St. John's University Athletics
Postgame Quotes: St. John's 64, Providence 62
2/9/2008 12:00:00 AM | Men's Basketball
Feb. 9, 2008
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St. John's Head Coach Norm Roberts
Opening Statement:
"This was a hotly contested game. Providence shot the ball well in the second half and every time we made a mistake they forced us to play it. The last three minutes of the game we had to buckle down and guard. In the end we made the big plays to win."
On the importance of today's win:
"It means a lot to our guys as far as fighting through adversity and being tough. What I keep saying is that we are young and we have to grow, and this was a great growth spurt for us. Being young, going through some down times, and fighting back - that's what these kids do, they fight back. They are a good group, they really like each other. They are going to make mistakes, but a lot of the time, they make mistakes going 100 MPH trying to do what I asked them to do."
On Eugene Lawrence's three-point shot with 1.5 seconds left:
"Eugene Lawrence by far deserves a shot like that. He deserves it because he works hard. He never misses anything. He fights through it all. That's why he is going to be successful, he's a tough kid. He is one of the toughest kids I have ever coached in my life. He takes a lot of heat and he comes back stronger every day, so I'm really happy for him, as well as our team."
On the team's progress through 11 league games:
"This is an unbelievable league with unbelievably talented teams and great coaches. What we do is try to build from the bottom up. We want to get a young core of guys and try to build it with them. We should all embrace these young guys. They are good guys, they work hard and they are going to be very good, but patience has to be there. My job is to be patient and that is what I do."
On today's win being a turning point in the season:
"I don't have the luxury of jumping the gun and saying this is a turning point. We are going to take every game as it comes. Cincinnati will be a tough one, we have to go there and focus and try to get the win. In this league if you try to look ahead you get way behind. We don't look ahead, we take one win at a time and focus in on that."
Senior guard Eugene Lawrence
On being on the court at the same time as Malik Boothe:
"We kind of bother the other teams because we both can rebound and push it into transition. Having us both out there is a big advantage for us."
On this win being a turning point for St. John's:
"We took our lumps and bruises during the season, but we're focused right now. We just come out and take each game at a time and play hard."
On having a great home atmosphere:
"I think it is really good, especially with this being a 12 o'clock game, to have the crowd there. They just like to see us play hard intense basketball and I think we did that today for them."
Freshman Guard Malik Boothe
On this atmosphere being why he chose St. John's:
"It really was. When we were down we could have easily crumbled, but we stuck it out and stuck together and the crowd was the most intense that I have seen. I think that was a really big help for us."
On what it feels like to be a member of this team:
"It feels good. But we're not just a team, we're a family. I don't think you can refer to us as just a team anymore, we're a family."
On grabbing the rebound in the air off Randall Hanke's missed free throw:
"Coach says you have to want it, and I wanted that one."
Freshman Forward Sean Evans
On his 12-point performance:
"I think it was always there, I just needed a little help to get it out of me. My teammates are always there to help with that, and getting my confidence back. Coach has done a lot as well, talking to me and things like that."
Head Coach Tim Welsh
Opening Statement:
"Congratulations to Norm. This was a good win for his program. Congratulations to his players, they fought hard. I like St. John's kids, their team and their fans. Norm is a great teacher and he's doing a great job with all of those freshmen. Playing with a team of freshman is a hard thing to do in this league, but he's doing a great job. Our kids fought, we just stopped scoring in the last eight minutes and that killed us. Their defense picked up a little bit. We had some good looks but we didn't execute. We got to the rim the last play and had a chance to get to the free throw line, but we just have to finish the game better. We're battling, but we just have to finish strong in this league. They had some good breaks where Burrell's shot froze on the rim and Looie blew it in from up in the stands and Lawrence threw up a Chris Mullin shot to beat the shot clock. They had to make plays and they made them. "
On his teams turnovers:
"We kind of cured our turnover problem in the second half. I think we had four turnovers by the first media timeout and 11 turnovers by half time. We can't start games off that way. Once we got into the flow of our offense, we got pretty good. We just have to handle the ball better. That's not the way you want to start your games. You put too much pressure on your defense."
