Siena head coach Jimmy Patsos' opening statement:
"We have to get better. Hats off to Fordham, TP's a good coach, Tommy and I go way back. I knew he'd have them ready. I knew the (Jon) Severe thing would take a little while, it's not my business, it's not my team; I can barely run my own team, but I knew the Severe thing would like, work itself out in terms of, I just knew that when I saw that tweet that Jon had left the team, and we all know Jon, I recruited him, that they were going to...'okay, now he's gone, we're going to rally together, we're going to play hard, we've got our students back, we're at home, we're a better team than that, we're going to play hard.' And I expressed that to my team and said for them to play 40 minutes. I am not doing a good job right now because I cannot convey to my team as a unit, as a whole, to play 40 minutes. I am trying, I've been trying everything I can. I am being mean, I am being nice. We are having hard practices, we are having rest days. I am trying everything I can to get this team to play 40 minutes and forget about last year's CBI championship. I can't seem to get through to certain guys on my team about playing hard every day. I couldn't be prouder of our school for the support we gave today, our former president, Father Kevin, is here, great fans, fan bus, great day, SNY, great time to play basketball, and I can't get us to play 40 minutes, and I'm upset. I'm mostly upset at myself, and I couldn't be prouder of our team for fighting back, I couldn't be prouder of Marquis. I didn't think Marquis played very well against Vermont. I said 'you need to give 40 minutes to this team.' He did. We won at St. Bonaventure, we won at Loyola, and he couldn't have played, nobody played harder or better tonight in the whole country, I didn't see the games yet, than Marquis Wright. As for the rest of them, you can talk to them."
On Marquis Wright and carrying the team:
"No, it has nothing to do with good for the team. Usually sometimes, you get motivated, or sometimes it's like Secretariat and you lose by 31 lengths, meaning, the effort of 31 lengths, and the other ones say 'I'm not gonna run with him, I'm not gonna run and try and catch him, like Alydar and Affirmed and say hey, maybe I just got nipped.' We fought back as a team and I'm proud. We played really well. We've been on the road for four days, four-and-a-half days including Thanksgiving, an emotional Loyola game. We came up here. There was traffic. We ended up dressing at Seton Hall instead of Fordham. None of that matters. Seven o'clock, that game was on national television, and this young man (Wright) played as well as I've seen anybody play at the point guard position, and I've coached a lot of good point guards."
On Siena's eight-minute field goal drought:
"Nothing was going on. I said 'run the play whether it's man or zone.' They ran sort of a matchup zone, we wouldn't complete the play. What happened was the 11 points they got on offensive rebounds is why we lost in the first half, and I'm not mad at anybody but myself, and Fordham played hard, and they're a good team and (Eric) Paschall's really good, and they made threes, but Marquis needs help."
On Ryan Rhoomes and Fordham's offensive rebounds:
"Jumping and wanting the ball more than the man he was playing against, my young friend. For 25 years, I've coached this game. I coached Lawrence Moten in high school. Look him up. He was a 6-4 machine. He wanted the ball more than anyone he played against. That's why his number's retired at Syracuse. I'm not being sarcastic here, Lawrence Moten taught me...see, I played Division III. Box out, hand up, two hands on the ball, no. I learned very quickly coaching Charlie Harrison and Lawrence Moten what athletes meant, and Lawrence Moten said 'I'm 6-4, and I'm going to play forward because I will jump, I want the ball,' and everyone said he might not play at Syracuse because he's too small. Why don't you check out his numbers? They were pretty good. And I coached a guy named Keith Booth, and he was my size, and he went to the foul line the most times in the ACC. His desire for wanting the ball. We have a few guys on our team right now whose desire I'm questioning, but I'm questioning my own sensibilities for playing some guys that were really good last year that seem to have lost their desire to get the ball. Fordham is in the Atlantic 10. This is Rose Hill, an old-school gym. It's good. Glad you got me fired up, because I feel it. It's about wanting to win. This is a 40-minute game. We aren't in the ACC paying some team 75 grand, we can take a first half off and win, because I've been there for that, very rarely on a Gary Williams-coached team. We're Siena. We stunk two years ago. We were 2-7 last year and decided to start working hard, and I'm telling guys to go 40 minutes, and I can't get some guys to go 40 minutes and work hard, that's my fault. My fault."
Wow, absolutely horrendous loss by Siena. This will really sting.
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