St. John's University Athletics
PREGAME QUOTES: St. John's vs. Georgetown
3/7/2017 12:00:00 AM | Men's Basketball
St. John’s Head Coach Chris Mullin…
On playing in the BIG EAST Tournament: “That’s why we practice and that’s why we put the time in. I feel good with our daily work habits. When you do that you just try and peak for the games. That’s hopefully what we’ll do. Excluding the last game, we’ve played pretty well at the Garden. As far as the significance [of winning a BIG EAST Tournament game], yeah that’ll be great, but we have to go out and do it.”
On the importance of winning a BIG EAST Tournament game:
“That’s what we’re gearing towards. The opportunity is right there and we have to go seize it. That’s what I want from [our team], but you have to go get it. Having a good practice today, having a good shoot around, feeling good before, that’s all good, but you have to go perform. That’s the great part about it.”
On when the team has played well:
“The night’s we played well, defensively we showed some resistance and were tough and physical as much as we can with our ability and offensively, we were unselfish. When we play like that, we play pretty well. If we do that we’ll do just fine.”
On why the team starts slow:
“It’s a 40 minute game and you have to maintain [your play the entire game]. We’ve used different lineups more so than try to anticipate who’s going to get us off to a great start. [We try] to find good matchups and a good spurt coming off the bench.”
On the big stage affecting the freshman guards:
“I don’t really think the different venues bother them. They’ve played more minutes than most juniors and seniors in the country.”
Redshirt Sophomore Forward Tariq Owens…
On the importance of tomorrow’s game:
“Tomorrow is important because it’s been a little while since we’ve won a BIG EAST tournament game. It’s going to be a good matchup. We played them tough when they came here and got a win but when you play a team for a third time, it’s going to be tough. For our program it’s important for us to get this win. We want to advance in the BIG EAST Tournament and it would be great for the fans and the program to get a win.”
On going 1-4 in the last five games:
“Last game we had a slow start. We’ve been coming out sluggish in the last couple of games. That’s something we have to make adjustments as a team. It’s a long season and we have a young team. It takes time. The season is winding down. We have to fight to the finish because we had preseason hopes and we can live on tomorrow and take it to the next game and see how that goes. We have to bring more energy when we come out.”
Sophomore Guard Federico Mussini…
On last year’s tournament:
“We battled in that game. We didn’t start well but at halftime we came back and were up at one point. I’m sad that we didn’t win but we have another opportunity this year.”
On the difference playing in the BIG EAST Tournament:
“The atmosphere was different. Everybody plays really tough in the tournament. It’s the best part of the year.”
On the team’s preparation:
“We practiced really tough and want to get rewarded for that with a win. We have to keep doing what we’ve been doing and getting ready for 40 minutes. We have to limit our mistakes, especially the ones that can be avoided.”
