Wednesday, December 4, 2024

Sha Sounds Off: NJIT

On his message after Saturday’s loss to Monmouth:
“Jeez! The message was, just don’t worry about the noise. Let’s just focus on what’s in this locker room and worry about who’s in our program. Don’t worry about the noise, don’t worry about what people are saying, what people are writing, just continue to keep getting better as a team.”

On Seton Hall’s response after losing to Monmouth:
“I was disappointed in the biggest way. I thought we played a good 15 minutes today in the first half, and that was it. I thought we were gonna come out with more…we came out with juice, we came out with energy, and it kind of just dropped. Then we go to the locker room, we win a game and I got guys worried about them and not us winning. So that’s something we gotta clean up. I gotta do a really, really, really good job of making people understand what playing at Seton Hall is all about.”

On Garwey Dual:
“It’s great. I’ve been on him to shoot the basketball. For some reason, I don’t know, he just wasn’t being aggressive or looking to shoot, and I told him we need him to shoot, be aggressive. He’s looked to find people, but we were playing 3-on-5 in some games because he wasn’t looking to shoot and Godswill wasn’t looking to shoot, so teams were kind of just keying on a lot of guys. But the last two days, with me being on him to shoot the basketball, I thought he came out aggressive and it was good for us.”

On regaining energy and momentum:
“What I really want to say, I can’t say. It’s tough, it’s really tough, man, because it’s—now I’m gonna get in trouble—you just gotta find a way, right? We just gotta find a way, continue to keep boosting each other up. Things gotta continue to keep being positive and not worry about anything else, but it’s tough. And then teams start zoning us and the ball sticks. I thought early on in the first half, the ball was moving, moving, moving, moving, moving. We were getting anything we wanted, then towards the end of the first half, second half, the ball just stuck and it wasn’t moving that much. That’s why I had the group I had in towards the end, because they were moving the basketball a little bit.”

On defending NJIT’s Tariq Francis:
“Man! You know, Tariq, I’m super proud of him. I’ve watched him grow up, he’s like my little nephew. So playing against him, we game-planned a lot of the shots he took. We knew he was gonna take those shots. We game-planned and we watched him, we went over it. Obviously, no one on our team is like him, you can’t really (simulate), but he made some tough shots and he drove the basketball, and I thought that was the difference. I thought we still did a good job—they scored 56 points—but we gotta continue to keep growing on offense. Our offense has to continue to keep getting better.”

On Prince Aligbe:
“This is kind of what I envisioned Prince being. Obviously, 19 points is really good, but him being a double-double guy, close…give me 10 or 12 points, 7-8 rebounds, assists, defense. He’s had a tough go because Prince is a great person, but he’s like, he overanalyzes everything. So when things happen or don’t happen, this is why. Just play through it. I thought tonight, he did a good job just playing through it.”

On coaching against Grant Billmeier:
“Grant’s a great guy. I’m proud of Grant, he’s done a good job. I know they came in with a lot of confidence because of the way we played the other day. His team played hard for him, they ran good stuff. He’s got a bright future in coaching. I’m happy for Grant. Grant and I worked together for a long time. He’s a great person, good coach, really good big man coach, but you’re really seeing his growth as a head coach. His team runs really good stuff, he’s got two really good guards that are gonna be very good in their league…have I learned something from him? I think as coaches, we learn a lot from each other.”

On what he’s looking for in Sunday’s matchup with Oklahoma State:
“Being together, growing. Stop worrying about every little thing, stop worrying about what anybody’s saying or what they’re reading. I told the group it’s tough, Jerry, because there’s only one guy that’s from around here, and that’s Dylan. So they’re not used to this type of pressure, this type of noise, and it’s getting to them. I told them to stop worrying about that. Like, let me handle that. I’ll take the bullets, I don’t care. It doesn’t matter. It’s funny that people think like I forgot how to coach because of how things are going. I’m like, alright, sure, whatever, you know what I mean? We’re going through a little slide, but tonight, I thought was a good sign of some guys breaking out of certain slumps—I won’t call it slumps, certain things—so to answer your question moving forward, I need everybody to be on the same page. I need the guys who could score to score, guys who can defend, defend, guys who rebound, rebound. I think once we do that, I think we’ve still got a chance of being a good team. I hope I answered your question.”

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