St. John's University Athletics
POSTGAME QUOTES: St. John's vs. Villanova
1/31/2016 12:00:00 AM | Men's Basketball
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St. John's Head Coach Chris Mullin...
On his thoughts about the game:
"I thought our defensive effort was really good, especially in the half court. We made it tough for them, but we didn't capitalize. We had a hard time putting the ball in the basket. The rebounds hurt us a lot and they were a big factor. Rebounds, turnovers and free throws were pretty much the game."
On bouncing back:
"We'll watch [the video], get rid of it and then have practice. [We will] do a lot of skill work. That's really all you can do. One way to get better is to keep working at it."
On shot selection:
"I thought we shared the ball pretty well. We had 14 assists. [Our players] have the green light, if they're open they can shoot the ball. It's up to them to make those decisions. Our guys are young and they're still learning when to shoot and when to pass."
On the team's demeanor:
"Right after the game, yeah, everyone's down. Tomorrow we'll look at this game, try to correct some things and move on to Xavier. That approach hasn't varied. Learning the process is tough, but when you take it day by day it's doable. We're looking forward."
On handling the recent struggles:
"I understand the process of being successful and building. I want to win every single game, but I also know if you want to win you have to pay the price. It's not a short term fix and it's not supposed to be easy. When this thing turns around it will be much sweeter. And it will, I know it will.
Graduate Student Guard/Forward Ron Mvouika...
On the team's effort:
"Villanova is a great team, so you have to give them credit. We had a run of empty possessions for eight minutes where we kept giving the ball away. A team like Villanova will make us pay for that. I thought we played great defense, but we had that lapse that cost us."
On the mindset of the team:
"We knew from the beginning it was going to be difficult. But we are fighters. We can get knocked down 20 times; we are still going to get up the 21st time. We won't let that loss take us down. As a fifth-year senior, I can tell you I'm going to make sure the rest of the guys are ready to go. It's all about staying together, having positive energy and keeping faith. We are going to break through. When we lock in and play great together, we can play against anybody. We just have to find a way to finish games and close out games. We can't play for only 30 minutes or 25 minutes, we have to play for 40. Those eight minutes today killed us. It's a learning process and we will break through at some point."
Red Shirt Junior Forward Christian Jones...
On thoughts going into halftime:
"We knew that we played well in the first half. But it's all about being consistent and bringing that into the second half. That's what we needed to carry over into the second half."
On the losing streak:
"It's tough, but everybody goes through adversity. Our team is going through that and needs to find a way to break through it."
On the positives from this game:
"I think if we continue to bring that effort we will break through and get our win."
Villanova Head Coach Jay Wright...
On the play of St. John's tonight:
"Not the prettiest game, but [the St. John's players] play really hard for [Chris Mullin], they really do. There's a lot of [teams] that come in here and have gotten leads and [St. John's] keeps coming and coming and they never quit. That's credit to the job that Chris is doing."
On Chris Mullin's first year:
"I just talked to Chris about it, but I'm amazed at how he is handling this. I don't know if there's any team in the country where a coach has come in with only two or three guys returning to the team and you have guys you recruited late. I don't know if there's a Division I team in this situation. His ability to get them to play hard every night and never quit is amazing. It's really difficult to do with young people and he's done a great job and kept a great perspective. I think it shows everybody that players are going to want to come to St. John's and these guys are going to be good. If you can handle this, you can handle anything. He's a Hall of Famer, and he's sitting out there and you can see there is no ego, he's sticking with his kids, his kids stick together and never quit and they play hard for him. It's really impressive from the point of view as a coach and all of the [BIG EAST coaches] are looking at it that way."
