St. John's University Athletics
Postgame Quotes: St. John's 66, Prairiew View 50
12/17/2011 12:00:00 AM | Women's Basketball
Dec. 17, 2011
St. John's Head Coach Kim Barnes Arico
Opening Statement:
"We came out extremely flat. It could have been a combination of finishing playing Baylor, losing our point guard, and the excitement of having Da'Shena Stevens back. We can make a million excuses for it, but we needed to change something since we weren't very good for the first half. We thought if we pressed Prairie View, we could change the tempo of the game. Obviously, it worked in our favor. We gave up a bunch of 3-pointers doing it, but at that point I didn't care because at least we were playing aggressively - which we didn't do in the first half at all."
On Da'Shena Stevens returning and her progress:
"She's not anywhere near where she can be yet. Her presence and feel for the game relieves a lot of the pressure from her teammates. She rebounded well and her toughness was very good. She didn't score very much, but she had six rebounds, four assists and four steals in just 19 minutes. She has a very good feel for the game, she makes everyone around her better and her shooting touch will come."
On the loss of Nadirah McKenith:
"I hope the rest of the country got a chance to see Nadirah play in the first half of last week's game against Baylor. When we lost Nadirah, we lost so many things people don't even think of -- like her on the ball defense and the pressure it takes off of Eugeneia [McPherson]. I was interested to see how we would respond today without her and I think it's going to be tough for us going forward because Nadirah does so much for us."
Junior Guard Eugeneia McPherson
On getting open looks:
"My teammates helped out by opening up a lot for me. With having Da'Shena back, other teams are going to focus on her because she's a distraction in the middle. Today a lot of my three's came off of Da'Shena's work in the middle."
On the adjustments made by St. John's in the second half:
"In the first half we were not playing as hard as we would have liked to and they were scoring at will. Coach told us we had to pick up our defensive effort and I think we did that well in the second half."
