St. John's University Athletics
Postgame Quotes: St. John's 93, Duke 78
1/30/2011 12:00:00 AM | Men's Basketball
Jan. 30, 2011
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- St. John's Head Coach Steve Lavin
On showing emotion on the sidelines:
"You're caught up in the moment of the game and wanted St. John's fans to come to the party in terms of supporting the players on the court. Because we've had this arduous stretch of games with eight Top-25 opponents and losing five-of-six. At that moment it was just wanting to jumper cable the crowd but also bring some energy for our players, because they deserved a pat on the back and some appreciation for the Yeoman's effort and the cohesive brand of basketball they'd been playing up to that point in the game against the defending national champion."
On Duke's defense:
"We've seen teams that press and against Louisville we didn't handle the ball really well. I thought today we were crisp in our judgments; we were prudent with decision making at the end of breaking their press, whether it was sitting down for a jump stop, making that extra pass, probing or investigating for the open man. With their pressure, through the years they unnerve opponents. Over the years, the reason they've been so successful and have won national championships is because they have a great coach, they have great talent, they have a system or style of play that unnerves opponents; they get you discombobulated. And then off your turnovers and quick shots they're off to the boat races. But because we were patient and played well in two gears and didn't turn the ball over and then utilized good judgment, we were able to execute well."
On stretch of eight consecutive games against Top-25 opponents:
"This is an interesting stretch as a coach. If I were at ESPN we'd just go to the research department and would say, 'Has any team in the regular season played eight consecutive games against Top-25 opponents?' I don't think it's ever happened. I've had teams that have played 12 Top-25 opponents stretched out, but the odds of drawing eight consecutive, from a mathematical probability… it's got to be one in a zillion. With the number of games, it's just unusual. So as a coach, we've had to temper and be mindful of that. As frustrating as it is to lose, and you want to win every game, you'd rather be undefeated than not, but you also realize that may not happen. And so you have to make adjustments and really the concern was that our players realized that this conference is really tough. And you can lose eight-of-nine games or five-of-six games in this league and not necessarily be playing really bad basketball. As a matter of fact, you may be one of the best 65 and deserving of a NCAA Tournament bid, but you happen to be in the BIG EAST. And the scores indicate that. I used Syracuse as an example, they really helped our team get a better sense for the larger context or picture of how tough the BIG EAST Conference is. Because if Syracuse can lose four straight in this league, we can sure lose five-of-six, depending on who you're drawing and when. So you don't want to operate in a vacuum as a coach and you don't want your team to operate in a vacuum because they can beat themselves up, now they lose their confidence, they're fragile and you don't have an opportunity to have a bounce-back win like we did today against Duke. So in preparation, what I focused on was opportunity and then being prepared for this opportunity because of our travel to Alaska, travel to St. Mary's, the number two strength of schedule in the country, our eighth consecutive Top-25 opponent. Whose better prepared than us to play this game today at the Garden, at home? This was our time. This was our moment to have another breakthrough as we have at other stages."
On team's pressure defense:
"All year we've pressured and depending on opponents, we'll trap and in particular areas we'll be more aggressive. One of the big points of emphasis was in our 2-2-1 we wanted to get up the floor and extend more. Against Georgetown we felt we gave them too much distance so they were comfortable, they were window shopping over the top of our press and window shopping over the top of our man-to-man and half court zone defense. And that was evident during the game, it was evident during our film study on Thursday after the Georgetown loss. So we recommitted ourselves in practice in preparation for this game against Duke to ball pressure. And that aggressiveness is a good thing for our team."
Senior Guard Dwight Hardy
On final ten seconds of game:
"I was just thanking God for the opportunity to play the number three team in the country and helping us get a win to build the momentum going into the rest of our games this season."
On early three-point shooting:
"I know that I'm a great three-point shooter, so when I hit two three's in a row, it kind of opened up driving lanes for the other wing players and also myself. Getting into the post and working inside-out helps the offense a lot."
On withstanding opponents' runs:
"When we have lapses in our defense we sometimes get down and worry about the last play instead of moving onto the next play. In the key wins, when teams made their runs we just continued to play and stay aggressive on offense and execute our plays."
Senior Forward Justin Burrell
On game's final seconds:
"I was excited… To be a part of a win like this was huge for us. We had a guest coach on our bench, Mike Repole, and he talked about how much of a win this was for St. John's and for these fans. He said this was one of the best wins in ten years. So I'm really excited to be a part of that.
On St. John's NCAA Tournament resume:
"It helps out a lot, confidence wise, and of course when they look at our resume, it helps out a lot. But at the end of the day it only counts as one win so we have to go out and continue to win more games in order to be a contender to be able to play in the NCAA Tournament."
On St. John's play today:
"Duke is a tremendous team as everyone knows, so they are going to make plays, they're going to make shots, especially when it's coming down to the end like that... But we stuck to our principles, got out in the passing lanes. And of course at the end of the game, when they tried to pressure a little bit, we got into our back-door cuts and made great plays off of those."
On the team's defense:
"After the Georgetown game we were very disappointed with our effort, especially on defense. So we talked a lot amongst ourselves and said we have to make a change. But the real change came with our coaching staff. They really got after us the last two days and talked about the effort it takes to win games. And these last two days, if you look around our team we all have fat lips, scratched eyes, a couple ankles swollen, but at the end of the day we were back there at practice fighting and that's what we came out and did today."
On the play of senior Sean Evans:
"The memory I'll take away from today would be my teammate, Sean Evans. It's been a tough year for him. He's worked extremely hard, but the ball hasn't bounced his way a lot. So we were really excited about him coming out and playing the way he did today. And he really lifted our team."
Duke Head Coach Mike Krzyzewski
On today's game:
"They had a great game plan. They have had outstanding games this season and this was one of them. In order to beat them today, we would have had to shown up and be ready to compete at the level we normally compete at. As a program today, we did not show up to compete. … We may not have beat them anyway because they played really well. Hardy, Brownlee - those kids were terrific."
On Steve Lavin:
"I have known Steve a long time. He comes from a great basketball family in the San Francisco area. He has been around great coaches and he has one of them on his bench in Gene (Keady). Steve is a basketball guy and he is doing a really good job with his team."
