January 17th, 2009: George Washington at Fordham

George Washington Colonials 55, Fordham Rams 52

Growing pains in the A-10, but leavened with promising young talent.


I think it's safe to say that this is a down year for the A-10. George Washington's treading water, and barely doing so at that. Temple's putting itself back together. It really does like Xavier's the only legit threat in that conference.

But we were discussing Fordham. Or at least I should be.

Rose Hill Gym is a lovely place to see a basketball game, although Fordham is not one of those campuses that looks better in the snow. No cheerleaders, no band, and the concessions appear to be focused around the cafeteria. If you're at Rose Hill for a game, you're at Rose Hill for a game, period, end of sentence.

Starting at the top, then. Jessica Adair dominated the game, but she did so more because of her height. She does have the moves, but she doesn't have the stamina or the conditioning to go to the next level effectively. She has the moves, and she has some of the instincts, but those moves are going to come flying back into her face once she steps up in class. She got in close to the basket, and was able to use that soft touch, because she's 6'4" and her defender was 5'11". That's not going to work for much longer. But she dominated in this game because her team needed her to. Can't argue too much with that. I've always had a fondness for Antelia Parrish- I like big girls with range who also aren't afraid to use their size inside the arc- but this wasn't her best night. It seems a little soon to be reissuing Beck's #5 to a freshman, but Myers seems to have a good head on her shoulders- no, she's not Beck, at least not yet, but I doubt that Beck was a hot prospect as a freshman either. Yolanda Lavender wasn't listed on our scorecards, which was one of the primary reasons I didn't want her to do much of anything- it's always a bitch trying to keep stats without a proper card. Nice distribution, though. Bozeman seems to be relying a lot on freshmen to carry the load- makes sense, given that he lost a lot of talent from last year's team. I do like Rivera off the bench, though, always have. She had one especially nifty steal in the second half. Anyone know why Jazmine Adair's fallen off the radar? She used to be pretty high in the rotation, but she didn't play all that much today? I know Abiona's stepped in, and I really like her for some reason that I can't quite put my finger on- the same with Booker, for that matter- but is she that much better than Jazmine Adair that she's taken most of the senior's minutes? In general, we were not impressed with Bozeman's game management, especially near the end of the game- why, when you're an awful free throw shooting team, do you concede rebounds on FTA to a team that's within one possession?!- although I did like the big lineups he ran out there. At least he was aware of the disorganizing effect that his team's vast size advantage had on the Rams.

I find the difference between this year's hot shit freshman and last year's hot shit freshman to be very interesting. Mahoney seemed much less interested in involving her teammates than Peters is, and maybe that's why Mahoney's team had no wins and Peters's team has seven. In fact, the play of the game was a pass from Peters to Kristina Bell for a hoop. Peters has a good head on her shoulders- the turnover numbers won't show it, but she knows what she's doing on the court. I really like Randall Hurst, though- she's the one who stuck out to me, and if she was just a little bit taller, she'd really be something. As is, she's got nice moves, but she's a dreadful defensive liability; Adair absolutely ate her for lunch, shooting over and around her, despite the screams of the Fordham fans, because there's only so much getting in front you can do in a situation like that. Bell stepped up in the second half, although she has too much of a penchant for needlessly fancy shots for my liking. Takita Earl looks like she's put a little muscle on since the last time I saw her, but she still seems afraid to shoot, even when she has good shots. Zopf's a nice rebounder for a guard of her size. Stokes did a nice job on the offensive boards, given how few minutes she got- seems like Andruzzi was trying to go small and quick against the big and not terribly fast Colonials, a plan that might have worked if George Washington's guards weren't ready for it, or if Parrish weren't a lot faster than you'd think. Andruzzi's endgame strategy also didn't work so well- having fouls to give does not necessarily mean you have to give them, and if you are going to give them, give them as hand-checks on attempted steals, not stupid holds on non-ball-related parts of the offensive player. Hot mess.

Refs didn't help either. The bald guy I remembered from the A-10 tournament as being a bit of an asshole, the young guy looked about twelve and scared to whistle anything on anyone bigger than he was, and the ponytail had the quickest five-second count I've ever seen in my life- we clocked it at three and a half seconds. Look, guys, I'm not asking for competence anymore. All I'm asking for is consistency. If you're going to not know what you're doing, not know it in the same way every time out, that's all I want. If consistency is in fact the hobgoblin of small minds, then you lot should be able to handle it.

New feature for the Game Notes of Doom! Yours truly recently inherited a digital camera, and I thought, hmmm, wouldn't this be fun to take along? It's an Olympus D-380, nice zoom, but not designed for action shots. What I primarily want to use it for is establishing setting, since I go to a lot of different arenas. My goal with the Game Notes of Doom is to make you feel like you were sitting next to me at the game, feeling the highs and the lows, and seeing everything I see. The more I convey that, the better. So this first batch of photos can be found here.

Really looking forward to seeing how these two teams develop, though I think they could both use new coaches.