St. John's University Athletics
Postgame Quotes: Syracuse 60, St. John's 57
1/23/2013 12:00:00 AM | Women's Basketball
Jan. 23, 2013
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Head Coach Joe Tartamella
Opening Statement:
"Obviously this was a difficult game, Syracuse makes a difficult shot from deep, but we gave away too many opportunities. We didn't handle the end of the game very well; the moments we needed to step up, we didn't and we didn't do the things coming out of timeouts that we had talked about, so that was a little disappointing. We let them touch the ball [on the last possession], and they were able to throw it up. The one thing we talked about coming out of the timeout was to not throw the ball toward their basket and it hurt us where they made a fairly incredible shot at the end of the game. We gave a great effort again, but did not execute in the key moments."
On the end-of-game strategy:
"We were trying to get Shenneika [Smith] a shot on the other side. We said that if they did switch initially, we wanted to open up and try to get the ball inside. We told Nadirah [McKenith] not to come beyond the 3-point line if she didn't have to; and we told Keylantra [Langley] not to throw the ball back towards midcourt if she didn't have to. They did both and we dropped the ball and gave them an opportunity to touch it. We were trying to get Shenneika a shot at the end or get Nadirah to catch and go to the rim, but we weren't able to do either of those things and we didn't execute it. Unfortunately for us, they made a great shot and we lost the game."
On the comeback from the halftime deficit:
"We executed better, we had more fun. Aliyyah Handford went on a run that helped us get back, we were smarter, we executed, and we were patient. We didn't do those things towards the end and we didn't execute, but I think our comeback was nice to see. But closing the game, we just weren't able to execute in the key moments."
On Handford's aggressiveness:
"We need Aliyyah to score, we need her aggressiveness to win these types of games. She struggled at Notre Dame, so it was a plus to see her come back here and be as aggressive as she was and that was part of the reason we came back. We need contributions from her and we need contributions from Keylantra. Aliyyah gave us a good boost and gave us some real fire, which was nice to see."
