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Guard #1 Jalen Brunson

On having difficulty against St. John's

"They are just a great team. They have good depth and are coached by one of the greatest coaches of all time. They are just scrappy. They have great length and strong will which made this game a tough one."

On the sense of urgency heading into the final minutes

"There defiantly was a sense of urgency as time went down. It was desperation time trying to find ways to steal the ball away and in the end, they just executed one more play better than we did. If we had just thirty more seconds, we possibly could have gotten the job done."

Guard #2 Collin Gillespie

On the three pointer that reduced St. John's lead down to one

"Jermaine (Samuels) did a good job by getting into the paint and crashed, got the board and passed it out and I just stepped into it and took the shot. All our players have confidence to shoot the ball late in games and it was just any other shot for me stepping into and following through on the shot."

St. John's Head Coach Chris Mullin

On how they pulled off wins over Duke and Villanova back to back after losing 11 straight,

"Perseverance. At the end we made some plays to close it out and in the games we lost we weren't making those plays. These guys have been mentally strong and have kept coming back, practicing hard and it was only a matter of time before good things would happen. When it keeps happening 11 times in a row its hard but these guys have stayed together, fought through it and gave these good things a chance to happen."

On what it means for his time at St. John's and the program to have these back to back wins,

"I've gone into every single game since I was ten years old thinking that I was going to win. That's how I coach every game. We never go into any game thinking anything else and these are huge wins for the players. I think it's a testament to their perseverance, their unselfishness for each other and their confidence. It doesn't matter about me, it's all for the players."

On if a win like this helps rekindle the St. John's Villanova rivalry like it was when he was a player,

"To me it's a rivalry and it always will be. There's a tremendous respect and fight between some of the guys I played with and a lot of the Villanova guys and I've shed some of those stories onto these guys. I remember all of the games that we lost; you don't really remember the ones you win. But you learn from them and these guys are going through the same thing. They've fought through some basketball adversity and have a nice chunk of the season left to do some damage in this league."

On why St. John's has been able to close out these last two games,

"It's things like making free throws, grabbing rebounds and most importantly defense. Our defense has been a lot better and we've gotten stops and rebounds. We've been able to turn stops into rebounds into run outs which results in solid possessions. We've had a little bit of better shot selection and we've been more efficient offensively, too. These past two games we've made some impossible shots down the stretch and a lot of times that's the difference."

Guard #2 Shamorie Ponds

On what himself and the players thought going against Duke and Villanova after 11 straight losses,

"Even with the losses, we've stuck together. We go into every game expecting to win, that's just our mindset. With the 11 games we lost, a lot of them were really close. We've competed with some good teams and we believe we can compete with anybody in the country."

On what it feels like to beat Duke and Villanova,

"It gives all of us the confidence we need going into the last stretch of the season. We can't go back, we just have to keep getting better."