Sha Sounds Off: St. John’s

On what he learned about his team:

“I thought it was big for us. To come here, this is a tough place to play — I didn’t know that we hadn’t won here in a lot of years, 13 years, I found that out yesterday — you know what? The first half, we were just kind of playing their game, just up and down, the way that they want to play. We had to slow it down  and kind of get control of it. I thought once we did, Al made some shots, Kadary was just solid the whole game. We kind of mixed the defense up a little bit, and that’s what happened.”

On Seton Hall’s bench:

“You know what? The guys have been playing well in practice. I'm throwing Tae Davis out there at the four, he’s never played it before. For him to go out there in this type of environment and play like that, also Jaquan Sanders came in and made a layup and a big three. He’s a guy that’s working and trying to get in stride and earn his spot, and he’s out there playing. And I thought Tray battled as well. Everybody that came in the game gave us something tonight.”

On playing a zone defense:

“It was something that, the first game (against them) helped us out and my assistants were yelling at me to do it, but we just had lineups in there that we never did it with, so I was kind of hesitant. So we kind of went to it and it slowed the game down, got us where we needed to go.”

On Kadary Richmond:

“I'm on him every single day about being the player that he wants to be. He has to bring it every single day, in practice and in games. I think he’s doing a better job of being more consistent with that, I thought tonight, he was really good rebounding. He controlled the game, he picked and chose his spots. I’m proud of him, but he’s got a long way to go. All night, I thought he defended and he didn’t take breaks. With this team, you can’t take breaks. I thought he defended, he was consistent on defense, and he rebounded the basketball for us.”

“Every single day, we just talk and I tell him every day, you have to understand the stigma that was on you before this year. That’s there, people listen to that, people read that, and you gotta change that. And the way you change that is the way you play every single day, and it starts in practice. And to his credit, he’s carrying it out. I think he’s taken steps. He’s still not where he should be or where he wants to be, it’s steps.”

On defending Joel Soriano:

“You know what? The first game, he really got us, I think he had 23 and 10 against us, so we had a conscious effort to make sure he didn’t get off early, and I thought we did that. I thought everybody battled him.”

On stopping St. John’s momentum after Andre Curbelo’s ejection:

“It’s funny, man. We have an older team other than Jaquan and Tae, everybody else is juniors and seniors. I just told everybody to relax, don’t play into their hands. We started playing fast again, we took good shots — Seton Hall shots, not ‘me’ shots, and we did that. Once we did that, got them out of transition and got back into our zone, I thought it really helped us.”

On Seton Hall’s composure:

“I thought KC was great. Even when he was in foul trouble, he was out there (saying), ‘this is what you gotta do, this is what we need to do, let’s not forget who we are, we’re a defensive team,’ those things. The more he could do that and everybody could do that, those things echo who we are, and I thought he was unbelievable tonight, even when he was in foul trouble. He was very active and engaged on the bench with everybody.”