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BIG EAST CONFERENCE WOMEN'S TOURNAMENTMarch 8, 2015Danaejah GrantAlfiyyah HandfordROSEMONT, ILLINOIS St. John's – 57 COACH TARTAMELLA: Another great postseason basketball game in a tournament against Creighton, and we know‑‑ just really proud of our young ladies. I thought coming into the half we did a great job of sustaining ourselves after the first couple minutes of the game, which I thought was huge, and then we persevered and we made plays and executed the game plan that we had set forth over the week. When we do those things and when we guard how we're capable of doing, we are a very good team, so I'm just truly proud of our effort, especially to finish the game, tight situations and the magnitude of the game that we had, so very proud of the effort, and we move on to tomorrow, so we know we're ready. Q. After trailing for most of the game getting closer and closer, how did it feel to get over the hump and get that lead with about nine minutes to go? DANAEJAH GRANT: It felt good. It just showed us that we're able to with stand blows. There was a lot of times we could have quit throughout the game, and I think just to rally together and be able to overcome that was just great for us moving into tomorrow. ALIYYAH HANDFORD: I think it was just our defense. We had to play better defense, and that's what we did at the last stretch, and that helped us a lot. Q. You guys had trouble scoring to start off the game. I don't think you got on the board until about 14 minutes to go into the first half. When the shots aren't falling, you're having trouble getting to the lane, how do you adjust? DANAEJAH GRANT: We adjusted by attacking. We tried to get to the foul line a little more, so I was able to‑‑ just being able to see the ball go through the net was good for us. Like I said, just to attack and not settle for jump shots anymore. ALIYYAH HANDFORD: And we was driving, everyone would collapse, and we had opened up for the post, so if we're not screwing, post can score too, so we've got to look at that, too. Q. Sydney got off to a good start for them, really hot start, and then looked like you switched Handford onto her, especially the second half. What did you think of the way she defended her and kind of neutralized your offense? Aliyyah, would you talk on what you were able to do in the second half to be able to neutralize her? ALIYYAH HANDFORD: I just stopped her from going to her right hand. That's what she was doing the whole time. I just got up in her and just played great defense. It didn't matter what was going on, who was guarding her before. We all guarded her as a team. Q. Rebounding seemed to be a big factor, especially in the second half, your second‑chance points. I guess what was the adjustment you guys made to kind of be better in that area in the second half? DANAEJAH GRANT: We knew our shots weren't falling really all night. We didn't really shoot that well from the floor, so we knew that we had to focus on offensive rebounds because we kind of had an advantage on them down low. I think we just focused on that and were able to convert. Q. Aliyyah, I'll ask you this. You were down by seven, three minutes into the second half, but it seemed like at the same time you were still getting what you wanted and it was your kind of style of play. Do you think that was the case even though you were down by a lot at one point? ALIYYAH HANDFORD: Most of it was us not rushing. Even though we were down by seven we still didn't take shots that we didn't need. We didn't rush, so what you just stated was true. Q. Coach, when Lamberty was kind of getting what she wanted in the first half, how hard of a decision was it to put Handford on her and what did you think of the way she was able to‑‑ COACH TARTAMELLA: Yeah, I thought it was a big moment in the game, and I thought Danaejah was doing a great job and I thought she got a little fatigued, and we felt that‑‑ and I felt that Aliyyah gave us a chance maybe to be a little bit quicker with her and trying to get her open. I thought Aliyyah did a great job. We've struggled all year at times defensively, and as has been discussed earlier, our style of playing is trying to make sure we're going to guard and make the game sometimes a little ugly is okay. We play so hard defensively at times, Aliyyah and Danaejah, not that I like to look at it, played 40 minutes and 40 minutes and 40 minutes, but they're playing both ends. It's so impressive to me as a coach to watch these ladies do it. I just thought Aliyyah did a great job, and Danaejah did a great job, too, when we moved her off and did some great things. I was proud of their effort, but I thought that was a big piece to the game, yeah. Q. On one side for Creighton, Rollerson really played well for them today, but you said in the conference call on Wednesday you need to defend, but you also need to figure out a way to get somebody going in your front court. How important was that for amber? COACH TARTAMELLA: It was truly huge. When people look at this line, for 'Ber as a senior, this is what you want your seniors to do. You want them to have big moments in big time games. Her focus today and her energy level, whether we had her playing big or small, it was fantastic, making catches off tough passes from our guards, and for her to have 14 points to give us a little bit of a cushion there in that third score maybe on a night when we were struggling some other areas was crucial, along with her defense. But I thought Kyra Dunn, and many of you may not know, but Kyra Dunn was unbelievable today, and I told her in the locker room, and for a kid who hasn't played a lot of minutes for us all year, she was fantastic. You need those kind of things to happen to win these types of games, and I thought Aliyyah Handford has a double‑double, which is probably the first time she's had that in a while, and that's a big piece, too. She had some huge put‑backs at the end. Q. Final minutes, you were going back and forth with timeouts. What were you thinking was going through your head in that final sequence, as well? COACH TARTAMELLA: Well, we had a foul to give, and we talked about fouling. They were out of timeouts in that last sequence, so anything can really happen. We could say foul and they come in and knock down a three. Whether they had a play set up or not, we decided to roll it, and he got a shot, and he got a shot last year, too. But when you've got six‑four running at you sometimes that helps. They happened to miss it. They did get the put‑back. Thankfully they went for the two and it worked out in our favor. But I thought we made some really big momentum plays as far as put‑backs even when we missed. But the final sequence is always tough. You're talking about not giving up threes to kids who can bomb. You're talking about making sure we can be effective on the glass. I was pleased with the sharpness that we had toward the end of the game, and quite frankly, we hadn't been in a lot of‑‑ last year we were in so many of these situations. This year has been a little bit different. I've got a young team as far as youth and minutes, so I mean, I'm so pleased with where they are, but you know what, we also know we've got an opportunity again tomorrow to come back in here and get an opportunity to play against Seton Hall. We're excited about that moving forward. But Creighton is a tremendous program. Q. I don't know if you mentioned it at halftime, but did you circle points off turnovers in that area because it seemed like the difference you guys made in the second half ended up being kind of the difference in the game. COACH TARTAMELLA: Yeah, I mean, any game‑‑ we've got to manufacture some points here and there and turnovers are a big piece. To have 17 off of them today is a big piece to the game. And that's part of your finishing and your conversion. We did some really good things in some great areas. They got 38 percent from the field, 28 percent from three. Those are things that we pride ourselves on. As someone mentioned before, 57‑54, we'll sign up for that and walk away. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports |
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