February 22nd, 2009: VCU at Hofstra

Virginia Commonwealth Rams 55, Hofstra Pride 43

The Pride and promise of Hofstra. They're just not quite there yet.


Signs you have moved up the food chain in the conference hierarchy: the arena you're visiting has luxury boxes. I'm not actually making this up. I almost want to be, but I'm not. I feel like a broken record, but Hofstra has one of the nicest arenas I've been in all season- it's like we saved the best for last or something, which is really promising for the NCAA tournament. It's a bit tricky to get to if you don't know exactly what turns to make, but once you figure them out, you'll be fine.

The Pride motif is widespread among the athletic facilities- and there are a lot of them, all top-notch for a CAA team, probably higher in quality than the conference average. The arena's tricky to navigate in, but when you realize that the turnstiles you go through are taken away so that you can go out to the vestibule and pick up your Pride souvenirs or your Pride programs. Said program is a bit pricey, but it's well worth it- very informative and refreshingly free of typos.

Continuing on the squee angle, the anthem was performed very beautifully by a Hofstra junior. Rachel, try out for American Idol- if they won't have you, it's because you're too damn good for them.

As it happened, we hit a Pink Zone game- if I'd known, I'd have worn a more appropriate Liberty tee, either the Arthur Ashe pink one or the one with the permanently affixed pink ribbon. I felt so out of place. Both teams had very awesome t-shirts, VCU rocked the pink socks, both teams rocked the pink laces, Hofstra had a raffle: it was a very well-done Pink Zone. Thumbs up!

VCU plays a very tough, very scrappy defense that drove Hofstra absolutely nuts. The press singlehandedly put VCU in the driver's seat. I'd love to see VCU side-by-side with Notre Dame and see how much of that defense is derived from Cunningham's days at Notre Dame and how much is her own devising. After reading up on Quanitra Hollingsworth and her entrance to the 1000/1000 club recently, I wanted to see how she would perform. She's an interesting player- really bad shooting game today, but that's as much due to Fuller as it is anything else. Very aggressive, though, and good height, though a bit wiry. Someone ought to take a flyer on her in training camp. Radoslava Bachvarova picked up the scoring slack for the Rams, and helped them take control in the early part of the second half. Jennifer Lane also stepped it up in the second half. There's something I like about her manner, though that may just be because she reminds me of a slightly stockier Leilani Mitchell. Even though she's a freshman, she didn't seem rattled when her team was down double digits on the first shot of the second half. Kita Waller had a nice steal and did a lot of work on the boards. Cunningham plays a tight rotation, and I'm of the opinion that Courtney Hurt is very well surnamed.

Sloppy, sloppy, sloppy play from Hofstra. A lot of passes went awry, a lot of their errors were unforced or were player-control fouls. Niki Williams- who reminded me of Sue Bird at the outset because of the look of her- let the game slip out of her control. Very bad ballhandling, and questionable decision-making. Joelle Connelly started off hot, and maybe she was trying to help defend Hollingsworth and Bachvarova, but she just disappeared after the first quarter of the game. Fortunately for Hofstra, Jess Fuller started happening and just kept happening until she started getting hit with fouls in the second half (which, more on that later). Natty Fripp was playing some kind of bipolar- one minute she was cringing in the middle of a scrum for a rebound, the next she'd dive into the tall trees and go for the driving lay-up. One minute she'd hustle, the next she was almost running away from the ball. I don't get it. Aamira Terry didn't really show up until the second half, when she started putting up some highlight reel shots- but that's all she was trying for, not the simple shots. Sam Brigham gave them some good minutes, and really gave them a shot in the arm when they were trying to extend their lead in the first half and the early part of the second, but she had absolutely no idea how to go to the ball. Seriously, at least two passes zipped past her and out of bounds.

And yet the Pride kept themselves in the game, or at least they tried to. The refereeing was extremely uneven, in terms of what they called, who they called it on, and when they called what. It's true that Hofstra had to play much less disciplined defense than VCU did, since VCU was the stronger team, but some of the calls against them, and some of the calls not made against the Rams, were borderline, to say the least.

Once Hofstra gets a better team- and I know that's a lot to ask for, with the Virginia schools dominating the conference- I'd be more than happy to hike back out to the Island and enjoy their lovely facilities again- but until then, I think I'll give Hofstra a pass.