COURTESY OF ST. JOHN'S RED STORM ATHLETIC COMMUNICATIONS DEPARTMENT
St. John’s Head Coach Mike Anderson
On tonight’s game…
“I thought they played a better second half than we did. It was a tale of two halves for us. We didn’t shoot the ball well. I thought they did a good job getting their best players to start attacking and creating for themselves and other people. We had some guys get into foul trouble. ... But let’s credit [Arizona State]. It was one of those games where we got off to a good start. In the second half, we weren’t able to sustain it. I always say if there’s a half, a team you want to be, you want to be a second half team. So that’s something we will continue to work on and get better at.”
“The two things that continue to stand out with me is free throws and turnovers and we work extremely hard to take care of the basketball. … I just think we kind of sped ourselves up in making bad decisions, making 50-50 passes. We have to get this [game] out of our system and get ready for UMass.”
On what stood out with the second half performance…
“I thought in the first half we did some good things defensively. I thought we shared the basketball. In the second half, we came out and we made about four or five stops, but we didn’t take advantage of it. … When you score 20 points off turnovers that’s a big, big plus and that’s something we normally do. We didn’t do a good job of valuing the basketball.”
On the quick turnaround to tomorrow’s game against UMass…
“It’s going to be big. It’s a sign of growing up. I always want to see how our guys play with adversity. We had some adversity took place today and we didn’t fare well with it. Now, guess what? You’re in a tournament setting, you’ve got another game tomorrow against a very talented UMass team and so we know we have to come out and get this one out of our system. This game’s over. There’s nothing you can do it about it. It’s over. It’s a loss. It’s in the “L” column. So now we’ll see if we’ve got any maturity to get ready for UMass tomorrow.”
On Remy Martin’s strong second half after being slowed down in the first half…
“We let him loose. He’s a good player. You’re not going to hold a player down for 40 minutes. ... He’s a good basketball player and they did a good job of distributing for other people too. But our inability to take the assignments that we had in the scouting report to build that wall, we didn’t do a very good job, especially in that second half. A lot of times when you’re not scoring, your defense suffers and I thought, especially going down the stretch, the game’s still going back and forth but he just took over. He’s a very good basketball player.”
St. John’s Guard/Forward LJ Figueroa
On his role as a leader after a loss…
“We get a chance to play tomorrow. Get the bad taste out of our mouths. Being one of the vets on the team, just keeping the young guys together and just focusing on the next game. We can’t do anything about this game, but we can definitely make sure we handle our test [tomorrow].”
On Remy Martin’s strong second half after being slowed down in the first half…
“I think in the first half, we built brick walls. Everybody jumped to the help. He didn’t have any lanes to attack us. I think in the second half, he got into the paint a little bit more. That’s his game, driving to the basket and finding his teammates and I think he did a very good job in the second half of doing that.”