St. John's University Athletics
POSTGAME QUOTES: St. John's vs. Incarnate Word
12/18/2015 12:00:00 AM | Men's Basketball
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St. John's Head Coach Chris Mullin...
On Incarnate Word:
"First and foremost, I give all the credit to Incarnate Word for dictating tempo. They shot the three ball great. They got 11 more shots than us so let's give them credit."
On the team coming out slow:
"Yes, I did think we were slow on offense and defense. It seemed like a struggle."
On the Syracuse game carrying over to this game:
"I can't really get into [the players'] minds. After the [Syracuse] game we went back to practice as usual and emphasized our fundamentals. We kept everything the same and didn't make a real big deal about [beating Syracuse]."
On struggling on the defensive end:
"When you give a team confidence that's what happens. I thought our initial posture and energy was not there [tonight]. They pretty much took advantage from the start and held it all game."
On attacking the paint:
"We really tried to establish ourselves inside. Probably our best attack has been [Yankuba] Sima or Christian [Jones]. We tried to place the ball in the post to sink the defense. Even when we got the ball [inside] we were careless with the ball."
Graduate Student Guard/Forward Durand Johnson...
On the possibility of over-confidence playing a role in the loss:
It wasn't overconfidence. We went out and played a team that wanted it more than us. They beat us at every asset of the game. All we have to do now is move on to the next game. We come back Sunday and are looking for a win."
On this being a chance to refocus:
"This definitely makes us want to refocus. This is college basketball; you play against great athletes every night. We need to lock in starting tomorrow in practice."
Freshman Center Yankuba Sima...
On bouncing back from the loss:
"Of course it's a disappointing loss, especially coming off a big win over Syracuse last week. But the game is over and now we have another game on Sunday. We need to remain focused and come in here 100 percent ready to win.
Incarnate Word Head Coach Ken Burmeister...
On beating St. John's:
"This was a nice win for our program. Last year we beat Nebraska, that's a Big Ten conference victory we can be proud of and then to come in and beat a BIG EAST team, that's great for our program. For us, every win is important. Derail Green, our post, finally came alive and it was his best performance of the year. I think St. John's beating Syracuse helped us, because that's a great win for St. John's. When you have a young team like St. John's does, and you beat a program like Syracuse, it's hard to come back. It's the nature of a student-athlete today and the basketball player."
On the confidence from beating Nebraska last year:
"We had pro player last year in Denzel Livingston so we were pretty much guaranteed 20 points from him, which helped in that game. But the big win was beating Princeton on the road. Not many teams go to Princeton. You could take all the top heavyweights and they aren't going into Princeton. We went in there and beat them on their home court which was a good judgment point for our program."
On the getting 44 points from Derail Green and Jontrell Walker:
"You have to get points from your front line guys. Kyle Hittle has also been really solid for us, getting double digits in points and grabbing tough rebounds. In all programs guards have taken over and if you don't have a scoring point guard it's very tough to win. The bonus is you need to get points from your post as well. Green, Walker and Hittle played very well tonight."
