COURTESY OF ST. JOHN’S ATHLETIC COMMUNICATIONS DEPARTMENT
St. John’s Head Coach Mike Anderson
On Vermont…
“Give credit to Vermont. I thought they played outstanding. I thought they made all the big plays going down the stretch so congratulations to them. With a guy like [Anthony] Lamb with 10 seconds to go, he’s capable of making a big play and that’s what players do.”
On his team’s performance…
“I thought our guys gave their effort. I thought we shot ourselves in the foot between the free throw line and turning the basketball over. You can’t do that. If you look at it, we missed 12 free throws and we had the guys who we want on the free throw line. We turned the ball over 10 times in the second half and we lose by two. These are some errors that we have to clean up. I thought the game was played at their pace.
“We have to come out and we have to get better. We have to take care of the basketball and we obviously have to take care of our home court. We didn’t get the job done and that falls on me.”
On the performance from his bench…
“Marcellus [Earlington] continued to give us a big lift off the bench. David [Caraher], for the limit minutes he played, I thought he gave us some good energy. Rasheem [Dunn], it was his first game, but you can see that he brings another element. Now we have to get the other guys to all get on the same page. Again, it was a hard fought game. It wasn’t a classic, but at the end of the day, there’s a winner and a loser and we came on the wrong side today.”
On Rasheem Dunn…
“He brings readiness to the game for us. He’s a guy that can create for us. To play for a new coach, new style, his first game, he came out and gave us everything.”
On making adjustments…
“We’ll use this as a learning experience for this team. I always say, each game is going to be a test for this basketball team, because you have so many different parts and we just added another part [in Rasheem Dunn]. They’ve got to learn how to go out and function as a team and find a way to win.”
St. John’s Guard/Forward LJ Figueroa
On what went wrong the second half…
“We weren’t taking care of the ball. We weren’t executing. They played well, they stayed poised. You could tell they were experienced playing together. They have great players, a great coach. We just tried to stay poised, but it didn’t end up in our favor tonight.”
On how this game will help the team moving forward…
“It’s definitely going to help us moving forward. First loss we had all year with Coach Anderson, so it’s definitely going to help us. It’s only going to get us better. We believe we’re a stronger team. We have great chemistry. It was a tough loss tonight, but we’re going to come back tomorrow ready to work.”
St. John’s Guard Rasheem Dunn
On what it meant to play in his first game…
“It was a wonderful day. First time playing this year and just having that game, getting my feel back, getting my groove back. Last but not least, being on the court with the team I work hard with all year and every day this summer. We go to practice, play hard, play together, play smart.”
On if taking the three to tie the game was part of the plan…
“It actually wasn’t the plan coming out, but I saw the clock was winding down and we didn’t have much time, so I was just like, ‘let me get a screen and get the big man by himself and put up the shot’ and it went in.”
On his comfort level playing in his first game of the season….
“I felt like I showed up too late for my team and things like that happen when you don’t play for a year. … We were down 10 with under [seven minutes] and we did what we could do to get a W, but unfortunately things didn’t work out that way. Like LJ said, they’re a great team and have a great coach.”
