December 8th, 2006: Syracuse at St. John's

Syracuse 61, St. John's 59

The pain continues, but Monique McLean is truly coming into her own as Little Sista Christon.


I'm starting to think that this past Liberty season was actually training for this St. John's season. Injured players out the wazoo, a player who's unable to play because of silly external rules, a player who walks away from her team for no discernable reason… no, not a familiar scenario at all. *rolleyes*

When I read Nicole Michael's stats, I expected her to utterly kick ass in the game, but she was very quiet offensively. She had a stunning block and a beautiful no-look pass on a fast break (I want to say it was Sipaviciute who received it, but I'm just not sure), but she didn't get off a lot of shots. It was Fantasia Goodwin who was on fire in the first half- the woman could not miss. She shredded what you could laughably call the St. John's zone. Cintia Johnson was a little fireplug who set some mean screens. Vaida Sipaviciute, whose name I am seriously annoyed with because I can neither pronounce it or spell it properly on the first try, came on strong late, especially when she was matched against Angel or Joy, who just weren't physical enough to contain her. Riley was tough but didn't impress me, although she had a shotclock prayer go in. Syracuse went with a short bench (finals?), using Ashley McMillen as an outside shooter and the offense/defense substitution for Johnson. Last, and yep, least, the spawn of our favorite Sleestak completely and utterly failed to impress me. I think she had one good play in the entire game, and it was rebounding the shot that she left short… which she then proceeded to leave short on the follow. Honestly, she looked about as thrilled to be there as one would expect, say, Charlton Heston to be if he were an unarmed attendee at a pacifist convention. (Please, also, whoever's supplying the Syracuse uniforms- get better sports bras. Please. My sympathy pains for Riley and Miss Laimbeer are begging you.) 'Cuse did a great job cutting down on their turnovers, although a couple of iffy out-of-bounds calls and the refs' inability to count might have helped; still, great control from this junior-driven team. Also, they play a zone, which brings me back to happy memories of the Orangemen and freshman!Melo with his shirt off.

Liberty fans- do you remember that Washington game where Shameka went off and Alana Beard went off, and it was kinda cool? Well, we had a junior version of the "dueling 20s" tonight; Syracuse's Goodwin had 24, and Monique McLean dropped 23, including five 3's. This is rapidly becoming the Monique McLean show, and those of you who adore Shameka Christon might enjoy her play. Girl can drive, girl can shoot, girl can sometimes handle, although girl cannot quite defend yet. Tiina Sten also found her stroke as the first half ended, and she finished strong, although I'd like to see more interior play from her (I swear to Goddess I've written this sentence in every set of Liberty game notes evar). She also had an awesome block, as did Joy- hell, Joy had three, and I think one of hers was a "NOT IN OUR HOUSE" stuff. For the second straight game, all her boards were on the offensive end. I love that girl. Angel grabbed a whole bunch of rebounds, but the girl has GOT to assert herself more. She's too passive- although, to be fair, that's a general problem; none of these young women, except maybe Monique, were expecting to carry so much of the offensive load going into this season- they had Kia and Angela for that, damn it, their All-Big East returnees. Nikki Jo was very quiet, although this also meant that she was not making with the excessive fucking up with the ball (although, ahem, Miss Rotolo, what have we told you about leaving your feet to pass?) Charisse is still way too tentative with the ball, and when she did attempt one shot, Sipaviciute proceeded to send it into Nassau County. She did, however, have one fierce sequence where she forced a jump ball by leaping upon the Syracuse rebounder as if she hadn't eaten in a week and the ball were a chicken salad with cafeteria coupons stuck randomly in it; she also hit the three that delivered the final margin. Hopefully that'll up her confidence for Nicholls State. Allie… um, she was Allie. Which is to say she's a liability and not exactly helpful.

The refs were of the average suck tonight, and they were real refs, which I would expect from a BEast conference game; Blauch and Brooks-Clauser both work WNBA games. Only one sequence really stands out: Sipaviciute stayed in the lane ~four seconds, traveled, and fumbled the ball out of bounds. Syracuse ball. There were also a couple of ticky-tack calls at the end that I felt affected the flow of the game, and considering the final margin, all mistakes, both official and by the players, are culpable.

Tonight was autograph night, so I waited in line behind all the baby ballers and some St. John's students who were, um, an edifying experience (boys are *weird*). Victoria says she'll be back in January, although I kind of doubt it and don't know if it would be a good idea even if she could. Allie's kind of a dork, which is endearing but not enough to get past the fact that her nickname seems to be "ALLIE MOVE!" Charisse… yeah, you can tell she's a walk-on. She's not quite up on basketball terminology and strategy; when I mentioned that if Kia were back, she and Nikki Jo would've had more open shots because Syracuse probably would have doubled on Kia, she looked at me as if I had perhaps grown an extra head. Allie also seems to have a semi-hero-worship of Kia, which is kind of cute and yet disturbing at the same time. They seem, as a group, to be nice kids. (And I can call them kids now. I'm in my ninth semester. Unless Kia's birthday is really insanely early or Tiina came over late, I'm older than all of them.)

We can beat Nicholls State, right? What state are they, anyway?