February 11th, 2009: UConn at St. John's

Connecticut Huskies 77, St. John's Red Storm 64

It could have been worse. It could have been a lot worse. There, but for the grace of Da'Shena Stevens.


That was a much better game than I was expecting it to be. Our personal spread was 35. So losing by 13- especially with Monique having one of the worst games I've ever seen her play- is no shame at all.

It was kind of disheartening to trudge into the arena with my mom and have busloads of UConn fans coming in behind us. I turned to my mom and said, "Right there are more people than are going to cheer for St. John's tonight." We had decided before the game that our usual seats, facing the opponent's bench, would not really be appropriate for this evening, since we didn't really want to be surrounded by UConn fans any more than we absolutely needed to be, so we moved to the one place we knew would be Red Storm country- the section behind the home bench, specifically the top rows, where Kelly McManmon's folks sit, since we've gotten to know them the last couple of seasons. Great. Fine. Right up until a group of UConn fans tried to sit four rows behind our bench. The ushers finally clued them in that, no, just because UConn was warming up there, that didn't mean it was UConn's bench, although you'd have thought the density of people in St. John's gear would have been a hint. It got to the point where the ushers were directing St. John's fans just to that one section and ceding the rest of the arena to the Husky fans, like we were the road team and they were the home team. It was frustrating. It was almost humiliating. (And at that, they weren't completely successful, but that's because the elderly couple we let sit in our row lied to us. And then there was someone in a Taurasi jersey, and I have no idea what Carrie's loyalties are, only that she always wears road gear.)

I don't know if we'll be back over there again, but it was fun sitting with Kelly's parents and Recee's mom (who takes as little guff as her daughter does). Da'Shena's family may have been over there as well. Either hers or Tina Charles's, because I can't think of anyone else who someone could say "My sister did the damn thing tonight" about in that game, as someone did afterwards. Player families are fun.

I swear, I've heard this anthem singer at three different places now, and the acoustics of a larger arena do nothing for his voice. Nothing at all. It didn't help that he was back to screwing up the lyrics, either.

I can understand why UConn is undefeated- their top three options are among the top twenty or so in the country. I can understand why their fans are nervous- if Hayes and the rest of the supporting cast aren't on, that's all they've got, and while that's worked so far, I don't know if it can come tournament time. I was genuinely afraid of what would happen with Tina Charles coming into our house, given her size, and given our lack of size. The fact that she was slumping coming into the game only made matters worse. And she did kick holy hell out of us inside, because once she got the ball up, none of us were gonna get it down. Moore was going at it hammer and tongs with Da'Shena- it got pretty fierce out there, damn near chippy, and the refs weren't calling much on either of them. She killed our comeback chances with two consecutive threes, because somehow, two possessions in a row, Maya fucking Moore managed to stay open, I don't know how, but I'm surprised I didn't hear KBA protesting it as I left the arena. She really is beautiful to watch when she's not pushing off. And Montgomery's range killed us. Killed us dead. "Sure, leave the lottery pick open!" I kept protesting, because, seriously, what the fuck? Sag off Greene, sag off Dixon, sag off Gardler, sag off who the fuck ever, but the above three players should never ever ever ever be open. Hayes has a really pretty shot, too, and a lot of range. I guess she wears that number for the more traditional reasons, not because of that loudmouth with the big schnozz who wore it a few years ago. ;) Kalana Greene was just... there. I don't remember her doing anything. Lorin Dixon seemed to think she'd found a jumper. Not so much, no. It was fun seeing her out there with Charles and Sky Lindsay, though. I'm sure the folks in the CtK gear were all psyched up for that. Kaili McLaren is really friggin' big. Meghan Gardler committed a surprising number of fouls that I would not expect the daughter of a coach to commit- though I'm thinking now she might have gotten some of those called on her in order to shield Charles, since Charles had three fouls and Gardler was a lot more expendable. And unless you're expecting me to comment on Tahirah Williams's minute of play- which you don't want me to, since the only thing I remember about it was an unnecessarily hard shove- that would be the end of it for UConn.

Da'Shena Stevens. Holy frakkin' shit, Da'Shena Stevens. She decided she wasn't going to be stopped, and that was the end of that. Given her roots, maybe she was just tapping into UConn's mojo, but she was strong and tough and fearless. And she had that thing going on that Fitz has where the ball goes in the basket, period, even if she gets hit- she had something like three three-point plays. Gotta love a fearless freshman. I don't know who spiked Kelly and Sky's Gatorade at halftime, but they need to do it more often. Both of them played indifferent first halves, and both of them came out like gangbusters in the second. My theory is that Sky knew she'd never hear the end of it from Charles and Dixon if she didn't play well tonight, so she turned it up. Some stupid fouls and careless passing marred her game, though- and really, for fuck's sake, shouldn't Sky be the first person to know exactly how stupid it is to try and go in headlong on Charles? It's nice to see Kelly finding her nerve again- we're going to need that if we have any chance at all of salvaging something other than moral victories from this season. We're also going to need Monique and Joy to step up, both as players and as team captains. I don't know what's wrong with Mo, but she doesn't look like much of anything right now- she certainly doesn't look like she could drop 25 or 30 on a team. She's not defending, she's not rebounding, she's not much of anythinging, and I'd love to know why, because I don’t like kvetching about her, because there's got to be a reason her game has gone so far down the crapper. And Joy- Joy's my girl, the one whose poster I've got on the back of my bedroom door, but she hasn't looked like herself in a while either, and while I'd like to take the easy route and blame her sprained ankle, it's been close to a month and a half. Either something worse happened while she was playing on it, or something else is up. And again, I worry. Credit where credit's due, though: Coco didn't suck today. She did a great job fighting for rebounds with the bigger Husky posts and cleaning up on the offensive glass. Yeah, she had her usual mistakes, but she accompanied them with god, solid plays. Recee broke her nose last week, so she took the floor in a mask and proceeded to take no crap from anyone. Unfortunately, her tumbling crown of golden curls had to be sacrificed to get the mask on. *sniffle* I'd like to have seen more of her- and more of Victoria, who also brings size, would have been an unexpectedly different look, and might have helped Da'Shena siphon off that Nutmeg mojo.

Fucking refs. We weren't getting any help tonight. There was a lot of holding that wasn't getting called, a lot of shoving, and the referees' complete inability to count didn't help at all. The two calls that stand out in my mind are one on Sky Lindsay that, as far as I could tell, blamed her for getting hit in the face, and one on Coco Hart that while, yes, technically it's your foul if someone trips over you while you're sprawled out on the floor, might have been avoided if Charles hadn't pushed her to the floor in the first place before tripping over her.

Play of the game. Well, first it was going to be Da'Shena setting up Joy. Then it was going to be Kelly setting up Da'Shena under the basket. Then, of course, it turned out to be HOLY SHIT DID DAY JUST BLOCK TINA CHARLES HOLY SHIT YES SHE DID INTO THE PADS FUCK YEAH!

I've discovered that I can't do three things at once. I can't keep score, take pictures, and scream my lungs out at the same time. I have to pick two out of the three. I picked the scorecard and the screaming, so the pictures are limited tonight.

We had a Kia Wright sighting! I'm... really not sure what she was thinking with that shirt, but it was nice to see Kia in the house again. And we may also have had a Greeba Barlow sighting, but if we did, she's lost some weight and done something quite impressive with her skin.

Very proud of our effort tonight- but the close games always leave me wondering what might have been, especially given Monique and Joy. Still, we played UConn close. Not so many teams can say that.

Pictures will be available here by sometime mid-morning, neatly sorted and categorized and all- right now, they're just there in a messy, somewhat non-chronological pile.