NCAA WOMEN'S BASKETBALL CHAMPIONSHIP: FIRST ROUND - ST. JOHN’S (NY) VS. NORTH CAROLINA

March 18, 2023

Joe Tartamella

Mimi Reid

Value City Arena

St. John’s (NY) Red Storm

Media Conference

North Carolina 61, St. John's 58

JOE TARTAMELLA: I love my team. They've got a lot of players who are struggling right now obviously. We knew the season was going to end at some point. But as I told them, in doing this for the amount of time that I've done it, I probably won't have a group that'll mean as much as they did. Toward the end, felt good, and then obviously they made a couple plays that finished it, and then we had a shot at the end. That's all you can ask for.

I thought we did what we could. We clawed back. We went down, we fought. Just everything I love about the whole group. It stinks. But at the end of the day, we didn't make the last play that we needed to, and they did.

But as I told them, I don't think for one second that this group should ever be upset or hang their heads at all.

I've had some really good teams, teams that have been in this position. But the hurt they have is because they really love each other. That's the part that hurts.

At the same time, they represented themselves and the university in the best fashion possible.

Q. Mimi, you had a couple of big shots there down the stretch as St. John's was catching up there with North Carolina. Can you take me through the last couple of minutes as the team was making a comeback? How would you describe the fight that your team had there to take it all the way down to the final buzzer?

MIMI REID: Well, you said it yourself. This team has a lot of fight and that's what we've pretty much been doing all year is making people care, making people know who we are. And in those final minutes, we were just constantly pouring positivity into each other. Letting each other know, next play, we got this, and that's all you can ask for.

I think that this group is really special, and Joey T led us all the way to here. And I think that when you look at it in the final seconds, you'd be like maybe they could have did this, maybe they could have did that.

But nobody was there along the journey. Nobody knows the things we had to go through, the adversity throughout the whole year. At the end of the day, those final seconds don't define us, but it was one heck of a ride.

Q. How would you describe the second half in general overall? It looks like your team shot 57 percent, just a different number than the first half. What was the difference there, the halftime message, or were shots just falling?

MIMI REID: We had to just make an adjustment within ourselves. It was nothing that UNC was doing that was really hurting us in that time. We just had to adjust, and that's what we've been doing all year. So we made those adjustment and hit shots, they fall, run our offense, and just don't let anybody take us out of our game.

At the end of the day, the locker room was full of positivity. It wasn't we need to do this, we need to do that. It was just go be you and do what you've been doing all year.

Q. When you hear your coach say this team means as much to him as any other team, just the uniqueness and how special this team was to start the season the way your team did, what stands out the most and what do you think of when you reflect on St. John's season?

MIMI REID: Well, Joey T went and got a bunch of girls with a whole different kind of story and just brought us all together. And he said, hey, this is what we're going to go do, and we said, okay, let's do it. We believed in each other. We understood each other's path, each other's journey, and a lot of us it was our last year, so why not go out with a bang.

We had a goal in mind, and I think a lot of people counted us out. It was our duty to go prove everybody wrong and make people care about us, and I think tonight we did that, and even along the whole season.

Q. Coach, when you hear Mimi say going out and proving doubters wrong and things like that, and you mentioned just reflecting on the season a couple of minutes ago, how much does it mean to you to perform at this stage in the NCAA Tournament and this sort of a season with this sort of St. John's team?

JOE TARTAMELLA: I mean, I've watched them do it all year.

I think as Mimi alluded to, my message all year was make them care, and they did that. That covers a lot, okay, but no, I've seen them do it all year. You don't have an opportunity to be in the games we were in all year or be in the environments we were in and come out successful unless you have a team that's built for these moments, and they were.

So I'm just really proud that the entire country, the entire world got to see them play because it's fun to watch. And the amount of support we've gotten from just people back home, people who follow us, our community, our university, our president, obviously our athletic department with our AD, and this is Kathy's last run, so I couldn't be prouder to have her here.

I mean, we were built for it.