Battle of the Bronx: Manhattan Quotes

Steve Masiello’s opening statement:
“Good win, I’m really proud of our guys, I thought they were very resilient. We battled, couldn’t score early, made some shots, got some confidence, saw the ball go in a little bit, and I thought that was the difference in the game.”

On rebounding and its emphasis after Monday’s loss at Stony Brook:
“The last three games, I think it was double-figure rebounding we lost by. We made a big point of that this week in practice adjusting to that, changing that and doing what we’re supposed to do. I thought our guys did that. Pauly obviously had 11, Tykei came in with six and Chris had ten, so that’s basically your three, four and five getting you double figures. Tykei’s right there, and then Elijah Buchanan from the two-guard spot had seven, so they addressed the rebounding issue. We’re just very sluggish to start games, we’re lethargic, so we’ve got to address that, fix that, and if we do, I think we’ve got a chance to be really good.”

On Buchanan’s development:
“He’s worked so hard. He was one of the best scorers in the state coming out of high school, first team all-New York. That’s an accomplishment coming out of Mount St. Michael, so for him to see rewards of his work, I think we forget he’s only a sophomore, to come with 15 and seven the way he did, I was really impressed with him. He missed a couple of free throws, which I think hurt his confidence, but he puts a lot of time in at the line, he wakes up at 7 a.m. every morning and shoots, so he’s just got to stay with it. But he’s going to be fine.”

On Tyler Reynolds’ game-winning possession:
“Yeah, we tried to get into a high pick-and-roll with Pauly and Chris. We thought our four and five could take advantage of their four and five off the bounce. Chris came off, he threw slot, we threw slot and reversed it, tried to get one more. We got the one more, and Tyler paused for a second, he hesitated, he sized up — and I think his size helped him shoot over a smaller defender — he made a tough shot, so give him credit. But give Fordham credit, I thought they really guarded well tonight and did a very good job. And this win is for Marianne (Reilly, Manhattan’s athletic director), this is dedicated to her for all the time she’s put in here. This is great for her to be able to come home and walk out of here with a win.”

On Manhattan's maturation after earning its third double-digit comeback win of the season:
“I think it’s a lot, and that’s what we were just talking about in the locker room, their character, their resolve, their will to fight, rally, stay involved, stay in games. It’s tough when you’re not scoring the ball, and we did that tonight.”

On being on the winning side of a last-second shot vs. Fordham:
“It’s good for confidence, it’s good for buy-in, for the guys to have vision and understands vision affects buy-in. I think when you have vision and you see good things happening, that’s going to affect your buy-in, and then your buy-in from there will affect your work ethic and your work ethic affects your results. It’s tough. I don’t like being down, but it’s nice to come back, because now the next time we’re down eight, which will happen, we’ve done this. We might be making too much of a habit of it, we want to address the first part of it, but we’ve done it now.”

On defensive strategy for the final possession:
“The first thing we were telling them was don’t foul. The second thing we were telling them was know where (Antwon) Portley is, stay down on his shot fake, same thing for (Jalen) Cobb, stay down on his shot fake. You want to keep everything on your chest, don’t let anything behind you, and those were our principles. We wanted to trade off with everyone in our area. I thought we did a really good job of keeping things on our chest and making them shoot over size, and I thought we did that. He got a tough look, got a good shot off from a range standpoint. I don’t think that was their first option, but I wasn’t in their timeout.”

Pauly Paulicap on defeating Fordham:
“I’ve experienced two losses against Fordham, so I’ve always kept that in the back of my head and really in this game, I just came in and tried to do all the blue-collar things like rebound, box out, just the stuff that helps us win. I think this game is a big win for us, obviously we have more work to do, but Fordham’s a big win for us.”

Paulicap on Manhattan's mindset after losing to Stony Brook:
“We just have to go back to doing what we normally do: Play hard, do the little things that will help us win. And after watching film, we noticed that we weren’t ourselves at Stony a Brook, we didn’t do the little things that help us win. Today, we definitely did, and that’s what helped us win the game.”

Elijah Buchanan on his performance and improvement:
“Before the game, Coach texted me and told me to just be myself, go back to the Mount St. Michael’s Eli, and to believe in myself. I just kept that in the back of my head the whole game. I think I’ve made a very big jump, because last year, I didn’t have that much confidence. This year, my confidence is getting better.”