December 3rd, 2008: Monmouth at St. John's

St. John's Red Storm 52, Monmouth Hawks 48

Somehow, St. John's pulls another one out. Somehow.


I'm serious. We have to be the worst undefeated team in the country. Either it's an unbelievably good year for the NEC or it's an unbelievably bad year for the power conferences, because there's no way in God's creation that Monmouth should have a lead with less than two minutes remaining. This team showed almost no chemistry and no inclination that there was actually anything being planned, whereas Monmouth built their strategy on teamwork.

And we're back to the band's rendition of the anthem. While the xylophone is nice, I could really do without the persistent percussion, and I think the horns need tuning.

What a bunch of clutch shooters the Hawks have. I'm serious. They hit three or four shots as the shot clock was expiring, and I think that really threw us off our stride. LaKia Barber has nice range for her build. Alexis Canady, pound for pound, might be one of the best rebounders out there- little bitty guard had six boards, one of them a very critical offensive rebound late in the game. I think Montas had Monique on her- the six turnovers by Montas would match Monique's five steals nicely. Bender came up really big for them, more than validating Gaitley's decision to put her back in with four fouls- see, Da'Shena, this is how you play with four fouls. Off their bench, I liked Laura Forbes, who had a good touch around the basket and made a wicked defensive play. What it was, I can't remember, only that there was one. Marisa Jimenez had a really nice steal. Oh- Canady also had a block. Yes, 5'5" Canady had a block.

Stop breaking the freshman, damnit! Da'Shena went down in the last game with a mild sprain- this game she went down twice after getting hit in the head. She played well, though she made some stupid freshman mistakes- hit a layup on a brilliant pass from Sky. Sky had a decent if not great game, although one where she didn't shoot all that well. She needs to do something about that hitch in her shot, or else she'll never be a consistent shooter. Monique disappeared on the offensive end, but no turnovers on the night is an impressive stat. Kelly rebounded well- it was nice to see her going to the boards, and she forced a couple of travels with very adroit defensive plays. Sheree played a lot as Coach went to a backcourt trap late in the first half- and it was a thing of beauty; they managed to keep Monmouth in the backcourt for twenty seconds near the end of the first half (remember, no ten-second rule in women's college ball) and force the steal. Sheree and Kelly especially worked well together on the trap. Best offensive plays of the night: Coco misses a free throw, Monique crashes the offensive boards, sets up Joy for the layup through Kelly. (Monique would later snare another errant free throw, but with less of an awesome result.) Second place goes to Kristin's wicked crossover that gave her a wide open lane to the basket and allowed her to hit her shot. But we just fell apart in the second half, and it took big plays in the last minute to keep it together, and that's where I have to give Monique credit. She stepped up right when we needed her.

I've never seen so many ticky-tack travels called in a game. Or ticky-tack fouls, for that matter. It was herky-jerky, stop and go like rush hour traffic. No one really got into a flow at all, and I think that hurt us more than it did Monmouth.

They did a student promotion. The students showed up... to claim their free tchochke, ogle the cheer team, and not know the rules, and 90% of them left at halftime. I should stop complaining about the lack of student involvement at St. John's. I think I like it better when they're not there.

One of our cheerleaders looks disturbingly like Brooke Wyckoff. Given the high school AU that Rebkell's came up with, I'm weirded out by this.

Gotta give a shoutout to the kids from St. Catherine of Siena. They and their families annoyed the daylights out of me while in the stands, but I've never seen a kids' team that was so focused on following shots and putting them back. Good hustle, ladies. Good hustle.

We are so gonna get brutalized on Saturday.