POSTGAME QUOTES: ST. JOHN’S WOMEN’S BASKETBALL VS. QUINNIPIAC
St. John’s Women’s Basketball Head Coach Joe Tartamella, graduate student guard Ny’Ceara Pryor, and junior guard Olivia Tucker spoke to the media after the Red Storm’s 73-52 win over Quinnipiac.
Opening statement...
“Obviously kind of a rock fight game in a way. I thought we did enough to win the game. Certainly, we would have liked to have played a little bit cleaner, but these are things we’ve seen. I thought in terms of the first quarter, the game started real slow.”
On Olivia Tucker's performance…
“I thought Liv came in the game and really gave us a spark to probably have our best offensive output in the quarter, change the pace of the game, just did a really good job coming in off the bench.”
On St. John's effort…
“I think the biggest thing I love about the group itself is they play really hard. I don’t know if we’ve played overly smart at times in terms of using our quickness or physicality to our advantage in terms of pressuring, but we certainly did enough.”
“We still have to have a sense of urgency in terms of how we’re playing. I told them in the locker room, I think in a typical year, you walk out of the game feeling good about what you did. I do feel good about how hard we played, but we need to execute a little better.”
Graduate student guard Ny'Ceara Pryor
On taking care of the ball…
“They depend on me to take care of the ball and control the tempo of the game. First half like coach said wasn’t our best play, but just coming back out there and responding is what we needed to do and I did.”
Junior guard Olivia Tucker
On her mindset after each shot…
“It’s more about the next one, the next defensive play. Shots will come, but if we aren’t playing defense... defense motivates our offense and I feel like that’s what really got it going.”
On the impact of defensive pressure…
“I think we all hype each other up in practice whenever one of us makes a big defensive stop and I think that really translates over to the game”.