St. John's University Athletics
Postgame Quotes: St. John's 69, USF 54
2/20/2013 12:00:00 AM | Men's Basketball
Feb. 20, 2013
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Head Coach Steve Lavin
Opening Statement
"There were a number of positives, but the biggest one at this time of the season is just to win. There are a number of areas where we want to improve, and we have to continue to elevate our play as we getter deeper into the season. From an individual perspective, having four players in double-figures has always been an indication that we're playing well offensively. The 19 assists against eight turnovers was evidence that we were moving and sharing the ball rather than dribbling into crowds. There are some real positives, but we're going to have to play a much higher level if we want to beat the teams that we're facing the rest of the way."
On Sir'Dominic Pointer's play:
"Sir'Dominic [Pointer] returned to form tonight, when we won six out of seven he was playing his best basketball of the season, and again we get back into the win column with him playing a complete game. It's that Costco kind of performance, from every aisle he seems to pick something out and really excel."
On JaKarr Sampson's 20-point effort:
"He played a really solid game and didn't rush things. He learned from the Syracuse and Louisville games that if he slows down just a fraction of a second he sees things with more clarity."
On getting on the team in the second half:
"There was a stretch in the second half where we lost the concentration level that we need to have to put good teams away. We recaptured our focus and salted the victory away which was a positive. We are stepping in class now when we begin to play our upcoming schedule. We can't have those lapses because that's when teams will go on runs against us. I understand teams are going to make runs, I just wasn't with our closeouts and a couple of rebounds where we didn't put a body on someone. There are times definitely where you have to turn up the heat. It's my job as a coach to present the appropriate sense of urgency for what's at stake."
Sophomore guard D'Angelo Harrison
On what head coach Steve Lavin said to the team after their 69-54 win over USF:
"Coach had a great pep talk with us after the game. He expects a lot from us so he told us to clean up the stuff that we did wrong and just go on from there."
On the team's maturation:
"Coach Lavin always says that we don't know how great we can be. We wished we could have kept a big lead but South Florida has a great team and a great coach, they fought back."
On Marc-Antoine Bourgault's second half dunk:
"I give him a ten. We always joke around about who can jump higher, me or him. I haven't dunked yet so right now he's winning."
Freshman forward JaKarr Sampson
On the win against the Bulls:
"I feel like we we're growing, maturing and we're learning how to close games. We're getting better at knocking down free throws when we need to at the end of the game and being smart with the ball and less turnovers."
On the team's maturation:
"Now that it's the end of the season Coach Lavin expects a lot more out of us. He expects us not to make the rookie mistakes."
USF Head Coach Stan Heath
Overall thoughts on tonight's game:
"Tonight wasn't our night. We couldn't hit anything offensively. We were just shooting a lot of jump-shots and just dug ourselves a hole. I thought some of the guys we brought into the game changed momentum quite a bit. Whether it was Martino Brock, who made some plays. Mike McCloskey gave us a huge lift as well. I think those things helped trigger Victor Rudd to get going, which was huge for us. And later on Poland got going as well. We just couldn't put together the 40 minutes. We certainly played a lot better in the second half and showed a lot of fight in the last 10 minutes of the game."
On preparing to play St. John's:
"We knew they were going to zone. We knew Harrison is a key guy scoring the ball and Sampson is so active. We prepared against their zone and their personnel. The biggest thing we wanted to do was guard Harrison and keep the rest of the guys out of the paint."
