BIG EAST CONFERENCE MEN'S TOURNAMENT

March 5, 1999

Ron Artest

Erick Barkley

Mike Jarvis

MIKE JARVIS: This game probably should have been played in the old Madison Square Garden because it reminded me more of a Rocky Marciano fight or Joe -- whatever those guys were, they just punch each other for 15 rounds, and the guy that was standing at the end I guess won. And tonight, thank God, we were the last team standing. I don't know what -- we'll probably call it a split decision, I guess but we're certainly very grateful. And I think that tonight was maybe a little bit of a reward for many of the other very, very disappointing games that we didn't win. But, the one common thread this whole year in every game has been the spirit and the character and just the grit, grittiness of this team. And you know, like I said, I would have loved to have won it easier, but we won it because the kids have the biggest hearts in the world, and they believe. They don't believe in things, like, you know, I guess, height or whatever. But it was a heck of a great victory for St. John's and for these kids.

COACH JARVIS: We've beaten top-ranked teams all year. Every team we play we consider them to be a Top-10 team. Once again, this foolishness about getting over the hump, that's what I think it is. I think it's lot of garbage. We've had a chance to win every game we played. There aren't many teams in the country that can say that. We've never felt like we've had to get over a hump, but we've read that in the paper, though. I'm sure some people will write tomorrow that we've got to beat a top-five team and eventually we will. I'm not saying it will happen this year, but I've never felt we've got to get over a hump. We've felt like since day one, we've been going up the mountain and that's what we've got to continue to do.

COACH JARVIS: The game of basketball is nothing but runs, and we've said this before: Anything you read in the paper, teams play a lead and all this kind of garbage, it's just about runs. It's not about blowing anything. It's about one team getting hot and the last team, you know, that maybe has the ball holding on or whatever. But once again, I think you hit the word on the head, the "courageousness" of this team has been displayed all year. No one has questioned the heart of this team and the soul of this team, and they have got big hearts, big souls. And we deserved to win and Miami deserved to win as well. It was -- Miami is a great basketball team, and they have just been getting better and better and better. You're not going to find a better combination than James and Hemsley. Leonard Hamilton has done a marvelous job with the team. They are big. They are athletic. They are an excellent basketball team, and they will go far in the NCAA tournament.

COACH JARVIS: Yeah, he was struggling. You know, but just to have him come out of the locker room with the okay of the doctor to say that he could give it a go was a huge, emotional lift. Just to have him there and to know that he was going to be a part of it. I mean the last things these guys want to do is win or lose tonight without Tyrone. Once again, he played tonight. Guess what? You know he'll be ready to go tomorrow.

COACH JARVIS: That's a great example. You've always got to be careful what you say and what you ask for. And I remember reading a newspaper this week, and I was reading where this youngster who is No. 12 was asking to play 40 minutes, and I granted him his wish tonight. And there was a couple times that he was looking over to me tonight saying, I wish I had never said that. Erick learned another valuable lesson tonight: Be careful what you ask for, because he got his wish.

COACH JARVIS: Obviously, at the end of the game it would have been nice, there was a couple more plays I would have liked to have seen converted, but we converted enough to win. And this will go on the left side of the ledger. And I'm glad for that too, because I think it was the other night here or wherever, but someone asked the question: How many games do we think we're going to win, and I said I don't know. And later, I asked my wife and she said she had written down that we were going to win 25. So I'm sure when I get back tonight, she's going to say, well, you finally did it and I'm glad for that, too.

COACH JARVIS: I know what the kids would say, and they would say it's not about just getting there it's about winning it. However, the reality is that before you win it you have to get there. Like all year I've been saying before you can beat anybody, you have to be there. And it's nice to be in this position to have a chance to win it, and we're going to give it everything we've got and, you know we'll see how far we can go.

COACH JARVIS: As the year has been going on, we've been doing some different things and adding some things in. And obviously, tonight what we had to do was try a lot of different things to just try to see if make we could get them out of their rhythm. Like I say they have become such a good basketball team and they execute so well that if you play the same defense on them all the time they are going to pick you apart. So we changed up some defenses a little bit more -- obviously a lot more than we did earlier, and that's mainly because these guys have started to understand more and more about what we're doing and doing it better. We put in a couple of plays that actually worked. And that helped, too.

COACH JARVIS: Any time you can play, you know great, great basketball team like University of Connecticut in the championship game of a tournament like the Big East Tournament, I'll really, really excited. I can't tell you how much I'm looking forward to tomorrow. I think it should be just great, and I'm really looking forward to it. I think it's going to be a great opportunity for us again.

Q. What was the difference this time against Miami compared to the previous two games against Miami?

RON ARTEST: Well, the first time, you know, I think we slacked off a little bit and they just took advantage of us. The second time we didn't convert. You know, we was up like 8 points. I forget how much time was left, and we slacked off again. And this time we kept going, full of energy, being in the best condition ever and we just played with our heart.

RON ARTEST: It meant a lot and it even sort of -- you don't want to go down 0-3 against a club that that's not that much better than you, that would have been bad. I would have been very hurt. Just get our confidence back and know that we contented again.

RON ARTEST: Made some free throws. Made the 3. Just the sign of a great player.

RON ARTEST: Come on, man. Letting loose. I'm very happy. Mainly for my team. For my team.

COACH JARVIS: What do you mean we never won? We won 24 games. What do you mean we never won?

COACH JARVIS: There weren't any other wins along the way?

COACH JARVIS: Sorry. Just a question.

RON ARTEST: We played -- first playing against UConn and Duke and Stanford, I think we're a little bit young. And again, just the confidence to know what we can do. And today I think it was a different -- there was more effort on the bench. You know, nobody was talking. Everybody gave it a hundred percent to listen to Coach and to see what he wanted and we just executed exactly the way he wanted it. Listening and came out with a victory.

ERICK BARKLEY: We lost a couple of close games this year where we had leads and gave it away. Today, you know we really came together and we can't he -- this was a one-game elimination tournament right here. We just came together as one and we just stuck it out.

ERICK BARKLEY: It was just another, you know another team you know ranked in front of us. We just got our shot at them.

RON ARTEST: Everybody got to step up because we do not know the things about what's wrong with Tyrone and how he's going to affect this game; so everybody going to have to step up and get some extra rebounds.

ERICK BARKLEY: I just wanted the time to run out without nobody touching me.

ERICK BARKLEY: I give the credit to Coach. He really tells me to stick with my shot and keep shooting and no matter what the shot is going to fall and on defensive end I just tried to work Hemsley. He hit a couple good shots, key shots but down the stretch he didn't score on me.