St. John's University Athletics
Postgame Quotes
1/24/2009 12:00:00 AM | Men's Basketball
Jan. 24, 2009
Recap | Box Score | Notes | Photo Gallery 
St. John's Head coach Norm Roberts
On tonight's game:
"I thought it was a hard fought game. We knew that Rutgers would come back in the second half. They've got a lot of guys who can score in a lot of different ways. [Jaron] Griffin made three really big shots for them. But our guys held strong. D.J. [Kennedy] made some big plays for us and Paris [Horne] made good plays all game. Sean [Evans] came back after being in foul trouble, and I thought Justin [Burrell] was extremely active even though he didn't score a lot of points. His blocked shot was a huge deal in the game."
On Paris Horne:
"He's probably more confident in himself and what he can do, but he's not doing anything he normally doesn't do everyday in practice. I'm not saying he's 12-for-13 every day at practice, but he is aggressive. He got into a really nice rhythm and he was able to make some big shots for us."
On tonight's win:
"It's important for our guys to win. I told our guys in the locker room that this is a character win. We got a lot of character in our locker room, a lot of proud guys who work extremely hard and we've been dealt some bad cards. A lot of people think you can't come back from this, from the loss in Cincinnati, and I said we can, we just have to focus in and take advantage of the situation we're going to have today. Our guys showed a tremendous amount of character and pride in coming out and playing as hard as they could."
On Sophomore Forward Justin Burrell:
"Justin is so athletic. He can do some many different things. Justin was very aggressive tonight, I thought he scored more points than what he had, but he was dominant on the glass and that blocked shot was a huge play. Justin is getting better and better every day."
Sophomore Guard D.J. Kennedy
On bouncing back from loss to Cincinnati:
"It was important to me and it was important to my team. On Thursday, I thought I let them down. I just wanted to go out there tonight and make sure we got the 'W,' and do whatever I can to help my team. And that's what I tried to do."
On Rutgers run at the end of the game:
"I wasn't surprised at all. Rutgers fights to the end. Before the game, coach told us they wouldn't give up, so we couldn't let down. It wasn't a surprise to us at all."
On play of sophomore guard Paris Horne:
"I don't think he's taken his game to a different level. Paris has always had it in him. There are some practices when Paris is unstoppable, just like he was today. So it's definitely no surprise to us. We know what Paris is capable of."
Sophomore guard Paris Horne
On his play:
"My mindset was just to come in and stay aggressive for the whole 40 minutes. I thought I let my team down as well last game, so I just wanted to stay aggressive all game."
On getting a BIG EAST win:
"This is the BIG EAST. You need to win all of your games, especially your home games, and then try to steal a few on the road. So this win, after losing four straight, we really needed to get back on track."
Rutgers Head Coach Fred Hill
On tonight's game:
"I thought they executed really well and no matter what we threw at them, they made their shots. It's going to happen sometimes. Paris Horne had a phenomenal day. It was a high paced game for both of us. We came out and executed really well and got the ball where we wanted and scored it. We just couldn't stop them. They continued on that pace whether we played man or went zone. They did a great job. Justin Burrell came out and Paris came out. And when you make shots you get confidence. That's the way the game goes and they did a terrific job in the first half."
On team's mental toughness:
"I can't find a trend. You talked about the first half today in the last two games, but before that in the last three games, our first halves were great and our second halves weren't. The only trend that there is that we haven't been able to play forty minutes of good basketball. We play good basketball in spurts. We haven't had the discipline to play throughout the whole course of the game. We cut the game down to two, but we made two mistakes. We were undisciplined twice on the defensive end. Those are things that we did. I'm not taking anything away from them, they exploited our mistakes. Paris Horne drills a three because we made a defensive mistake. That should never happen. And then we made two more in the last two minutes of the game when it was down to two. So those are the things you have to get better at. You have to have discipline; you have to have some mental toughness. I love my guys for the character they have, the heart they show, but we've got to get mentally better, mentally tougher and have more discipline. And a little bit of experience and a little bit of digging down a little deeper."
On playing St. John's at Madison Square Garden:
"Every game for us is the same. I don't want to belittle it because this is what I think is important: it's important for metropolitan area basketball for St. John's, Rutgers and Seton Hall to be very, very good. This is a game that should be a great rivalry and there should be 18,000 fans here in the Garden. And that's what's important. It's important for Norm (Roberts), it's important for me, it's important for Bobby (Gonzalez), for our programs to continually get better."
