Sha Sounds Off: St. John’s

On a potential turning point in the first half:

“I don't know what play you're talking about. Obviously, the game just ended. I haven't watched the tape, so I don't know what play you're talking about.”

On what happened defensively;

“I don't know. That's a good question. You gotta gave St. John's a lot of credit, I thought these guys came out, they were hungry. They did everything that we do to teams that they did to us, which is disappointing. I don't know, Jerry. I can't really put my — I don't know. We just didn't defend like we're capable of defending. They got a lot of stuff in transition, they lived in the paint, they got a lot of paint points. Like I said, everything that we do to teams, they kind of did to us today.”

On a message to the selection committee:

“I'll be honest. I think our resume speaks for itself. I think this is the best conference in the country. We had 13 wins in the best conference in the country. What else are we talking about right now? I thought we had some good wins early on. I thought some teams beat us that were pretty good. I mean, people forget that USC was a Top 25 team when they beat us. Iowa is good, so when you go out and you challenge yourself and play a good schedule, I don't look back and say we had one bad loss. Even a good Rutgers team. Rutgers is an in-state rival, those games happen. But, yeah, I thought to get 13 wins — I think it was 13, right? I don't want to miss — to get 13 wins in this conference, I mean, that's pretty impressive.”

On not getting over the hump:

“Turnovers. Stop turning the ball over. At key moments, we had turnovers, and not just one, a couple in a row. So you go down, whenever we were down and we were trying to fight back, and the next thing you know, we got a turnover and they got a run on that one, so I thought that was the difference.

And like I said, I don't want to take nothing away from those guys. I thought those guys did well. I know we've beaten that team two times. Obviously, I didn't want to lose like this and I didn't think — for me, this is tough to swallow. I'm super competitive. My stomach is turning right now. I can't believe that we came out and played like this in such an important game.”

On St. John’s depth:

“I don't think that had anything to do with it. We played them twice and they played 12 guys before. I just thought we didn't — I don't want to cut you off, but I don't think that had anything to do with it. They didn't wear us down, nothing like that. We just, the first half we were depending on the three-ball, it kept us in the game. And the second half, the three didn't go in. And I thought they did a really good job on Dre, one of our key guys, not letting him get off, they doubled him or any time they put the ball on the ground, they would surround him. And we just didn't make the correct plays down the stretch to kind of hurt what they were trying to do on defense.”

On his plans for Selection Sunday:

“I don't know. I'm down in the dumps right now. I don't know what's going to happen tomorrow or even later on tonight, nor do I fucking care, to be honest with you. You know, I'm super, super disappointed. I'm sorry for my language. I apologize if I'm offending anybody, but I'm super down right now and I wanted this team to get to Friday night and understand what Friday night is to play in Madison Square Garden, the Big East tournament. We just didn't do it, and I'm disappointed.”

On what to take away from today’s game:

“I think we let an unbelievable opportunity slip away. We kind of put our faith in somebody else's hands instead of us taking care of business. But you can't put your head down. Obviously this sucks right now. This sucks. This sucks real bad. You gotta have a quick memory. And I think we did way more than enough to get in. So obviously, we’ll take tomorrow off and get back on it. I don't know what today is. What is today? Thursday? Take tomorrow off and get back at it on Saturday, and then wait to see whether our name is going to be called and kind of go from there, to be honest with you.”