St. John's University Athletics
POSTGAME QUOTES: ST. JOHN’S VS. STONY BROOK
St. John’s Head Coach Rick Pitino, senior center Joel Soriano and graduate forward Chris Ledlum spoke with the media after a 90-74 victory over Stony Brook
St. John’s Head Coach Rick Pitino
Opening statement…
“ Obviously for 90 percent of the game, I was extremely pleased. We had three things we wanted to accomplish because this team beat Fairfield by 40, Manhattan by 25 and the major weapon was the 3-point line. We wanted to stop the three, outrebound them and not turn the ball over. Fifteen [turnovers] was a lot, but Daniss [Jenkins] had six by himself because he had to do a little bit too much. I’m extremely pleased with our first-half defense. Obviously, I’m very happy for Joel [Soriano] and Chris Ledlum, both guys played great. Unfortunately, we’re coaching on the fly. We are trying to teach them habits. They are learning when they are going down the court and that’s not a good thing. Over time, they’ll have the habits and it will be a lot easier on them when they don’t have the think and play as much.
On team’s scouting…
“I thought that [assistant coach] Bob Walsh, who was our scouter, did a fabulous job teaching them the principles of [Stony Brook’s] offense. I don’t think I lost a game at Iona when Bob scouted. He has a great way of teaching the players what they do and where their shots are going to occur. Kudos to Bob, he did a great job scouting them.”
On Joel Soriano…
“When you lose 30 pounds, 35 pounds and you go from 14 and change to nine percent body fat, you want to get the rewards for putting in that type of work and he certainly did tonight. 9-for-12, 2-for-2 from three, 2-for-2 from the line, 11 rebounds, two assists and zero turnovers. Quite the special night. He’s thin, he’s happy and I would like to get him down to eight percent so he can just fade away for life.”
On key points of tonight’s game…
“First-half defense and the fact that we took away the three. Look I am a big believer, as most of you know, in the three-point shot, but I have never gotten credit for the other aspect of it. I have gotten too much credit for being one of the original guys, but it’s only good if you stop it. If you make nine and they make eight, it’s not a weapon. Tonight, they made four and we made 11. It’s a weapon. Only when you stop it, it is a weapon. I thought we were very happy with the first-half defense with them shooting 36 percent and 1-for-11 from three.”
On what his realistic expectations were for the team tonight...
“We thought from the film it was going to be a war today because they have a lot of older players, they shoot it well, they have a lot of good one-on-one players and they have great size. We just wanted to come away with a victory.
On the team chemistry shown in tonight’s game...
“ I think they’re learning each other, they’re learning me, I’m learning them. We have a lot of fun together. Somebody said I was tough to play for and without question I was, but I’m very easy to play for now. I want to be more passionate than I have ever been at my age, I also want to have more fun than I have ever had and I am having a blast with these guys. We laugh a lot in practice, we play hard but we laugh a lot. I think sometimes in my early years laughter wasn’t something Antoine Walker would describe, or Jeff Sheppard, or Mark Pope, or Russ Smith, or Peyton Siva. We laughed and had fun with the wins but we laugh a lot now and I think with today’s young people, laughter is a very important medicine to have on a basketball team and these guys have a great time in practice.”
On the emotions after tonight...
“You know it’s funny when I was walking out, two things came to my mind immediately. One was Lou [Carnessecca]… I don’t know if he was there or not, but I was thinking of Lou because he’s the reason that this place is special and it’s such an honor to take over for him. The second thing was Michigan. I asked Steve [Masiello] how Michigan did and he said blew [UNC Asheville] out. We know how every game is so important. We think we will be a pretty good team in January, but we have to get to that point without taking too many bumps.”
St. John’s center Joel Soriano
On bouncing back after the exhibition loss to Pace…
“Gotta give credit to Pace because they definitely played harder than us that day. We watched film, we watched what we didn’t do. We talked about what teams could exploit from us after watching the two exhibition games that we had. For the week and a half [between games], we just worked at it. We knew Stony Brook was going to come in and would give us a fight, so we have to give credit to a well-coached team. We just tried to bounce back and play our brand of basketball.”
On the energy of the team…
“I think we had great energy going into the game. We practiced a lot and worked hard on going through our opponent's schemes. I think we were very well prepared. We have to give credit to our coaches. I was very excited. The gym was packed today and I felt the energy from the fans. It was a great showing. I think we tried to show out for our fans today, so give a lot of credit to them.”
On playing for Coach Pitino in a regular season game…
“To be honest with you, during the exhibition games, he wasn’t as intense as he was today. Tonight, he was on the guys for pretty much every little thing we did wrong. I would say his intensity level is pretty much what brought us a lot of energy. We saw him getting fired up and it fired us up. I loved the way he coached us today.”
On playing in front of a sold out crowd…
“I mean the crowd is our sixth man. They bring us so much energy after a steal, a blocked shot or a dunk. It just makes us go harder so without them we wouldn’t play as hard as we are playing. Shout out to our fans.”
St. John’s forward Chris Ledlum
On playing a regular season game for St. John’s…
“It was amazing. We worked hard all summer for this season to start. It just means a lot that we were able to go out there, play together and play the right brand of basketball.”
On the excitement of the game…
“We have been looking forward to [this game]. One thing is you can never really picture how it's going to go, but it was exciting and it was fun to take it all in. We went out there and did what we were supposed to do.”
On what the team demonstrated during the game…
“If there's one thing that I think we showed, it was that we are going to go out there and play hard every night. We weren’t perfect by any means, but we are just going to keep building on that and get better every game.”
Opening statement…
“ Obviously for 90 percent of the game, I was extremely pleased. We had three things we wanted to accomplish because this team beat Fairfield by 40, Manhattan by 25 and the major weapon was the 3-point line. We wanted to stop the three, outrebound them and not turn the ball over. Fifteen [turnovers] was a lot, but Daniss [Jenkins] had six by himself because he had to do a little bit too much. I’m extremely pleased with our first-half defense. Obviously, I’m very happy for Joel [Soriano] and Chris Ledlum, both guys played great. Unfortunately, we’re coaching on the fly. We are trying to teach them habits. They are learning when they are going down the court and that’s not a good thing. Over time, they’ll have the habits and it will be a lot easier on them when they don’t have the think and play as much.
On team’s scouting…
“I thought that [assistant coach] Bob Walsh, who was our scouter, did a fabulous job teaching them the principles of [Stony Brook’s] offense. I don’t think I lost a game at Iona when Bob scouted. He has a great way of teaching the players what they do and where their shots are going to occur. Kudos to Bob, he did a great job scouting them.”
On Joel Soriano…
“When you lose 30 pounds, 35 pounds and you go from 14 and change to nine percent body fat, you want to get the rewards for putting in that type of work and he certainly did tonight. 9-for-12, 2-for-2 from three, 2-for-2 from the line, 11 rebounds, two assists and zero turnovers. Quite the special night. He’s thin, he’s happy and I would like to get him down to eight percent so he can just fade away for life.”
On key points of tonight’s game…
“First-half defense and the fact that we took away the three. Look I am a big believer, as most of you know, in the three-point shot, but I have never gotten credit for the other aspect of it. I have gotten too much credit for being one of the original guys, but it’s only good if you stop it. If you make nine and they make eight, it’s not a weapon. Tonight, they made four and we made 11. It’s a weapon. Only when you stop it, it is a weapon. I thought we were very happy with the first-half defense with them shooting 36 percent and 1-for-11 from three.”
On what his realistic expectations were for the team tonight...
“We thought from the film it was going to be a war today because they have a lot of older players, they shoot it well, they have a lot of good one-on-one players and they have great size. We just wanted to come away with a victory.
On the team chemistry shown in tonight’s game...
“ I think they’re learning each other, they’re learning me, I’m learning them. We have a lot of fun together. Somebody said I was tough to play for and without question I was, but I’m very easy to play for now. I want to be more passionate than I have ever been at my age, I also want to have more fun than I have ever had and I am having a blast with these guys. We laugh a lot in practice, we play hard but we laugh a lot. I think sometimes in my early years laughter wasn’t something Antoine Walker would describe, or Jeff Sheppard, or Mark Pope, or Russ Smith, or Peyton Siva. We laughed and had fun with the wins but we laugh a lot now and I think with today’s young people, laughter is a very important medicine to have on a basketball team and these guys have a great time in practice.”
On the emotions after tonight...
“You know it’s funny when I was walking out, two things came to my mind immediately. One was Lou [Carnessecca]… I don’t know if he was there or not, but I was thinking of Lou because he’s the reason that this place is special and it’s such an honor to take over for him. The second thing was Michigan. I asked Steve [Masiello] how Michigan did and he said blew [UNC Asheville] out. We know how every game is so important. We think we will be a pretty good team in January, but we have to get to that point without taking too many bumps.”
St. John’s center Joel Soriano
On bouncing back after the exhibition loss to Pace…
“Gotta give credit to Pace because they definitely played harder than us that day. We watched film, we watched what we didn’t do. We talked about what teams could exploit from us after watching the two exhibition games that we had. For the week and a half [between games], we just worked at it. We knew Stony Brook was going to come in and would give us a fight, so we have to give credit to a well-coached team. We just tried to bounce back and play our brand of basketball.”
On the energy of the team…
“I think we had great energy going into the game. We practiced a lot and worked hard on going through our opponent's schemes. I think we were very well prepared. We have to give credit to our coaches. I was very excited. The gym was packed today and I felt the energy from the fans. It was a great showing. I think we tried to show out for our fans today, so give a lot of credit to them.”
On playing for Coach Pitino in a regular season game…
“To be honest with you, during the exhibition games, he wasn’t as intense as he was today. Tonight, he was on the guys for pretty much every little thing we did wrong. I would say his intensity level is pretty much what brought us a lot of energy. We saw him getting fired up and it fired us up. I loved the way he coached us today.”
On playing in front of a sold out crowd…
“I mean the crowd is our sixth man. They bring us so much energy after a steal, a blocked shot or a dunk. It just makes us go harder so without them we wouldn’t play as hard as we are playing. Shout out to our fans.”
St. John’s forward Chris Ledlum
On playing a regular season game for St. John’s…
“It was amazing. We worked hard all summer for this season to start. It just means a lot that we were able to go out there, play together and play the right brand of basketball.”
On the excitement of the game…
“We have been looking forward to [this game]. One thing is you can never really picture how it's going to go, but it was exciting and it was fun to take it all in. We went out there and did what we were supposed to do.”
On what the team demonstrated during the game…
“If there's one thing that I think we showed, it was that we are going to go out there and play hard every night. We weren’t perfect by any means, but we are just going to keep building on that and get better every game.”