St. John's University Athletics
POSTGAME QUOTES: St. John’s Men’s Basketball vs. West Virginia
St. John’s Head Coach Rick Pitino, Nahiem Alleyne and Joel Soriano spoke with the media after the Red Storm’s 79-73 victory at West Virginia on Friday
St. John’s Head Coach Rick Pitino
Opening Statement …
“We were battling the elements of refereeing today. I don’t mean that in a negative way, they were doing a good job, but we never adjusted from our aggressive play and you have to adjust. Certain games are called certain ways, pro or college, and we never adjusted to the ways the referees were calling it and they were 31-for-43 [at the free-throw line]. What we did a great job on was executing against the zone. We felt they would play a zone because of the quickness we have on the perimeter, and they did. We battled all the elements of foul trouble and really this young man to my left [Nahiem Alleyne] gave us a big lift, making a big shot. I knew down the stretch we had to go to someone with a lot of experience and outside of the travel, he played a great game.”
On pulling away in a road game…
“I’ve been coaching for 40-something years and very rarely do you see a road game where you pull away like that. They played Virginia to the wire. … This is a tough place to play. We are coming away with a six-point victory and a great victory. We’re not going to pull away from too many people. That’s not going to happen with our team, especially with foul trouble. … I thought this was a great win, tremendous job of executing down the stretch. We didn’t shoot the three well in the beginning but made the big ones at the end. I’m real proud of our guys. For a change, we didn’t turn it over. We had six turnovers in the game.”
St. John’s guard Nahiem Alleyne
On his late 3-pointer in the second half…
“Coach has been saying to execute that play with pace. Jordan [Dingle] came off the screen from Glenn Taylor and he saw me in the corner. Coach always says, run the play with pace and you’re going to get a great look. I saw an opportunity to shoot it and it went down.”
On winning the first true road game of the year…
“All road wins are big ones for us, especially battling adversity we did with foul trouble today. I thought we did a good job of handling it and not getting too carried away. Keep playing defense and keep our composure and we are going to come out with a win.”
St John’s center Joel Soriano
On the mentality throughout the game…
“We knew, coming in here, it was going to be a grind. It’s a tough place to win. Give a lot of credit [to West Virginia]. They played hard, played their game plan. We knew it wasn’t going to easy. We knew it was going to be a war and was going to come down to who wanted it more, and at the end of the day, we wanted it more.”
On the importance of defense…
“It’s going to come down to our defense. If we want to win games and compete until March, it’s our defense because not every day your offense is going to show up. The defense is going to be the thing that stays solid is going to be your culture. I feel like we took another good step today in our defense. We still a lot more to do, but I think we took a good step forward today.”
Opening Statement …
“We were battling the elements of refereeing today. I don’t mean that in a negative way, they were doing a good job, but we never adjusted from our aggressive play and you have to adjust. Certain games are called certain ways, pro or college, and we never adjusted to the ways the referees were calling it and they were 31-for-43 [at the free-throw line]. What we did a great job on was executing against the zone. We felt they would play a zone because of the quickness we have on the perimeter, and they did. We battled all the elements of foul trouble and really this young man to my left [Nahiem Alleyne] gave us a big lift, making a big shot. I knew down the stretch we had to go to someone with a lot of experience and outside of the travel, he played a great game.”
On pulling away in a road game…
“I’ve been coaching for 40-something years and very rarely do you see a road game where you pull away like that. They played Virginia to the wire. … This is a tough place to play. We are coming away with a six-point victory and a great victory. We’re not going to pull away from too many people. That’s not going to happen with our team, especially with foul trouble. … I thought this was a great win, tremendous job of executing down the stretch. We didn’t shoot the three well in the beginning but made the big ones at the end. I’m real proud of our guys. For a change, we didn’t turn it over. We had six turnovers in the game.”
St. John’s guard Nahiem Alleyne
On his late 3-pointer in the second half…
“Coach has been saying to execute that play with pace. Jordan [Dingle] came off the screen from Glenn Taylor and he saw me in the corner. Coach always says, run the play with pace and you’re going to get a great look. I saw an opportunity to shoot it and it went down.”
On winning the first true road game of the year…
“All road wins are big ones for us, especially battling adversity we did with foul trouble today. I thought we did a good job of handling it and not getting too carried away. Keep playing defense and keep our composure and we are going to come out with a win.”
St John’s center Joel Soriano
On the mentality throughout the game…
“We knew, coming in here, it was going to be a grind. It’s a tough place to win. Give a lot of credit [to West Virginia]. They played hard, played their game plan. We knew it wasn’t going to easy. We knew it was going to be a war and was going to come down to who wanted it more, and at the end of the day, we wanted it more.”
On the importance of defense…
“It’s going to come down to our defense. If we want to win games and compete until March, it’s our defense because not every day your offense is going to show up. The defense is going to be the thing that stays solid is going to be your culture. I feel like we took another good step today in our defense. We still a lot more to do, but I think we took a good step forward today.”