Men's Basketball: Jahvon Quinerly and Nicholas Jourdain-January 31, 2024

hey JQ uh how do you turn this around man I I know you guys are trying but how do what do you do to turn it around I think it's going to come down to um us getting tired of this feeling um us truly coming together as a unit um I'm hoping that this this thing makes us stronger and brings us closer together I really am um you know I know coach takes a lot a lot of heat a lot of the responsibility but I got to take some responsibility for this the streak that we going on me being a point guard um me being as old as I am me being um one of the most seasoned guys on the team um you know kind of not getting through to my teammates um you know I got to take some responsibility for what's going on it's not all on Coach um he gives us the opportunity to be a player Le team and right now you could tell we're just not cohesive Javon you obviously just addressed that part there in terms of taking self- responsibility but what what else has changed um since that stretch where you guys were beating nationally ranked teams like one after another versus not just the last four games but but even going back a little bit when you guys were having to to you know get Buzzard beaters just to get get pass teams what what's what's different what's changed for the worse you know it's hard to say um I think it's the defense um cuz I feel like we can score well enough um we got enough weapons on the team we're going to score the ball um you know regardless I think it's uh the way we're guarding it's just not good enough and um we had some some flashes in the non-conference of us playing some really good defense but we haven't been able to put it all together um the communication's not there um we're just not together and and it shows that's that's what I would say I don't think it's anything offensive um I don't I can't really say I I don't know uh jakq coach hard way describe the first half is something that he never thought he would see what was the mindset going on as it's as it's happening I mean 22 points it's a season low and a half for you guys heads down going into the locker room what was going on that whole first half um we were just uh obviously offense was the was we didn't score we didn't score well in the first half but U we were still talking about defense because we feel like that's that's our big um deficency right now so that was kind of the mindset going in how are we going to guard some of these actions um we knew that we would start to put the ball in the basket a little bit more um but we've been trying to focus on defense this is for Nick um Nick every time you see you you're around your teammates you're coring the guys and um during this tough stretch what is it like to you know you guys are older what is it like to kind of try to keep this locker room together and make sure um no one starts pointing the finger uh and just try to stay cohesive um it's not really tough we have a really good group of guys everyone's a good person on the court everyone gets emotional but we we're really figuring each other out and like JQ said I think we just got to keep learning and growing from this and that's something we're learning is how to talk through talk to each other when we're in those moments and when we're going through these rough patches so it's it's an experience but it's it's nothing too hard like I said we're all we're all good people everyone's easy to communicate with and get across but we just got to figure it all out uh Javon or Nicholas are both um obviously Penny's made a lot of chemistry issues or locker room problems whatever you want to call it uh and and Malcolm talked about it last game how much of that is the cause of what we're seeing on the court and what does he mean by locker room problems what's going on in y'all's opinion I don't really think it's locker room issues um I really don't I think um we're just not together um on the court all the way up until the court until we get on the floor though we're we're we're together it's like once we get out there it's kind of like you know it's a lot going on so I feel like guys don't respond well to criticis not criticism constructive criticism I mean um I think that's one of the biggest issues um just being able to talk to your teammate while you're under the rest on the floor and not get a reaction out of them I think that's probably one of the the issues that coach may be speaking may be talking about yeah like he just said there's there's a I don't think I agree with him on that and that's why I was pointing out earlier is we're just learning how to communicate with each other on the court because there's a lot of emotions flaring a lot going on and each individual person is different each individual person wants to be addressed a different way so going off with those last two questions what are y'all telling each other in practice leading up to this game and then after the game what's the message to each other I'm just trying to get the guys to stay together um this is tough this is very tough I mean I don't I don't remember ever going through something like this as long as I've been in school um so this is um you know new for me as well um but I'm telling the guys you know stay off social media um and I like like I said before like it's it's either we going to get tired of feeling like this and do something about it or it's going to keep happening so but you know I'm just hoping that um this is you know we're going to say enough is enough and really come together as a unit not only off the floor but even when we we're at War and and fac an adversity on the floor Javon you've been through the whole starting not starting thing and I know a lot of people think that's kind of highly overrated anyway I mean it's who finishes not not who starts but what how did you take that and and is there any good that can come out of that down the stretch um you know not starring was never important to me I played a role like like that um at my previous school and I thrived I thrived in it um it was never really important to me who started the game like you said who finishes is the most important um Coach P wanted to switch switch things up and I was all for it I said you know I don't mind whatever you decide to do I'm with you and it is what it is um so yeah like you said um you know I've thrived in that road before so it's not it's not nothing new to me this is one of this one is for either of you do you guys think that this is going to be the Rock Bottom moment at this point do you think this is going to be the you know the I guess the the climax of these struggles or do you think you guys still have like ways to go on that um I think this is this will be the turning point for us I mean feeling like this um for the last two weeks um it's a lot and uh um you know every good team I mean if you want to look back at last year the team who won the National Championship they went um they lost six games in a row in the Big East and and they were able to um weather that storm and win a National Championship so um I think we'll grow from this I really do um and at least today I feel like we fought um uh we we gave we gave it everything we made a couple late mistakes that cost us the game but for the most part um you know guys were out there fighting uh just for either either guy uh Penny said that uh he doesn't feel like there's any sort of Disconnect between him and you guys guys how do y'all feel he says he's been trying for this you know how however long to find the right combination of words to say to you guys to to sort of either snap you out of it or um stop this the the the sort of backward slide here um how how do you guys feel about your the dynamic between you guys and Penny right now there's no disconnect between us and Coach um like I said before like this is this is on us this is on the players um we got a veteran group we should be able to be able to talk to each other on the floor and not have a negative reaction um I mean we're old enough mature enough that shouldn't be a problem and uh you know this isn't on P at all I really I really think Co coach Penny had us prepared the last two weeks for these games and we dropped the ball to players um so it's time we look ourselves in the mirror and take responsibility because it's not on coach