“Both Marcus [LoVett] and Shamorie [Ponds] are really talented. They are a little bit different [players],” Mullin said. “Marcus has really great speed and can get to the paint. Shamorie is a little smoother with angles; but they’re both very unselfish. Tonight Malik [Ellison] played a great floor game as well. We really emphasize playing unselfishly on both sides of the ball.”
“All these experiences are very valuable. Even the tough losses, we have to learn from them,” St. John’s coach Chris Mullin said. “We had two good wins, but we didn’t get over excited. … Tonight in the first half we played OK. Our defense was a little lackadaisical. The second half we came out and held them to 33 points. We had 18 assists, so the ball was moving. I told them to win on the road you have to play 40 minutes. They hung in there, played well together and more importantly, trusted each other.”
The comment on second half defense and ball movement was spot on. DePaul may only win a couple of BE games or so, but it was impressive to see a young team be so poised in face of an opponent's scoring runs & make up deficits on the road. Any road win is to be valued.
http://nypost.com/2017/01/02/dropping-depaul-has-surging-st-johns-atop-big-east-standings/
