Some post game quotes

I'm going to say it was one of the great moments of my career," said Thomas, a former New York City playground legend who once had to sleep on subway cars when the heat in his home was turned off. "We toughed it out and everything wasn't going for us. [Coach Norm Roberts] just told us to keep with it, keep scrapping and it turned out we won the game."


"It was definitely one of the best games I've been a part of as a coach," Roberts said. "I was really proud of our guys."

"St John's did what they had to do coming down the stretch," Hoyas coach John Thompson III said. "They got shots, they got second shots, and they made their foul shots coming down the stretch. We didn't."

"It's the Big East tournament, March, anybody can win," Roberts said. "That's what makes March Madness so great.

"We never gave up, even down 15 when everything that could go wrong went wrong. The guys showed tremendous character. I told them `Don't let the offense affect the defense.' All our guys, to a man, stepped up and made big plays."

''I don't think we fell asleep or shut it down,'' Thompson said. ''They got stops and we didn't.''

Thompson wouldn't call it an upset.

''There are no upsets in league play, especially not this year in this conference with our team,'' he said.

''It's extremely critical. Every game we have to win,'' Thompson said. ''It's hard to look at the big picture now with this disappointing a loss. We're going to have to come and make a good showing.''


''We got together in the huddle, we executed plays, we listened to details the way Coach gave them to us,'' Horne said. ''It was the little things, getting rebounds, details, sticking together and toughing it out.''

''It was crazy. There was a lot of stuff running through my mind,'' Roberts said. ''Coach settled me down. I took my time and knocked them down.''

 ''They did a better job of pursuing the basketball than we did,'' Thompson said. ''The disparity in rebounding can't be that bad and we win.''