University of Connecticut Athletics
Connecticut 75, St. John's 59
1/20/2010 12:00:00 AM | Men's Basketball
Jan. 20, 2010
Recap | Box Score | Photo Gallery 
Connecticut Associate Head Coach George Blaney
"I told the team before the game that Coach Calhoun has prepared them for this kind of situation. That he teaches better than anybody in the country, how to get up off the floor and fight. And that that is what this game was going to be. That St. John's was a very physical team, a very good defensive team. But if you were willing to be physical with them, if you were willing to play defense and rebound, we would be OK."
"I was particularly pleased with the number of fast breaks that we had, even though there weren't as many as you would like. But in a low possession game, that's what happens...you have to make every fast break count."
"I thought Jerome [Dyson], Kemba [Walker] and Stanley [Robinson] were just outstanding. I told the three of them before the game that we need them to be great players. We can't have them be ordinary players. And I thought all three responded."
On Jerome Dyson
"If he's not the best full-court defender in the country, I don't know who is."
"I was really pleased that we got into offense almost every time...If you run it full-speed, it makes it very difficult to defend. And if you run people into things, whether be into a defender, into a screen, into a referee - I don't care who you run them into, just run somebody into something - you're going to get open."
"I told them at halftime I thought we were playing well enough - we had played six or seven really, really good minutes to get to be up three. I thought we could have been up six or eight. But I said `just take your time, do what you're doing, and we'll get to 10 right away, if you do what you're doing.'"
Stanley Robinson "I think we played an all around solid game."
"It's just a great feeling to be together with this team, to get a win when we were down three losses. Nobody's greater than Coach Calhoun. He prepared us for this game. We were just mentally ready."
Kemba Walker
On he, Jerome Dyson and Stanley Robinson leading the team
"We wanted to be leaders. We lost three straight. We didn't want to lose anymore. Our main goal was to play hard."
On what Coach Blaney said to him, Jerome Dyson, and Stanley Robinson before Tuesday's practice.
"We're the big three on this team. He told us to take the leadership role."
Donnell Beverly
"In practice we've been working on running plays. (Not running plays has) been killing us down the stretch. We haven't really been able to run our offense all the way through to get the shot that we want."
"Coach Calhoun was preaching that we had to have a positive mindset. We came out positive and played together."
Jerome Dyson "We ran full speed. Like Coach Calhoun has been preaching to us all year, we need to run full speed offense. And that's what we did."
Looking ahead to game against number one Texas
"We definitely needed this win. Losing three in a row is something you don't want to have happen. To possibly lose a fourth, and then come into play the number one team in the country is very difficult."
St. John's Head Coach Norm Roberts
"We didn't do a very good job of guarding. We've played much better defense throughout the year. We allowed them to get comfortable. And once they got comfortable, they made shots."
"We did a decent job on the glass, but gave them too many easy baskets."
"We didn't guard at all in the first half. We shouldn't have been down. When we went to the zone, we didn't get a hand up in guys. We knew if we let them get their feet set, they'd make shots."
"They (UConn) always play hard. Calhoun's here or not, they play hard. Coach Blaney's a terrific coach so why wouldn't you play hard?"
"When you're playing a game like this against UConn, it's 50-50 balls - you have to go get them. When you have the opportunity to make plays, you have to make them. And you have to guard. And we didn't guard."
