Andrew Coen - The St. John’s University Women’s Basketball Team has high expectations for the 2009/2010 season and beyond thanks in part to a five-member freshman class ranked 15th in the nation by ESPN.com and Blue Star Basketball.  One of these talented newcomers to the Red Storm Women’s Basketball Program is North Babylon High School Graduate Eugeneia McPherson and St. John’s Head Coach Kim Barnes Arico is expecting big things from the native Long Islander.

McPherson made her college basketball debut in her native Suffolk County with St. John’s winning at Stony Brook 89-52 on November 15th.  The North Babylon High School product scored 5 points in 17 minutes of action. In her second college game at Massachusetts on November 18th, McPherson had another strong outing as she scored 11 points in 18 minutes on the floor.

“Eugeneia is one of the toughest, hardworking newcomers,” said Barnes Arico, a native Long Islander herself who was a star women’s basketball player at William Floyd High School and was head coach at Adelphi from 1999-2002. “The passion and intensity of which she plays is the kind of kid that I would like to coach.”

Some of the factors that led McPherson to choose St. John’s were the Jamaica, Queens campus being just 40 minutes from her North Babylon home, the comfortable relationship she felt with the Red Storm coaching staff, and playing in the Big East conference. “My family can watch me play, which was a big part of my decision,” said McPherson. “I wanted to play against the best players."  

McPherson arrives at St. John’s after a stellar career at North Babylon High School that included scoring 2,216 points and leading the Bulldogs to a Long Island Class AA Championship title in her junior season. She said her goal for her freshman basketball season is to receive as many minutes as possible off the bench and do her part to try and lead St. John’s to its first NCAA Tournament since 2006.

The biggest adjustment McPherson has found transitioning from high school to college basketball is the intensity of practices and how much more physical the game is against bigger and stronger players. “The practices are way more intense, but it is good intensity,” she said. “The physicalness is a huge difference from high school basketball.”  

In her young college career, McPherson has so far stepped up to the challenge of putting in the necessary extra work needed to thrive at a Big East program like St. Johns, which this week received three votes in the latest Associated Press Top 25 Poll. “She works so hard day in and day out and it is hard to keep her off the floor because she does so many intangible things,” said Barnes Arico. “She is a great young lady to coach.”

**Photo courtesy of St. John's University**