BIG EAST CONFERENCE MEN'S TOURNAMENT

March 6, 1999

Mike Jarvis

MIKE JARVIS: Tonight I need a priest. I've got him with me. I guess what I want to say is first of all -- let me see, what's our record now? 25-8. That's 33. I can now say that 32 out of 33 games we, had a chance to win. Tonight was the first one, I guess in a way you can say that; we didn't. And I want to first of all give credit to a great No. 1 seed in Connecticut. They played very, very well. I'm ail a little bit upset at the two teams they played before tonight because they looked awfully fresh tonight to me. But they played great. And I also want to give credit to my kids who had many, many opportunities to quit and send a lot of people home maybe wondering what was going to happen in the next tournament for us. And all I can tell you is that, number one, the kids didn't quit. We certainly didn't play as well as we would have liked or had the game we would have liked to have had tonight. But, thank God, our season has yet -- has still life in it, and we're going to play a lot more basketball, and just like any -- all the other tough losses this year. This one is just a little bit different because we didn't have a chance to win this one tonight, I guess. We'll represent St. John's very well in New York in the NCAA tournament very well, I promise you that.

MIKE JARVIS: First thing is we probably should have had another player service this morning, father, okay. So I've got to talk to Father about that. But I would say it's probably all of the above. If I had to check off, a,b,c,d,e,f,g, I would say it's all of the above. First, they played great. They played like a No. 1 seed tonight. They had something extra to prove, I think. I think that the two games that they played put them in a much better position obviously than us. They were well-rested tonight. They have a much, much deeper bench than we do, and that certainly had a lot to do with, you know, with the outcome of this game and the nice thing about the next tournament we go into, providing we can win the first game is we have a day in between and I think a day in between for us is going to be, you know, some pretty good medicine and we're looking forward to that and of course we've got to win the first day in order to give that day a rest and we're certainly going to try to do that.

MIKE JARVIS: Well, Tyrone's situation is, you know, it was just bothering him too much to take a chance on aggravating it to the point where he would miss maybe the next game. This way, Tyrone will be ready for the NCAA tournament, but, you know -- and I'm just glad that his last game wasn't -- didn't end sitting on the bench watching the clock tick away. He'll play next game.

MIKE JARVIS: We've done that a few times this year ourselves. I've seen it and I've been on the other end of it. The game is a game of runs. I think if you look at the last Connecticut game, they had a great run. We had a great one. We had a great run. So, yeah, I've seen it and I'm sure I'll see it again.

MIKE JARVIS: No, I don't. I really don't. That was just some things, to be honest with you, between me and the team and all I can tell you is it had to do with the lessons that we learned from the game. And, you know, basically just some thoughts, you know, that I had, some of which are very, very private. Something that I'll use. I don't know when I'll use it to be honest with you. But basketball is a game of lessons and I just was taking notes just to remind myself of a few things. I was taking names of people that were still in the arena that I wanted to send thank you notes for and to, but I don't want to share that right now.

MIKE JARVIS: He should have held in. He looked great, as did El-Amin, Freeman. They all looked good. They will represent the Big East very well as a No. 1 seed somewhere. I don't know if it's in the west or wherever it will, but they will represent the league well as we.

MIKE JARVIS: We didn't score. We didn't score; so it was 13-0. They missed a couple shots. What do you want me to say?

MIKE JARVIS: End of the first half.

MIKE JARVIS: Tough shot.

MIKE JARVIS: It hurts a lot. It hurt us probably as much psychologically as anything because when we were down by, I think, 17 or 18 the first half. The goal was, you know, I kept saying to kids let's get it under ten. Let's get it under ten going into halftime. We got it under ten. And he hit the 3. Now it's 11. So it's not under ten no more. It makes a huge difference. Just like the night before when we scored at the end of the half that really helped us tremendously when we tied it up against Miami at the end of the half on the last play. Plays in the last half sometimes have carryover, and there's a difference between down 8 with the ball and being down 11. And instead of being very aggressive on the first possession, we were kind of passive again. And that probably is as good of a word as anything would describe us at times tonight. We were very passive at times to tonight, but we got aggressive, but it was too late; so those are lessons that will help us in the future.

MIKE JARVIS: I think once again, I think from a game like this, what you take out of it as you go into the NCAA tournament is that when you play against, you know, a great team a No. 1 seed and hopefully we'll get that opportunity again, is you've got to come out -- I mean, with -- you've got to come out with a tremendous amount of fire and a tremendous amount of intensity, and you've got to also be patient if that's called for. You've got to do all of the things that you have to do. And the other thing you learn if tonight, I mean, first of all is No. 1, what does it feel like to participate in the championship game? I mean, that's a great learning experience right there. And then to see the other team accepting the championship trophy, that's a great learning experience because what you want to do is you want to maybe use the mind and the power of visualization. So you take that. You watch a Connecticut accepting the championship trophy. Very similar to the first year I coached in college and we stayed out as a team and we watched the other team collect the championship trophy. We put that newer mind and so that was extra motivation for the future. So tonight you learn for next time you prepare for next time you play in the Big East championship game which we hope will be next year.

MIKE JARVIS: First of all, I was asked earlier about seeding, and the one thing I know about seeding is that what I think, what I care, what I feel has nothing to do with it. And seeding is really not as important as who you're playing against and who else is in your region. So when we look alternate the brackets tomorrow night, we're going to look at okay, who you play first and then who you play next and ultimately, who do you play, period. So there's not that much difference between a 2 and a 3, to be honest with you, and I don't know where the 2 seed is going if he's going to Boston or if he's going to wherever. I don't know. I have no idea about that. But I'm just glad that we're going to be going up on the board tomorrow night kind of high and I really feel that these kids as they have done all year will be ready to play.

MIKE JARVIS: The crowd, no, I don't think so. I think it may have an affect on the kids' psyche afterwards, or even maybe before, just knowing that they are going to have a tremendous crowd. But we had a lot of followings tonight as well. We probably had more people rooting for us tonight than we did the last time we played them here. I think the first time we played them here it had a negative affect because that was a home game. But we're going to work on that and Connecticut is only go get a hundred tickets for a regular season game in the Garden in the future. But we didn't control the tickets for the Big East game. So I hope the Connecticut fans enjoyed tonight because the next time they see us we will probably be in the Big East tournament.