FRESNO, Calif. — When Kim Barnes Arico walked into her winning locker room after a stunning upset at Connecticut last month and saw Da’Shena Stevens holding up her jersey and shouting “St. John’s,” the coach was among the proudest she has been of her players, her program.
The victory ended the Huskies’ 99-game home winning streak and an unbeaten run of nearly 19 years against unranked opponents in Storrs.
Barnes Arico’s third-seeded Red Storm rode that momentum right into March, and they have reached the NCAA tournament regional semifinals for the first time in school history. St. John’s (24-9) will play Saturday night against No. 2 seed Duke (26-5), which reached the round of 16 for the 14th time in 15 years, and the Red Storm see no reason to stop now after squeaking out a pair of wins in the NCAA’s first two rounds.
“We do celebrate being here, but at the same time, coach tells us, ‘Don’t get soft on us,’” guard Shenneika Smith said Friday, when her team got acclimated to West Coast time with a workout at the Save Mart Center. “We celebrate when we go home. Right now we’re here to take care of business. We came out here to California to win.”
A year ago, St. John’s season ended with a second round loss to top-seeded Stanford, which plays in Saturday night’s second game against South Carolina.
Barnes Arico wants her players to relish this special time. A day after getting through the first round of the tournament against Creighton on a coast-to-coast, buzzer-beating layin by Nadirah McKenith, she took her team to the popular fast food spot Sonic. Now that the Red Storm are in California — admittedly not one of Barnes Arico’s favorite states considering the time difference has her waking up at 4:30 a.m. — it might be iconic In-N-Out Burger.
Though her players will believe that when they have those famous fries and milkshakes in hand. Arico made her own In-N-Out stop Thursday and had a cheeseburger, fries and a strawberry shake.
“She keeps her word,” McKenith said.
“Hopefully,” added Smith.
“After the game,” quipped Stevens with a smile.
Duke hopes to spoil the fun for the first-time New Yorkers, who have their highest NCAA tournament seed ever. The Blue Devils had their own plans for In-N-Out, too.
They have adjusted to star freshman center Elizabeth Williams’ limited minutes during their latest March run. Williams was recently diagnosed with a stress fracture in her right leg, and that has coach Joanne P. McCallie playing it safe with the 6-foot-3 post as a precaution.
“I think Elizabeth is an incredible warrior,” McCallie said. “She is doing well under the circumstances. I don’t think she is playing to her highest level in a sense of what she has done statistically in the season. She is doing everything she can to help our team.”
For Duke guard Chelsea Gray, making this trip to California’s Central Valley had extra incentive. She’s playing some 75 miles south of her hometown of Stockton.
Not that Duke’s players talked about it until after they advanced through the first two rounds last week in Nashville, Tenn.
If Gray can come close Saturday to duplicating the play-making performance she had in a 96-80 second-round win over Vanderbilt, Duke should be in good shape. She dished out 12 of her team’s 28 assists as Duke shot a season-high 65.6 percent— and now Gray will have some 50 friends and family in the stands to cheer her.
Barnes Arico realizes St. John’s must find a way to slow down an athletic, steady Duke team that shot a sizzling 42 of 64 against Vandy and also had 11 steals among its 18 forced turnovers.
The Red Storm have been through their share of ups and downs, most notably Stevens undergoing left knee surgery for an offseason injury that was supposed to take four weeks to heal but wound up requiring a different procedure that sidelined her for four months. She missed the first 10 games, but four of five starters are averaging double figures since she returned in December.
“They came to St. John’s to make a difference and prove to the rest of the world they could really do it,” Barnes Arico said.
Even Barnes Arico acknowledges there were moments she wasn’t sure the team could put it all together in time to make another NCAA run.
“There were definitely times we had doubters,” Smith said. “There were times people thought we might not make it back. We’ve stuck with each other throughout everything. We just came together and played hard and this was the result we got.”