St. John's University Athletics
Postgame Quotes: St. John's 69, Georgia Tech 58
11/30/2013 12:00:00 AM | Men's Basketball
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Nov. 30, 2013
Head Coach Steve Lavin
Opening Statement:
"I thought the kids played with purpose at the end of the first half and throughout the second half. We played as a cohesive bunch and I think these last two games were good for us. Sometimes you don't play well and win, and sometimes you play great and lose. It seems counter-intuitive, somewhat like life. I think in both of these games, the loss and the win, our team grew up a bit."
"The strength of this team is it's versatility. It's the deepest team that I've coached, so we're going to be a team that utilizes its depth."
"We'll be a multiple-defense team because of the size, quickness, depth and overall flexibility to play different ways. This will be a multiple-defense team all year long."
"If there is one word to describe our team today, it would be 'aggression.' I think it was a bounce-back win for our team and there was an aggression on display at both ends of the floor. We were a very aggressive outfit that came with a mindset get a win."
Junior Guard D'Angelo Harrison:
On pressuring the ball:
"We know that we can pressure the ball because we have Chris (Obekpa). We rely on him a little too much, but he's always going to do his thing. You know you can press them when you have a guy in the back that can block shots like JaKarr (Sampson) and Orlando (Sanchez). It helps the guards pressure the ball more."
On the defensive improvement:
"We finished the game on a 33-12 run, so that shows how versatile we can be on defense. We just have to do that for the whole game. Today we probably did that for 15 minutes, and that is when we went on a run. If we try to do that for a full 40 minutes, it'll help our team to generate more offense."
Senior Forward JaKarr Sampson
On his offensive progression:
"That's for any scorer who is struggling. The first shot is always big and always helps to get you going. Once you see one go in, it seems like every shot is going in. It's always the first shot that is the hardest. I like seeing the ball going in to the hoop; it brings a lot of energy."
On Max Hooper's starting:
"It was great for me. I'm really excited for him. He had a coming out party last game with 15 points on all 3s. It feels good to see him (do well) because he's had to wait so long. I've been with him at Brewster and then he went to Harvard and didn't get much playing time there. He loves the game of basketball more than anyone I know. It was really big to see him in the starting lineup and with what he did last night I'm really proud of him."
