St. John's University Athletics
Postgame Quotes: St. John's 60, Syracuse 75
2/13/2006 12:00:00 AM | Men's Basketball
Feb. 13, 2006
QUEENS, N.Y. - St. John's Head Coach Norm Roberts
On today's game:
"Give Syracuse credit. They are a great basketball team. Their guards did a great job. Their guards did a good job of not only shooting the basketball, but also getting into the lane and creating for others. We did a poor job of keeping them in front of us. Darryl Watkins did a terrific job on the glass against us. We executed at times offensively. We never got (Anthony) Mason going on the perimeter. I thought we needed to attack inside more. We didn't come out in the second half with the energy that we ended the first half with."
On the Phil Missere and Matt Gorman fight:
"I didn't see the play. I think the referee said that the kid from Syracuse (Matt Gorman) elbowed Phil in the back of the head and that's when Phil retaliated. I don't know. They were pushing and shoving. You just have to keep your head and not get involved in situations like that. You can't lose your cool. You can't get into a fight. You just end up getting kicked out of the game."
On their defense:
"We have to guard. We have to pay attention to detail when guarding. It is things that we go over. You have to give credit to the teams that take advantage of us, but we are not doing a good job of guarding the ball on the perimeter. When it does get broken down we are not doing a good job of blocking shots and taking charges. We have to play team defense."
More on their defense:
"It is frustrating. It is not something that is done on purpose. We just have to pay more attention to detail. We have a good basketball, but we are limited in certain ways. At this time of year, everybody knows what everybody can do. We have to take those things away from people. If you allow people to play to their strengths, and we let Syracuse play to their strengths, then you know you are going to struggle."
More on today's game:
"It is being inexperienced, being young and not paying attention to detail. We just have to be more focus. You give Syracuse credit. We are a second late, they pick it up and they flip it to (Gerry) McNamara and he makes a three. It is not like they ran a great play, they just scored off of a miscue. We just focus and be tough and keep working through it."
Junior Lamont Hamilton
On today's game:
"I am disappointed that we couldn't pull of the win. I think we played hard enough but we just didn't pay attention to details."
On the rest of the season:
"We know we have five more games so we cant dwell on this loss. We have to focus in. We are not desperate. We are going to do everything Coach tells us."
Junior Aaron Spears
On today's game: "I don't think we get tired. I think sometimes we don't pay attention to detail and do the right things. It is all about our defense. Sometimes we pay too much attention to offense. We need to focus on defense. That is the face of our team. To win games we have to play defense."
Syracuse Head Coach Jim Boeheim
On today's game:
"Our defense has been pretty good, even in the losses. Our offense has been non-existent. Even today we struggled on offense, making turnovers in transition. The second half was the first time in a long time that we got good shots. We really moved the ball. We got Demetris (Nichols) a couple of great looks. We looked and found Gerry (McNamara) a couple of times when they lost him. Mookie (Darryl Watkins) was very good defensively today. When he can play like this, it is a big difference. Eric (Devendorf) had a tremendous game, but I thought Mookie (Darryl Watkins) was tremendous inside defensively and he rebounded the ball. He was active the whole game. He finished around the basket a couple of times."
On St. John's:
"St. John's is very difficult team down here. We watched tape of them in their Louisville and Pittsburgh wins. They play very well here. In this League (The Big East) everything is so hard. It is tough to come out and get a road win. This was a good game for us."
On their zone defense:
"We were able to come back in a little bit tighter. We have seen so many shooting exhibitions against us this year. Guys just are shooting the ball deep against us that our zone has gotten stretched out. We still found the shooters, but we were just thought we were more active in our zone than we have been. Part of that is that we got something going on offense. We have been awful on offense. Our defense hasn't been great, but it has been more about our offensive problems this year. We better job on (Daryll) Hill than we did last year."
On The Big East:
"It is important to get every win in this League. To me it is clear that Connecticut, Villanova, Pittsburgh and even Georgetown have separated themselves. But everybody else, it is just a coin flip. They are six or eight other teams that are really good teams. I believe that if Louisville were playing in Conference USA, they would be in second place and going to the NCAA tournament. When you look at the top teams, we have three teams in the top 15 in the country. We have struggled a little bit but we have lost five games to teams that were ranked in the top 10. Our other losses, Bucknell is 21-3 and Seton Hall has won six straight games. Those are pretty good teams. This is a tough League. We still have tough games ahead. Every game in this League is a must win."
