February 26th, 2008: Seton Hall at St. John's

Joy McCorvey approves of the music, but the Game Notes do not approve of Bryan Enterline.


Okay, now I think it can be conclusively stated that St. John's is, at worst, the thirteenth best team in the conference. It remains to be seen whether they can prove themselves to be the twelfth best team, and worthy of getting a first-round ass-whooping instead of watching someone else get a first-round ass-whooping. If they play anything like they did tonight… well, the gods alone know the depths of Cincinnati's sucktiude, so that's a winnable game.

I'll admit to having had a bad feeling about this game when I went in. For one thing, St. John's is doing major construction around Carnesecca, which resulted in me tromping through the muddy, wet, snowy, dark parking lot in an ankle-length dress while the rain pissed down on me. For another thing… ENTERLINE. Goddamn it, hasn't that man been thrown out of Division I yet? And I'm not so sure that the other ref wasn't a very badly used Courteau or Bell. Argh.

Something must be up with Seton Hall, and not in the good way, because I knew Mukosiej was injured, but Womack didn't play either. The plot, it thickens. Honestly, this Seton Hall team didn't even look as good as they did against Rutgers, although I do wonder how much of that has to do with the absence of Womack. Freshman guard Ebonie Williams got herself loose for a lot of jumpers, though she does make the freshman mistake of taking shots with a foot on the line. Shantel Brown was also sneaky quick. I'm really surprised they didn't try to find Jadis Rhodin more often- I remember her whoopin' on RU with some outside jumpers, and tonight her primary defender was Little Sista Christon (that's Monique McLean, for those of you who haven't been reading my notes for three years), who has the same sporatic interest in defense as the original Sista Christon and less size than Rhodin. I think they also wanted to establish Amber Harris, and couldn't manage to do it, between the foul situation and yeoman's work by the post rotation for the Red Storm. The Pirates went with a very short rotation, which took me by surprise. Their bench play was rather international, with Aussie Nikole Sullivan and Brit Kashmere Joseph getting the bulk of those minutes. Joseph handles herself like she thinks she's Cheryl Ford- honey, your ass ain't even Amisha Carter. I'm starting to think Seton Hall is just playing out the string until they can bid a fond farewell to Harris, Sullivan, and Mukosiej and then think about next year, when I think they're really going to finish the push they started this year.

What I loved about this game was the early balance. Monique hit her 1000 early- congratulations to the 16th woman in Red Storm history to hit the four-digit plateau! She did a great job of getting to the line and hitting her free throws. Sky's shot was actually falling, although she took a couple of horrible shots that she should have passed to someone else. Kia got her points, and her assists- on the flip side, there were a couple of possessions that ended in misses or turnovers during which Kia had an open shot that she passed up. Joy was the cleanup girl, same as she always is, getting buckets off broken plays and offensive rebounds, not to mention being one of the few Red Storm players to chase after loose balls. 11 rebounds in 22 minutes- Joy, ilu. Off the bench… Lord have mercy. As soon as Amber Harris picked up her fourth foul, Recee started beatin' on her like she was the redheaded stepchild. True facts: the wonderful lady sitting next to me headed to the concession stand when Recee had 5 points and was ready to take the first of two free throws. When my companion for the evening returned, Recee had 13 points. In those three minutes, she looked like she could take on the Oklahoma front line with enough left over to take on Appel and Pederson for dessert. Badass to the max. It was nice to see Sheree get extended minutes for her hustle, and much, much nicer to see Nikki Jo and Charisse again. I was starting to miss them. I've been watching Nikki Jo in shootaround, and I think she's finally starting to get this whole team thing- it escaped her a little bit at the beginning of the year. I'd like to see her get a little more run- I mean, it's not likely to happen this season, since we've only got two games left and I'd kinda like Kia's last game not to be a bitch-slapping by Notre Dame.

Don't ever tell me music doesn't make a difference to a team. The team changed their "look, we're coming onto the court now!" music early in the season, from "My Name Is Ho" to "Good Life" (while the rumored reason annoys me, I happen to like the new song better, so there). And they just changed up the second-half "look, we're coming back onto the court now!" music this game, to "Walk It Out"… which was the introductory "look, we're coming onto the court now!" music last season. When that came out of the speakers as the Red Storm came back out onto the court, Joy's face split into this big grin that didn't come off all through halftime. And Joy's not as much into the groove as some of her teammates- through much of the bad part of the season, I've been saying that Sky, Monique, Coco, Sheree, and Recee are about one choreographer and two makeovers away from forming a girl group.

The bad news was that Enterline sucked as much as can be expected. The good news, at least for fans in red, was that the suckitude was more or less in St. John's favor. The Seton Hall bench drew a technical after one… particularly interesting call. I think that was the one where three players hit the deck and nothing was called, because Barnes Arico was steamed too, and Mangina had a very long talk with Enterline during the media timeout that followed. Phyllis, if you called him any bad words, please let us know so we can reward you appropriately.

Recee, you are a badass. This has already been established. However, if you have 14 points and Coach just sent in Nikki Jo, Charisse, and Kristin, the proper response is not to keep the ball yourself and score. The proper response is to dish off and see if your teammates- especially those who haven't seen the court in ages and were suspended alongside you for UConn- can get theirs. At least Sheree- who did get hers earlier- tried to dish off to Kristin on the fast break, but Kristin backed it out. This may be why Recee was pulled at the end of the game. Save some of the badass for Cincy and Notre Dame, aiite?

Oh- apparently the players who got suspended were causing some kind of ruckus in their room up in Connecticut- according to the Kia-kin, Kia left before the ruckus got too bad, but obviously Coach wasn't interested in that. I'm not sure if I buy that completely, because that would have to be some kind of ruckus for me to suspend half the freakin' team. The more I think about it, though… she knew we were gonna get spanked by UConn, the team certainly played the last thirty minutes with fire and passion, and really, except for questioning the lack of subs during the spanking, no one would have noticed if she suspended Nikki Jo and Charisse. If there was a life lesson involved in there somewhere, or even a power struggle, that was probably a good time to do it. I still think it's hormones talking. That's my excuse for anything that's gone wrong this season: crazy female hormones.

If any of you happen to be the guy who spent the entire game screaming at Sky Lindsay as if she could hear you from the stands, for the love of God, please shut up. You're gonna give someone a heart attack one of these days. At least spread the yelling out.

I saw a classic blonde moment tonight, and it didn't even come from Tiina. During the t-shirt toss, two high schoolers a few rows below me were… well, I don't know if they were chatting, or watching the cheerleaders, or whatever, but one of the shirt tossers reared back and tossed the shirt… and hit one of the girls in the head. Worse. I have the sneaking suspicion that the blonde was that kid from Mary Louis who committed as a junior, and if that's the case, she can change her mind at any time; we had four years of blonde moments from Tiina, we don't need another batch.

I don't want to say the attendance sucked, but even Seton Hall didn't have a posse, and the fan of the game was Barnes Arico's daughter. The official box says 375, but I find that hard to believe. More like 300, I'd say. Better be more for senior night, damnit.