December 21st, 2008: Boston College at St. John's (Chartwells Holiday Classic)

St. John's Red Storm 72, Boston College Eagles 63

Joy McCorvey and Da'Shena Stevens earn their scholarships against Stefanie Murphy and Carolyn Swords, while Monique McLean continues to be awesome.


Big win. Big, big win. We needed this to show that we weren't just spanking mid-majors. We needed to beat one of the few major-conference foes we had on the schedule, and we did so. I mean, I don't know if Boston College is actually any good, or if they're cruising for a fall from grace after Inglese's departure, but it's a win that feels good.

Look, guys. If it's a doubleheader without separate admission, you don't need to have a second anthem. Even if you feel you need to, you can use the same recording you did before. Even if you want to change it up, you can pick someone who actually knows how to sing and doesn't fuck up the words. That guy from the staff might be a nice guy, but that was the worst anthem I've ever heard. And the scary part is that he's done the anthem before, and he was even worse than he was the first time he tortured that song.

Crawley really screwed around with her subs today. A couple of players who got big minutes in the first game got few minutes in the second, a couple of players who didn't play the first game played a lot in the second game. She really seems like she doesn't know what she has on her roster, or she's really wedded to playing matchups, and in the eleventh game of the season, she should be somewhat aware of the players she has. That being said, I can't figure out why she benched Veronica Wilson for the first game. She's got good range and good instincts. We did a great job of keeping a lid on Ayla Brown and, to a lesser extent, Mickel Picco. Keeping Brown off the boards and Picco under 20 made the difference. Even though Swords and Murphy were able to take advantage of their size for stretches, it wasn't enough. Swords really looks like she's regressing- far too passive for a woman her size, far too willing to let smaller posts run all over her. And she shouldn't be even up with a 5'9" guard in the rebounding department in the same number of minutes- not when the number of boards is 4. Murphy played okay- nothing to write home about, except for her outside shooting- nice range for a woman her size. Picco's still damn good, and this game could have been a lot more interesting if BC had found her a couple of more times when she managed to shake her defender and get wide open in the corner. Seriously, she was so open that at one point I found myself shrieking "SHIT!" because I thought we were well and truly screwed.

Monique, you're amazing. Just. Again, she was getting to the line, and not just in garbage time situations, and that really says a lot about her game. She's turning it up right when we're going into the BEast season, and yea, verily, fearsome is the BEast. Joy does exactly what we need her to do- she gets the boards, she plays defense, and she hits the shots we need her to hit. She and Da'Shena did a brilliant job on the much taller and much broader Swords- Joy gives up six inches, Da'Shena five, and college teams don't give weights, so I don't want to think about how much girth Swords could throw at them Joy looked like she was being bent backwards, but she was consistently getting position on Swords. And Da'Shena smashed two awesome blocks, one on Swords, one on Murphy that we're expecting to see on the highlight reel. Day impresses me more and more every time I see her; if she can become a consistent shooter, she'll tear the league apart by the time she's a senior. Sky played a good defensive game- so did Monique. Kelly was feeling her stroke, but she had a dreadful habit of losing Picco on defense, and no one should be out of it enough to commit a five-seconds-one-position violation. I love her work on the press, though. Ditto for Britney. She's starting to remind me a little of Tully Bevilaqua, in terms of playing style- very defensive-minded guard, a real ballhawk, not much of a scorer, but a good distributor. She's growing on me. She's just wearing the wrong number. Coco was hit and miss- sometimes very good and very fiery, sometimes very stupid.

Between the loud screaming guy for St. John's and the BC family we were sitting near (I think they may have been Veronica Wilson's, but don't hold me to it), it could be established that no one was happy with the refs. Surprising, given that Brooks-Clauser and DeMayo both worked this game, but they all got caught up in the stupid little infractions and had a tendency to ignore the big fouls that were going on. Britney got more armbars to… um, a place one would not want them, and Da'Shena keeps getting hit. And I don't like what Crawley's doing with BC- they threw an awful lot of forearms to the throat, though in the case of their posts, that might be a result of height.

The crowds for both games blew, and one of the things I don't like about doubleheaders is that the fans of the two teams in the first game leave after the game, and the fans for the second game don't show up until the second game. For Buffalo and Houston, I felt like I was the only St. John's fan in the building.

All-tournament team: Ephesia Holmes of Buffalo (good choice), Courtney Taylor of Houston (good choice), Mickel Picco of BC (really fucking good choice), Carolyn Swords of BC (um, wtf?), Joy McCorvey of St. John's (good choice, but I'm biased), and Kelly McManmon of St. John's (um, less wtf than Swords, but I wouldn't have picked her). MVP was Monique McLean (really fucking good choice, what with the 49 points, 10 boards, seven assists, and four steals she put up in the two games {on approximately 50% shooting, against only two fouls and three turnovers}). Shiny objects!