St. John's University Athletics
Postgame Quotes: St. John's 78, Iona 48
11/12/2013 12:00:00 AM | Women's Basketball
Nov. 12, 2013
Head Coach Joe Tartamella
Opening statement:
"We talk as coaches all the time about giving two great efforts in each half. I thought we did that tonight, and even though it's early in the year, I was very proud of the effort we gave. We had a great first half after starting slow, and then we rebounded again in the second half and put two really good 20-minute periods together. Aliyyah Handford obviously had a lot to do with that tonight. She had a tremendous game, but all scholarship players scored for us, which was great."
On the play of sophomore guard Aliyyah Handford:
"She does stuff in practice that you just don't get to see in terms of her athleticism and her ability to play both ends of the floor. She defends the best player, she gets out in transition and she scores for us. We feel that she's one of the best guards in the country and that's why she came here. She wanted to show people that and we're continuing to work with her to develop her into that player. As we saw last year, she's going to be the backbone for what we do for a good period of time here, along with some of the others that have come in."
On the Red Storm's 18-4 first-half run:
"I thought we allowed them to get to their strengths early. Damika Martinez is a very good player for them and along with Joy Adams they were two focal points for us. We didn't take them away early but then I thought we slowed them down. We had a conversation about changing some of the things we were doing in one of the early timeouts and we came out and went on a run, which was jolted by Aliyyah. That gave them the one big punch that made them stagger a little bit and I don't think they were able to recover from there."
On room for improvement:
"We have to get healthy, period. We got a chance to see Sandra Udobi play 13 minutes tonight and got a little taste of what she can do. If she becomes healthy for us we can be very, very good. Mallory Jones is starting to come out and play a little bit, and we're seeing her do well. We had 18 assists and four turnovers tonight. I've been here a long time and that's probably the best game that we've ever had in that area, which means we are sharing the ball and we're doing the things we talked about in practice. That stat alone for me is something we will continue to harp on. We have to continue to attack the rim and get to the free throw line, more than we have, and also continue to limit our turnovers."
On the team's inside presence:
"Amber came out, and for not playing in our first game, I was pretty happy with what she did. She did a great job and went from three minutes to 27 minutes. Iona wasn't really able to combat her in the paint, and Sandra gives us another back to the basket presence. Mallory Jones can do the same as well for us at times, while also being able to stretch defenses."
Sophomore guard Aliyyah Handford
On scoring a career-high 32 points:
"It's all down to hard work. I've worked hard on my shot and tonight I was aggressive. I'm one of our returning scorers from last season so I know I have to step up my game and score more."
