St. John's University Athletics
POSTGAME QUOTES: St. John’s Men’s Basketball vs. Fordham
St. John’s Head Coach Rick Pitino, Joel Soriano and Sean Conway met with the media following the Red Storm’s 77-55 over Fordham on Saturday at Madison Square Garden
St. John’s Head Coach Rick Pitino
On the improved defensive effort …
“I think we spent a lot of time on it. I told the guys, if you are going to rely on your offense then you will finish dead last in the BIG EAST. We have to do something about our defense. [They’re] all capable of doing it and we worked really hard this week on it. We changed some things. From an offensive standpoint, we wanted to get Sean [Conway] in there because Sean moves without the basketball so well. We know [Fordham plays] about four or five different defenses and knew Sean would move. He also gets loose balls, he also gets on the glass, and we just needed more out of that position, and he gave it to us.”
On the decision to start Sean Conway…
“He obviously had a great game against Fordham last year, but I base who starts just on practice. I tell the guys, starting means very little to me, but I can’t look at your resume from the past and say this is who should start because that’s silly. I don’t know these guys and their pasts. I’m not going to base what someone did at Penn or at Harvard as what they are going to do at St. John’s and same thing with the Iona guys. He had two or three great days of practice, and he earned the right to start in this game.”
On the team's defense…
“I wanted to get better halfcourt. The press is fine. I mean it is a little crazy that the five-man could beat our press the last few games but that’s not going to happen very often. I thought tonight our rotations were very good. We got very aggressive on pick and rolls. We got very aggressive on rotations, and we were very good at cutting off the baseline on help. We did a lot of great things.”
On Wednesday’s matchup with Xavier…
“We’ll give everything we can in the BIG EAST. ... I’ve known [Head Coach Sean Miller] since he was nine years old. He’s one of the best coaches in the nation, bar none. … His dad was a terrific coach, his brother’s terrific, it’s a terrific family. We’re going to have to play great to beat them. Although our fans were great here, Carnesecca Arena is a tough place to play as I’m finding out.”
St. John’s center Joel Soriano
On playing against his former team…
“Today wasn’t about that. Today, I felt that we needed to take a big step on defense as a team. That was a big emphasis coming into this game. We wanted to work on the little things today, especially because we have a big game coming up against Xavier going into BIG EAST play. We wanted to take a big step as a team today.”
On defensive poise against Fordham…
“We knew that we were giving them a lot of cheap fouls. We were sending them to the line a lot. I felt like our half-court defense was good for the most part. We were very solid. We just have to stop fouling guys like that. We came into halftime saying we needed to keep our lead because we knew they were going to come out with more energy. The biggest thing was staying poised.”
On tonight's game…
“I think that we moved the ball well and they threw a lot of defensive schemes at us. I feel like we took care of the ball in the half-court, played together and looked for open guys.”
On the physicality of the game…
“We knew that they were going to come into the game being very physical. We just try to stay away from that. I told Chris [Ledlum] to just play the game and let the game do the talking. We know that there is going to be a lot of tension because these are two New York teams trying to prove something. I think we handled it very well.”
St. John’s guard Sean Conway
On starting at Madison Square Garden…
“It was definitely a special moment. Obviously, as a kid, you grow up dreaming about playing and having opportunities like today. I was happy we could go out and get a good team win, obviously taking a step in the right direction. We still have a lot of room to grow as a team and a unit, but I feel like today we took a good step heading into conference play.”
On the improved defensive effort …
“I think we spent a lot of time on it. I told the guys, if you are going to rely on your offense then you will finish dead last in the BIG EAST. We have to do something about our defense. [They’re] all capable of doing it and we worked really hard this week on it. We changed some things. From an offensive standpoint, we wanted to get Sean [Conway] in there because Sean moves without the basketball so well. We know [Fordham plays] about four or five different defenses and knew Sean would move. He also gets loose balls, he also gets on the glass, and we just needed more out of that position, and he gave it to us.”
On the decision to start Sean Conway…
“He obviously had a great game against Fordham last year, but I base who starts just on practice. I tell the guys, starting means very little to me, but I can’t look at your resume from the past and say this is who should start because that’s silly. I don’t know these guys and their pasts. I’m not going to base what someone did at Penn or at Harvard as what they are going to do at St. John’s and same thing with the Iona guys. He had two or three great days of practice, and he earned the right to start in this game.”
On the team's defense…
“I wanted to get better halfcourt. The press is fine. I mean it is a little crazy that the five-man could beat our press the last few games but that’s not going to happen very often. I thought tonight our rotations were very good. We got very aggressive on pick and rolls. We got very aggressive on rotations, and we were very good at cutting off the baseline on help. We did a lot of great things.”
On Wednesday’s matchup with Xavier…
“We’ll give everything we can in the BIG EAST. ... I’ve known [Head Coach Sean Miller] since he was nine years old. He’s one of the best coaches in the nation, bar none. … His dad was a terrific coach, his brother’s terrific, it’s a terrific family. We’re going to have to play great to beat them. Although our fans were great here, Carnesecca Arena is a tough place to play as I’m finding out.”
St. John’s center Joel Soriano
On playing against his former team…
“Today wasn’t about that. Today, I felt that we needed to take a big step on defense as a team. That was a big emphasis coming into this game. We wanted to work on the little things today, especially because we have a big game coming up against Xavier going into BIG EAST play. We wanted to take a big step as a team today.”
On defensive poise against Fordham…
“We knew that we were giving them a lot of cheap fouls. We were sending them to the line a lot. I felt like our half-court defense was good for the most part. We were very solid. We just have to stop fouling guys like that. We came into halftime saying we needed to keep our lead because we knew they were going to come out with more energy. The biggest thing was staying poised.”
On tonight's game…
“I think that we moved the ball well and they threw a lot of defensive schemes at us. I feel like we took care of the ball in the half-court, played together and looked for open guys.”
On the physicality of the game…
“We knew that they were going to come into the game being very physical. We just try to stay away from that. I told Chris [Ledlum] to just play the game and let the game do the talking. We know that there is going to be a lot of tension because these are two New York teams trying to prove something. I think we handled it very well.”
St. John’s guard Sean Conway
On starting at Madison Square Garden…
“It was definitely a special moment. Obviously, as a kid, you grow up dreaming about playing and having opportunities like today. I was happy we could go out and get a good team win, obviously taking a step in the right direction. We still have a lot of room to grow as a team and a unit, but I feel like today we took a good step heading into conference play.”