St. John's University Athletics
Postgame Quotes
12/27/2008 12:00:00 AM | Men's Basketball
Dec. 27, 2008
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QUEENS, N.Y. - St. John's Head Coach Norm Roberts
On today's loss:
"I am always disappointed when we lose. But I thought we tried hard. Take the three best players off anybody's team and see what happens. We lost quite a few players but our other guys just have to step up and play, that's just how it is. Nobody is going to feel sorry for you, it's a great opportunity for the young guys to step up and play. Take [Jack] McClinton and [Dwayne] Collins off their team and they are not the same team. Not the same team at all. That's what we have going on right now and we have to battle through it and be tough."
On today's rebounding:
"Physically, they wore us down. They have a lot bodies. Miami plays 12 guys and they are big and strong. They play a physical game and they beat us out getting to the glass. We blocked out, but they are strong. They pushed us out from underneath the rim. We have to do a better job of being strong enough to keep teams away from the glass."
On the team's efforts:
"We had desire to get to the ball, but Collins is a very good player. He can really get to the basketball and did a really good job of that. [Justin] Burrell is probably a better rebounder than what he showed today, but because of his injury he hasn't practiced in two and a half weeks and he is out of shape. He tried as hard as he could. Sean Evans and [Dele] Coker also gave solid efforts. The game was probably a little fast for Phil Wait but it's a good thing for him to play in a game like this to prepare him for the BIG EAST."
On backcourt play:
"I though they [the freshmen] did ok. Miami did not pressure us as much as other teams will do, but they did ok. I thought McClinton was very aggressive. But when you have a guy who is such a leader, like Malik [Boothe] not playing, it really takes away a lot. He is an emotional leader, he gets us in our offense, he gets us in our defense, so our freshman are going to have to step up. The tough thing is we also lose Malik at a bad time. After Christmas, we had one practice to play Miami and that's really hard when you lose your point guard. But I think our guys stepped up and did some good things."
On Burrell's facemask:
"He has only practiced twice with it. But he just has to get used to it. He is going to have to wear it the whole year."
Miami Head Coach Frank Haith
On his team's rotation of players:
"We felt like when we brought DeQuan Jones into the game, he and Brian Asbury together was not as good as maybe James Dews playing with DeQuan. That was the thinking behind that. James is a selfless player. I try not to put a premium on who starts. I wanted to give DeQuan a better chance to have another ball handler out there. With Brian and him playing together, I thought we weren't as good with the ball handling. When we went to our bench, I wanted Dews to be in there with DeQuan to help him. And as a freshman, he's still learning things and James is more vocal, more cerebral. And I thought DeQuan could help him, which would help our rotations a little bit better."
On freshman center Julian Gamble:
"Julian practiced well. We had three days of practice and I told our guys, our post guys in particular, that he earned it with how hard he practiced. Julian is a real active player. He's long. He gets his hands on a lot of balls. And Jimmy (Graham) is not quite 100-percent. So it was an opportunity for Julian to get those minutes."
On his team's rebounding:
"Over the time I've been at Miami, our team has been a real good rebounding team. And that's something we stress. Obviously, I thought Dwayne (Collins) and Julian and Jimmy (Graham) and Cyrus (McGowan), all our guys went after the glass. And we've got to have that for us to be a good basketball team. That has to be a strength of ours. Today we really exerted ourselves and that was good to see, but it's something we can build on and hopefully something that will be a mainstay on our team this year."
On the team's rebound from Clemson loss:
"I thought they did well. There were only about five or six plays where I thought we had some breakdown today. We've got to be able to handle success a little bit better. We've got to be able to sustain when we get a lead. We'd get a 10-point lead and all of a sudden we'd relax and take a couple of plays off. We've got to shrink that number from six or seven to none. After the Clemson game, it was all about toughness. It was all about doing things the right way all the time. Defensively, closing out, taking away vision, boxing out. I was really concerned about St. John's ability to rebound. We made an effort to understand that we have to box out every time. I thought our guards and our bigs both did a good job of that."
Senior Guard Jack McClinton
On getting the win:
"It was very important. All week in practice we worked on the little things that set us back against Clemson. We wanted to come into this game more focused than ever with it being Christmas break. Everybody stayed focused and came out and played pretty well today."
On his free-throw shooting:
"I have to stay in the gym and get it better. All you can do is just keep working on it. It will get better though."
On his shooting:
"When you're in the flow of the game, you really don't look at where you are on the floor. Coach Haith always tells me if I have an open look to take the shot. When you have your head coach telling you that, it gives you that much more confidence."
On playing both guard positions:
"Whatever I can do to (help the team) get W's; if I have to play power forward, whatever. I don't care. As long as I can go out there and give us a better chance to get wins."
On the play of the team's big men:
"They played great today. From Cyrus to Julian, Dwayne, Adrian (Thomas) and Jimmy. All those guys played so well in the post today, which gave us a better chance to win the ball game."
Junior guard James Dews
On the team's rotation of players:
"It was good. A lot more guys got more minutes. Everybody produced really well, so I think it worked out fine."
