COURTESY OF ST. JOHN’S ATHLETIC COMMUNICATIONS DEPARTMENT
St. John’s Head Coach Mike Anderson
On facing Creighton on Saturday in Omaha…
“Life in the BIG EAST. We get a chance to go play on the road and play a Creighton team that’s been playing real well. They had a big win at Villanova. They had a tough one at Providence last night, but they’ve been really good at home. Greg McDermott obviously does a great job. [Creighton] is a team that shoots the ball well. One of the better three-point shooting teams in the country, so we have our work cut out for us in terms of trying to find those guys on the perimeter and at the same time keeping them away from attacking and getting easy opportunities. Creighton is a great team that is playing with a lot of confidence right now. And of course we’ve been in a lot of close games, so we have to be able to get over the hump in terms of winning games.
“Against Georgetown, we had a pretty good size lead and I thought in the second half we kind of started playing not to lose. That’s not one of the characteristics of my teams. We talked about finishing and that’s what we’re looking forward to doing.”
On getting ready for Creighton’s unique offensive style…
“They play so much better at home. When you can shoot the basketball, you can spread the floor. Then it sets you up for guys to attack the basket. That’s one of the things that at times we’ve been good, at times we haven’t been good, so we have to pay attention to that. They’re a good passing team. That’s one of the things that really gets lost. … I think [Marcus] Zegarowski does a great job, one of the better guards in our league, in terms of making sure that kids like [Ty-Shon] Alexander and [Mitch] Ballock are getting the right shots. I think the [Denzel] Mahoney kid is an X-factor. He and [Damien] Jefferson are X-factors for that team.”
