St. John's University Athletics
Postgame Quotes: St. John's 82 - UMBC 59
11/13/2011 12:00:00 AM | Men's Basketball
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St. John's Head Coach Steve Lavin
Opening Statement:
"I told the kids that they impressed me with their methodical, deliberate, and mature way in which we separated ourselves from UMBC. It wasn't so much of a blitzkrieg, all-at-once attack. Over the course of the game, there was a mature manner in which our team extended the lead and ultimately put the game away. That's a hard thing to define, but today I sensed a maturity and a poise as well as the temperament and the bearing that you would like to see in a team. I told the kids: 'Sometimes you can be up 14-2, but not feel comfortable about the team's bearing, the temperament can seem a little off-kilter, or the central nervous system of your team just doesn't seem right. The flip side can be true as well. You can be trailing early in a game, but like where your team is. It's just one of those things where if you have been coaching for long enough, you'll pick up on.' Right from the jump, I liked where our team's temperament, bearing, and collective energy was at. It paid dividends and bared fruit in the second half. We had a number of impressive individual performances. Nurideen Lindsey was close to a triple-double, Malik Stith brought us great energy, and Phil Greene was a real spark. His buzzer-beater to finish the half gave our guys a lift going into the locker room, which carried over into the second half as well."
On the impact of God'sgift Achiuwa and Malik Stith:
"God'sgift Achiuwa and Malik Stith have been the two most steady performers in terms of bringing energy and maturity. There's a direct correlation between their age and their performance. I told the other players: 'It's not that we're down on you, but you want to learn from one other. That's what you do when you go through life and team sports teach that. If someone does something well, you want to be mindful of that and add it to your own tool belt. Both Stith and Gift are critical to this team's success because of their maturity, leadership, and being even-keeled. They understand that the season is a marathon and we're just getting started here. Stith and Gift set a really great example for the younger players."
On Nurideen Lindsey's near triple-double performance:
"His numbers today reflect a special performance. It was understated how he was able to cut up our opponent like a surgeon. Obviously, there were a number of special performances, but Nurideen's numbers reflect that he was able to take the game over and dominate from the offensive end of the court."
On using a man-to-man defense:
"We're going to salt-and-pepper the man-to-man defense in. The nice thing about our full-court pressure and our match-up zone is the principles are very similar to man-to-man defense in terms of ball pressure, rotation, trying to contest shots, and get five men going for rebounds. While we improve our man-to-man defense, it improves our match-up zone and while we improve our match-up zone, it improves our man-to-man defense. We can changeup our defense just as a baseball pitcher would throw an off-speed pitch and then go back to his fastball. The coaching staff is learning just as the kids are learning about combinations of players and how to put this particular group of players in the best possible position to be successful. Over the last couple of games, we could clearly see that this team is showing the ability to be disruptive with their man-to-man defense. But again, as we step up and play better competition, you become more informed about your team. It's still way too early to draw any conclusive generalities about this squad, but I do think to this point that the man-to-man has been a positive."
On being back with the team for a second game after recovering from prostate cancer surgery:
"Today was definitely a smoother experience than my first game back against Lehigh. But that's natural as I am still in the process of recuperating from a surgery that happened over five weeks ago. Much like a team coming off of a game, you ask the question: how do you recover? Recovering from one game to the next, it's about how quickly that energy comes back so you feel like you have that stamina to replicate a good coaching performance. Today, I was in a better place as a coach because I got my first game out of the way - that's the toughest one. Against Lehigh, there was a little more fire and brimstone since we were playing from behind. But today, I didn't really have to go there because we had a sustained energy and a good, collective effort going from start and finish."
Freshman Guard D'Angelo Harrison
On changes in pregame routine:
"We ate our pregame meal a little earlier. [Coach Lavin] doesn't really like it when we sleep before the game, so that was key. We still started a little bit slow, and we're going to pick that up against Arizona, because you can't be slow in the first half against Arizona. They're one of the top teams in the country."
On thoughts when STJ was down 10-3:
"I knew we were going to come through. On our team, nobody looks down when we're down. Everybody thinks that now we can turn it up. That's not necessarily a good thing, but it's good that we have people on the team that believe when we're down we can come back, always."
On importance of win before MSG debut:
"Every time we play I feel it is a game to get better and we've just got to stay positive throughout even though we started slow, and that's going to be a key against Arizona."
On whether there was a concerted effort to be leading at the half:
"We were up in the first half, but we've got to do a better job, period. We've got to come out with more fire. The way we played in the second half, we need to do that in both halves."
On whether this was the best game of the season to date:
"We had a couple of bad turnovers, but we were calmer and not as nervous. We're used to playing in Carnesecca now, and we played an all-around good game today."
Sophomore Guard Nurideen Lindsey
On boost from Malik Stith's scoring:
"It gives our team a huge lift. His offensive aggression transitioned over into his defensive aggression. Offensively, he had a little pace going and it helped him pick up defensively. Him being our leader, we need that aggression and that intensity from him every night because that helps us play hard, get going and feed off of his energy."
On importance of getting his teammates the ball:
"It's very important to me as a player. I need my guys as much as they need me, if not a little bit more. We've got a young group. We have to keep those guys level headed and keep their confidence up. They could miss 10 shots in a row and I'd give it to them for the 11th one."
On fixing slow starts:
"I think that was a direction that we were all trying to go collectively. That was something we all talked about for the last couple of days, something we've talked about pregame, just coming out with a good start, not always playing from behind, coming out with more aggression and more energy than the opposing team, and I think we did a good job of that today."
UMBC Head Coach Randy Monroe
Overall thoughts on the game:
"I felt the first half we played good basketball. We did a good job of moving the basketball around and getting players to certain spots on the floor. I have to give St. John's credit for the second half. I don't think we were being as competitive as we needed to be. I thought we were playing to hold on. That was disappointing because I was hoping to see the same effort in the second half that we saw in the first half. I thought the first half we were competing and in the second half, our shots didn't go down and we started dropping our heads. But once again, you have to give the players at St. John's credit for the win."
