Sha Sounds Off: St. John’s

On what makes St. John’s a tough matchup:

“They’re very physical. Very physical, obviously well-coached, they’ve got experience, they’ve got a couple guys that, when they need a bucket, you can go to them.”

On Seton Hall performing to his standards:

“I thought we did. I thought, for the most part, I thought that this group was really fun to coach. For me, as a coach, they did give me everything I asked for, that you could ask for, nothing more than that. They definitely lived up to the three Ds. They carried themselves well on and off the court. So I told these guys, this stings because we didn’t play well tonight at all. We didn’t play well tonight. I thought if we played well, we had a chance, but to be honest with you, the game wasn’t as close as the score. They dominated us because they came out and they swung first and we didn’t swing back. Normally, that’s not us, and that’s what’s disappointing about it.” 

On an NCAA Tournament pitch:

“I’ll be honest with you, I told these guys in the locker room: I think if the committee really sits down and has good minds in there like I know they do, if they look at our resume and look at what we did, and our body of work is really good, it’s way better than a lot of people. When he says on the bubble, I’m not sure why our league’s not getting the recognition that we deserve. But when you look at it and you look at a team that has 17 wins and don’t have…is not following in their league, I don’t understand it. I think if they look at our body of work, I thought we went out, I thought we challenged ourselves. I thought we did well in our league. Obviously it didn’t end well today, but I thought we did enough. But like I said, that’s not up to me.”

On his conversation with official Matt Potter:

“I don’t know, I’m just fighting for my team, that’s it. All year long, I’ve been fighting for my team. Do I like us having 9-for-12-something free throw line for number 30? No. Do I like it? No, I don’t like it. But this has been going on all year, so we just dealt with it. We didn’t complain, we just dealt with it and then we just move on.”

On his biggest takeaway from tonight’s loss:

“We can’t come out the way we came out. We can’t spot a good team 10 points early. Today, I thought we spotted them 10 points early, and then we were playing catchup from there.”

On this season being an improvement:

“I don’t know, I don't look at that. Last year is last year. I know that’s something that you guys gotta bring up, but last year is last year. This is a complete different team. There’s two guys from that team that were here last year. Is it a building block? I mean, this is why I brought these guys here. I thought that we could have this kind of season, and a little better. I thought that we let some games slip away. But no, it’s just continuing to keep building and getting better and better.”

On potentially playing in the College Basketball Crown:

“Right now, we’re not even looking at that. Right now, we’re just concerned about hopefully hearing our name called on Sunday and then take it from there.”