St. John's University Athletics
Postgame Quotes: St. John's 56, UCSB 47
12/19/2010 12:00:00 AM | Women's Basketball
Dec. 19, 2010
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- St. John's Head Coach Kim Barnes Arico
Opening Statement:
"I can't say how proud I am of our young ladies today. I can't even express what they went through in the last 24 hours and for them to be able to come out and win the basketball game, like they were able to do, really just gives me great pride and great confidence in our time. We were the walking wounded, you saw that yesterday in how we had to finish the game, and everybody pretty much, at least the starting group, went out there with injuries and they all played through them and came together. For us to win the game without arguable our best player as well as our next best post player, Coco, who played but really couldn't do much, it really just makes me proud and says a lot about the young ladies."
On the winning the game despite the injuries:
"Well we really talked, and the players told you a little bit, but we spoke a lot about character this morning before the game and sacrifice and being able to step up and everybody needed to do a little bit more and if they did then we felt like we could be successful. We really talked about that and focused on it and some key people came in and gave us great minutes through the whole tournament and really did some nice things. They were all banged up and we talked about 200 minutes, the game, everybody has 40 minutes, five starters, that's 200 minutes and we don't play our next game for something like 68,000 minutes. So you get 68,000 minutes of rest so all you need to contribute right now is 200. They kind of bought into it, we talked a lot this morning about what we needed to do and I was proud that they were able to do that. Like I said, if you take Da'Shena and Coco out of the mix I wouldn't think we would be able to be very successful and we were, and Jennifer came in and gave us some real quality minutes."
On being able to grind out the win:
"We definitely had to grind it out. Nadirah being injured, she sets a completely different pace for our team, and I think Sky does a tremendous job at the one for us but they have totally different styles and totally different games. So when Sky is at the one, or even Keylantra is at the one, the speed of our team is really different than when Nadirah is. Nadirah played through her broken finger this weekend and she gave us some really great minutes but I thought Sky held her own. It was a grind out type of game like you said. Every possession was really important."
On the play of Shenneika Smith:
"She had that spurt where she took over the game and she's capable of doing that. Chris Monasch is up there and I talk about all the time how her shot selection really needs to improve. Sometimes she takes some shots and you question why she's shooting it but then other times she's able to do what she did today on four straight possessions when she came down and scored on incredible moves and incredible shots. We were struggling to score at that point, so I thought she did a really good job at taking over the game."
On the defense:
"How about our defense though? We've really been holding teams pretty good. I think that was a key thing and we were concerned about our rebounding. I'm looking at the stats and Buzz had six which is probably her career-high, Eugenia had eight, which is probably her career-high, and Sky averages two a game and she had five. Those other people really stepped up and gave us significant minutes and that helped out a lot."
On the player's injuries:
"I think the most important thing for us is to keep our conditioning level and to make sure that we don't lose too much and have everybody get healthy and get back. We have a really tough tournament coming up, at Maryland, and then we go into our league, which our league has been ridiculous, they're phenomenal. We've got to go to Louisville and they had a tough one yesterday but they've had some tremendous wins and playing at their place is extremely difficult. We just need to get healthy and stay and shape, then we'll continue to work on the basketball end of things."
Sophomore Guard Shenneika Smith
On her preparation to come back from injury and play against UCSB:
"I'm in a little bit of pain, but last night, before we left here, I went through treatment for like two hours, just icing and stretching. In bed last night I was icing. And today when I got here, I iced again and I [received heat treatment] and I stretched. It's just been a long day and I wasn't really feeling well with the ankle, but I had to just go out and play. I put in my mind that its 40 minutes. Coach says its 200 minutes in a game. I had to go out the first half. It was a little rough for me. I was just getting comfortable. But in the second half, I knew my team needed me and I wanted them to be able to depend on me. We read something in the locker room before the game and I felt that I could do that and I just went out and play."
On her second-half surge:
"[My ankle] didn't get any better [in the second half]. But coming out of halftime, I told my team I have 20 minutes and I felt that at a point in the game they needed me to score and do other things. I put it in my mind that the pain is always going to be there, so I could just go out and give it all I had. We have a day off tomorrow - I didn't know Coach was going to do that - and I just went out and played."
On if she thinks that this win was a character-building win:
"Somewhat. Most of us were a little banged up, but we came together. When we're together, it's hard to stop us because we have such a great chemistry. With the injuries, it just lacks what we're normally doing like really running and pushing. But we're now a team where Eugeneia [McPherson] and Buzz [Amanda Burakoski] pick up the slack for us and Sky [Lindsay] had a great first half. So, it just seems that the depth of our team is the strength of our team."
Senior Guard Sky Lindsay
On her career-high 19 shot taken and if she was trying to be more aggressive offensively:
"We just had a nice emotional moment in the locker room. This game was for Da'Shena Stevens. She wanted to play today and we knew how much this game meant for her to play if she could've played in it. I knew I had to step up and I knew we all had to step up and get this win. It's our tournament so everyone wants to win their home tournament. We were doing it for Da'Shena. Even though she wasn't on the bench, she was in the back the whole time watching the game. She was there and she was in the game as much as all of us were in the game."
On the keeping the tempo high in the second half:
"Coach always tells us that basketball's a game of runs and it's just a matter of who's more consistent in the second half and who can just keep it up and put the ball in the basket more. Thankfully, we did that."
On what the win meant after the team overcame many injuries:
"Usually before every game we do film on the team we play against and we just focus on three key things to win. Today it was only one key thing and it was a big picture of a heart. Through all of the injuries, as long as we had heart, we were all in it together as a team and we had heart in it. That was the only main thing we focused on today. It was making sure that we did this for the team and having heart.
UCSB Head Coach Lindsay Gottlieb
Opening Statement:
"I really liked our effort. We kind of shot ourselves in the foot. They're the no. 18 team in the country because of the talent of the individual players that they have. I thought we competed well. At times, especially late in the first half, we knew what we were looking for and we executed well. We obviously made a few turnovers. Then when it came down to crunch time, down six, a player like Shenneika Smith is going to take over and make some tough shots. At that point, we were hoping that we were doing some other things well to withstand that."
On St. John's' 2-3 Zone:
"It's not a traditional 2-3 zone because they're so long and they extended the court. For us, some of our traditional looks weren't there because of the length that St. John's has. Some of our looks were a little rushed because of the winding shot clock. They weren't comfortable looks that we would normal take. At times in the first half we really got in a rhythm and we got some good looks. But I thought, offensively, we had to play near perfect to take advantage of the some of the opportunities that they gave us."
