouncing back from last night:
???I think our guys have pride in what we do. They knew they played bad and didn???t play to the level that they are capable of. I give all of the credit to them.???
Texas Head Coach Rick Barnes:
On tonight???s game:
???Good in that we won. We made a lot of mistakes coming down the stretch, but I thought that the way we lost last night, the way we were able to come out and get a finish. They jumped on us early, at that point time I was thinking about calling a timeout but then I thought there comes a point in time where they have to grow up. I didn???t want to have to call a timeout where they thought I was in a panic. The way we play, we are going to go on runs and sometimes to be quite frank, I just have to sit there and let them play through it.???
On St. John???s:
We knew they would come out and be a different team. Coming in here again, it was like a road game for us again. I don???t think any of our players thought this was going to be a easy game.???
Freshman Forward Kevin Durant
On St. John???s:
I knew they were going to play hard tonight. They made some buckets and we just had to adjust on the defensive end. I knew they would be tough. They are always tough. We just came in here with the mindset that we can always get beat but we just have to play hard.???
More on St. Johns:
St John???s is a great team. I saw them last night and I was kind of shocked at the way they played but they are a great team every year. I knew this would be a hard test for us.???
