St. John's University Athletics
POSTGAME QUOTES: St. John’s Men’s Basketball vs. Providence
St. John’s Head Coach Rick Pitino, Daniss Jenkins and Joel Soriano met with the media following the Red Storm’s 75-73 win versus Providence on Wednesday at Madison Square Garden
St. John’s Head Coach Rick Pitino
Opening Statement…
“I thought tonight was a great learning experience for our basketball team. I don’t think we could have played better in the first 18 minutes of the first half. I told them after the game, you have to understand why you could have potentially lost this game by taking the shots that you took. But you have to give credit where credit is due, [Devin] Carter, by himself, was tougher than our entire team. Thirty-one points, 13 rebounds from a guard, he was brilliant. … One of the better performances I’ve seen and we defended him fairly well in the first half. We took a lot of bad shots. It’s the first time we have taken a lot of challenged shots. … It was a great learning experience. … This was great for our team to understand if you rebound like that, if you take challenged shots like that and you allow a guard to rebound like that, you are going to lose a lot of close ones.”
On Providence Head Coach Kim English …
“I have to tell you, the guy who coached against me tonight is absolutely fabulous. His team plays like they haven’t eaten in a week. … This league is full of great coaches.”
On thoughts after winning tonight…
“I’m pissed off with my guys right now. It’s okay because you can get upset when you win and you learn a lot of lessons. I have very high aspirations for them, very high goals for them and I don’t want them to do the things they did tonight in terms of taking challenged shots and doing those things. They’re intelligent. [Joel Soriano] is the most lovable young man I have ever coached. … I’m trying to make him so much better than he is just by getting on him constantly. I want him to get 25 or 30 rebounds in games. Is that possible? I don’t know but I want him to try and do that because he is such an amazing young man, one of the finest I’ve ever met in my lifetime, and I want so much for him. He is one of the guys, either one, two or three, early in the season, who should be the best player in the league. I want him to be even better than that. I don’t want anyone to think about rebounding when he is in that area.”
On their first BIG EAST game inside Madison Square Garden…
“Carnesecca [Arena] is an amazing home-court advantage. I never knew that because I remember playing there and winning by one point, but I never remembered. …We want to mix it up. The Garden is where everyone dreams of playing. … I tear up every time the starting lineups happen because of my memories of Madison Square Garden, not only as the [New York] Knicks assistant, Knick head coach, winning two back-to-back BIG EAST titles, signing my scholarship papers to UMass on The Garden floor – to me, it’s a magical place. … It’s “The World’s Most Famous Arena” and we are excited to be here.”
St. John’s guard Daniss Jenkins
On raising his level of play against Providence …
“They had a lot of energy, they were getting loud. I told the guys to take deep breaths, but now we have to fight fire with fire. We can’t lie down, it’s our time to attack. That was my mindset. I just tried to get everyone on the court on the same page in that mindset.”
On winning without having your best performance…
“In a game like this, we came out in the first half. With the way the offense was going, it so easy in the second half to lose focus of what our gameplan is to win the game. I think that’s kind of what happened. We didn’t rebound like we were supposed to, we didn’t contain the ball like we were supposed to, but our offense was going great. As young players, it’s kind of hard to stay focused when our offense was going well. I didn’t really think we missed in the first half – so everybody is thinking score, score, score. We’re all trying to score, make the play, get the crowd into it. As a team, I think we just kind of lost focus. When I walked in the locker room I told the guys, ‘That was an ugly win at the end. Should have been way better, but that was a tough win.’ Tough wins like that make you a good team. We will learn from it. If we learn from this game, then we know we did the right things.”
St. John’s center Joel Soriano
On winning when it’s not your best performance…
“I feel like our guys responded when they made their run in the second half. [Daniss Jenkins] did a great job in riling us up. I know, me personally, I need to be better in a lot of aspects for our team to be great. I didn’t rebound well today. I took a dumb shot late in the game. I have to make my free throws. I just got to be better overall for our team to succeed like we want to. I’m just happy our guys came out and still fought at the end. RJ [Luis Jr.] made a lot of big plays tonight. Give credit to Daniss Jenkins for keeping us together. Now, we’re just going to get ready for Saturday.”
Opening Statement…
“I thought tonight was a great learning experience for our basketball team. I don’t think we could have played better in the first 18 minutes of the first half. I told them after the game, you have to understand why you could have potentially lost this game by taking the shots that you took. But you have to give credit where credit is due, [Devin] Carter, by himself, was tougher than our entire team. Thirty-one points, 13 rebounds from a guard, he was brilliant. … One of the better performances I’ve seen and we defended him fairly well in the first half. We took a lot of bad shots. It’s the first time we have taken a lot of challenged shots. … It was a great learning experience. … This was great for our team to understand if you rebound like that, if you take challenged shots like that and you allow a guard to rebound like that, you are going to lose a lot of close ones.”
On Providence Head Coach Kim English …
“I have to tell you, the guy who coached against me tonight is absolutely fabulous. His team plays like they haven’t eaten in a week. … This league is full of great coaches.”
On thoughts after winning tonight…
“I’m pissed off with my guys right now. It’s okay because you can get upset when you win and you learn a lot of lessons. I have very high aspirations for them, very high goals for them and I don’t want them to do the things they did tonight in terms of taking challenged shots and doing those things. They’re intelligent. [Joel Soriano] is the most lovable young man I have ever coached. … I’m trying to make him so much better than he is just by getting on him constantly. I want him to get 25 or 30 rebounds in games. Is that possible? I don’t know but I want him to try and do that because he is such an amazing young man, one of the finest I’ve ever met in my lifetime, and I want so much for him. He is one of the guys, either one, two or three, early in the season, who should be the best player in the league. I want him to be even better than that. I don’t want anyone to think about rebounding when he is in that area.”
On their first BIG EAST game inside Madison Square Garden…
“Carnesecca [Arena] is an amazing home-court advantage. I never knew that because I remember playing there and winning by one point, but I never remembered. …We want to mix it up. The Garden is where everyone dreams of playing. … I tear up every time the starting lineups happen because of my memories of Madison Square Garden, not only as the [New York] Knicks assistant, Knick head coach, winning two back-to-back BIG EAST titles, signing my scholarship papers to UMass on The Garden floor – to me, it’s a magical place. … It’s “The World’s Most Famous Arena” and we are excited to be here.”
St. John’s guard Daniss Jenkins
On raising his level of play against Providence …
“They had a lot of energy, they were getting loud. I told the guys to take deep breaths, but now we have to fight fire with fire. We can’t lie down, it’s our time to attack. That was my mindset. I just tried to get everyone on the court on the same page in that mindset.”
On winning without having your best performance…
“In a game like this, we came out in the first half. With the way the offense was going, it so easy in the second half to lose focus of what our gameplan is to win the game. I think that’s kind of what happened. We didn’t rebound like we were supposed to, we didn’t contain the ball like we were supposed to, but our offense was going great. As young players, it’s kind of hard to stay focused when our offense was going well. I didn’t really think we missed in the first half – so everybody is thinking score, score, score. We’re all trying to score, make the play, get the crowd into it. As a team, I think we just kind of lost focus. When I walked in the locker room I told the guys, ‘That was an ugly win at the end. Should have been way better, but that was a tough win.’ Tough wins like that make you a good team. We will learn from it. If we learn from this game, then we know we did the right things.”
St. John’s center Joel Soriano
On winning when it’s not your best performance…
“I feel like our guys responded when they made their run in the second half. [Daniss Jenkins] did a great job in riling us up. I know, me personally, I need to be better in a lot of aspects for our team to be great. I didn’t rebound well today. I took a dumb shot late in the game. I have to make my free throws. I just got to be better overall for our team to succeed like we want to. I’m just happy our guys came out and still fought at the end. RJ [Luis Jr.] made a lot of big plays tonight. Give credit to Daniss Jenkins for keeping us together. Now, we’re just going to get ready for Saturday.”