St. John's 96, Baylor 81
SCOTT DREW: I thought the effort was there, especially on the glass. Unfortunately we really struggled to finish over their length. We didn't do a very good job making extra passes, but I thought the effort was good there.
Credit St. John's, good game plan, and offensively they were really clicking today. When anyone goes 11 for 22 from three, tough to beat. I thought Bryce Hopkins struggling from three, 4 for 15, so him stretching it, and obviously Sellers has been on fire yesterday and today, so that was hard to overcome.
Q. The fact that St. John's can run their offense pretty much through all their forwards, Mitchell, Zuby and Hopkins, how much of a problem does that pose for you guys?
CAMERON CARR: Honestly, it kind of relies on us. I think we're allowing too many easy catches for them, and I think we needed to do a better job pushing them out and also pulling over and helping when they drove. They just put their heads down, so...
SCOTT DREW: Hopkins, Zuby and Mitchell, those are as athletic and physical three guys as you're going to find in college basketball. When they're making threes, that makes it hard to guard them. That's what they were doing today.
And when a team is pressing, you have to take advantage of it. That's where we didn't, especially in the first half. You got to four on threes, three on twos, you have to make them pay, and we weren't able to today.
Q. Coach, just wondering, during the first half you were doing a pretty good job hanging around. It's still only November, so I'm wondering what the conversation was like in the locker room after. What do you tell your guys after this?
SCOTT DREW: The season's real early. These tournaments are tough because you play three games in three days. Depth comes into play, and we're not as deep right now as we will be. So just making sure that we're putting guys in the best positions possible. We're all still learning each other.
This is great competition. You're playing different styles of play. These are the games that you play in March and these are the games to prepare you for conference. I mean, shoot, anybody gets 26 offensive rebounds, a coach is going to be pretty happy with that effort, especially against a talented team like St. John's. We only had 11 turnovers. That didn't kill us either, but giving up 57% defense and 50% from three was too much to overcome today.
Q. Scott, how unusual was the circumstances of kind of caring about the score differential? Did you leave guys in longer because of it?
SCOTT DREW: Honestly, we have no one else to put in. So that's what it is. And you're right. There is a score differential, so...
Q. I just wanted to ask about the preparation process for tomorrow. You don't know who you're playing or when you're playing or what time. The rest of the day, what does that look like for you guys in terms of preparing for tomorrow?
SCOTT DREW: Cam, tell him what you'll do recovery-wise.
CAMERON CARR: I'm just going to go back, take care of my body. Control what I can control. Leave it up to God, and know that we'll be ready for whoever we have to face.
SCOTT DREW: We'll work on us first, look at that game, areas we can improve, show that, teach that, and then focus on who we're playing with the game plan.
FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports