Postgame Quotes: Monmouth - St. John's University Athletics

Head Coach Rick Pitino

Opening statement:
“The first 10 minutes of the game was a devastating defensive performance. Then the rest of the game, not very good by us either, especially on defense and offensively we were stagnant. We stood around a lot and played as if we had Shaquille O’Neal on the low post instead of creating ball movement.”

On the basketball IQ of this roster…
“ I think there’s two players that really have a high basketball IQ. They understand the game offensively and defensive terminology and that’s Keyshawn [Hall] and Quinn [Ellis]. The rest of the guys are trying hard, but the basketball IQ is not great right now on both ends of the floor.”

On how great of a scorer Keyshawn Hall is…
“Keyshawn is a scorer and he gets it. You look at how he scored, getting the ball in the low post, getting an offensive rebound, moving, setting a screen. He gets it.”

On replacing last year’s team…
“I think sometimes replacing Zuby [Ejiofor] and last year’s team, there’s a lot of undue pressure. This is a team where you should be pressure free because we got so many good players. I think we have the makings of a really good team.”

Graduate Guard Keyshawn Hall

On his season goals at St. John’s…
“Me and [Coach Masiello] joke a lot about when I played y’all last year and how much you guys won and I didn’t win. So yeah, the main thing when going through recruitment was just winning, so I definitely want to be part of that this year and make a final four run.”

Senior Guard Quinn Ellis

On early struggles…
“I think we are really inconsistent right now. I think we have good spurts on both ends of the floor, but on offense we didn’t really move the ball and on defense we were not connected and not helping one another. I just worry about playing with consistent aggressiveness on both ends of the floor and getting the ball moving on the offensive end.”