La Salle - Rider Quotes
Coach Giannini:
Opening Statement:
“I am thrilled, Rider won 21 games last year with five of their top six returning. I know they have sky high expectations for this year as they should. I am sure that they are frustrated, but I would like to think we had something to do with that. I think we beat a very good team and a very good program. We are playing zone and playing it well. We are passing the ball and are a better shooting team this year. I just like that our guys are listening, and playing together, and fighting to win.”
On the leadership
“The guys who are playing the best for us are the guys who are in their second year. We always talk about the first to second year bump. The first year guys are struggling but we will get them there.”
On staying out of foul trouble
“You have to with the rules. If someone told me that we would play the amount zone through the first two games that was not the plan a few weeks ago. You adjust, but our guys are playing it hard and they are quick and they are getting around. It has kept us out of foul trouble and getting us through games.”
On being undersized
“You just have to fight as hard as you possibly can (in rebounding). Look at St. Joes undefeated team, one of the worst rebounding teams in the country. Look at our Sweet 16 team, not a great rebounding team. When you are smaller, you do worse on rebounding. Your shooting percentage goes up, you make more threes, you force more turnovers, you pass the ball better, you commit less turnovers yourself, you get fouled more from driving to the basket. Almost every statistic goes up when you get smaller expect for rebounding. Can you scrap and keep that from being the reason you lose.”
On the injured guys:
“We really miss Tony. That guy is really ready to be a great big man in the Atlantic 10. If you watch us play that’s what we are missing. Yevgen will get better, Dusan will get better. They are uncomfortable, part of the reason is we were playing all man, now we are in zone and we are trying to get tricky shifting from zone to man. For a first year guy it’s a little confusing what we did out there defensively today. Once they get more comfortable out there, Yevgen is obviously a very good offensive player, he is 7-8 shots, he doesn’t miss shots very often. I think we are going to keep getting better. Right now, our more experienced guys are carrying us.”
On starting 2-0:
“Look at Towson and Rider at the end of the season and see how good their records will be. We have beaten veteran teams who have a lot of guys coming back and teams who in my opinion are going to have good seasons. I am thrilled to get through the first two games with the short bench and the short team.
Cleon Roberts:
On the run at the end of the first half:
“We just had to keep up our defense and not allow any threes. We have to play smart and make sure that we box out. We kept doing that and everything fell into place.”
We are the elders on the team this year. We have a lot of young guys on the team this year so we have to make sure that we lead them and have them play right and keep their heads straight.
JP
On limiting fouls:
“We just came out and played our defense. We know that we cant touch them, but we were just playing our defense.”
On winning the games shorthanded:
“It means a lot to us knowing that our young guys who are playing are stepping up. Our older guys are doing what we are supposed to do. Once we get everyone back we are going to be great.”
