St. John's University Athletics
Pregame Quotes: St. John's at DePaul
1/17/2013 12:00:00 AM | Men's Basketball
Jan. 17, 2013
Head Coach Steve Lavin
On the change in defensive philosophy:
"The common thread, with Cincinnati, for 40 minutes we were very aggressive with our ball pressure. We pressured out of our matchup zone for 40 minutes against Cincinnati and we pressured out of our man-to-man against Notre Dame. The consistency is that we were plus six on the boards while smothering the three-point line on the road with our matchup zone against Cincinnati. Against Notre Dame we smothered the three-point line and were plus four on the boards with our man-to-tom. Whether we're in our matchup zone or man-to-man we have to have good ball pressure and we have to finish the possession with the defensive rebound."
On Christian Jones' playing time:
"He had two really practices in a row on Sunday night and then again on Monday, and then he matched up really well on the interior with his physicality. He went through a stretch with a couple of personal tragedies, so that was a difficult period for him. All freshman are inevitably going to hit the wall and you don't know when it's going to come. It can be homesickness, or the sheer workload at the college level and you hope that they get their second wind. I think Christian hit the wall for a number of reasons and we're hoping that he's gotten to the other side of that and can really help our cause."
On going with the three-guard starting lineup in the future:
"I'm not sure yet, but I have to look at it long-term of how do we build the program and then for the short-term on how we get a few wins. The real challenge is to strike that balance between building the program but developing our personnel by getting them enough minutes and experience so that they'll be better not only late in the year, but next year and the year after."
Sophomore guard/forward Sir'Dominic Pointer
On being the energy guy for the Red Storm:
"I take pride in my role. My whole life I've been an energy guy. I like to make the hustle plays. I try my hardest not get to scored on and keep the energy for our team. I try to play as hard as I can every game."
On what the team learned from the game against Notre Dame:
"We know we have to come out and play every game. The games that we lost we fell down early or we just didn't come fully prepared to play as a team. Maybe we had one or two guys playing well, but we didn't have all ten ready to play. The games we did win; we had all ten playing well."
Freshman forward Christian Jones
On seeing his first BIG EAST action against Notre Dame:
"It was nice to be on the Garden floor. I hadn't been on it for awhile. I had good practices the two days prior. Coach mentioned that I was going to play a little bit but nothing was guaranteed. After my practices though, I had a feeling I'd be back in the rotation."
