November 27th, 2009: Brown at Long Island (LIU Turkey Classic)

Long Island University Blackbirds 68, Brown Bears 55

Brown is a bit confused, LIU puts the pieces together, and teamwork is of the good.


The day after Thanksgiving, some people like to sleep off the turkey and the overindulgence. Some people prefer to indulge in greed on the heels of their gluttony.

The Game Notes of Doom prefer basketball as their vice, so we were off to LIU for the Turkey Classic. LIU's cute little arena and New York location (one stop away from Manhattan!) do a pretty good job in drawing schools that usually wouldn't deign to visit an NEC team, both in terms of class and in terms of location; the second game in the Classic was Seton Hall and Georgia Tech. I thought it was very realistic of LIU to put themselves in the first game, knowing that Seton Hall would probably be bringing a lot of people (in relative terms) for the second game.

Signs you are at an NEC arena: the musical options were "Black Classic iPod with rap/hip-hop" and "Blue Nano iPod with Top 40 hits". The blue nano won the day, and we ended up hearing "Paparazzi" six times and "Disturbia" four (and it would have been more if we hadn't finally let the guy in charge know that enough was enough, because while I like "Disturbia", hearing it four times in three hours is much of a muchness).

Anthem was tolerable, except for one egregiously bad horn player who needed to be taken out into the parking lot and thwacked with a stick with nails in. What's up with the holding-hands-during-the-anthem trend? FAIL.

Did you know the mayor of Baltimore played for Brown? No, I think this was a different Sheila Dixon; no one would be fucking with her if this were she. Brown uses a lot of line changes in the mold of Charli Turner Thorne, so a lot of people rotated back and forth. I sort of felt bad for Taylor Masaschi, who ended up being the eleventh woman sitting forlornly on the bench while five played on the floor and five waited at the scorer's table. Aileen Daniels was the first player to score for Brown, which took a while, which is why I remember it, because the bench opened the scoring. Christina Johnson sort of wants to be Kristi Toliver when she grows up, which isn't necessarily a good thing. She's good, but she seemed to be trying to do too much. The other reserves were unmemorable.

Natalie Bonds was really the only player on that team who seemed to be a legit player. She did nice work inside and worked on the boards. Hannah Passafuime looked like she was trying to work out some unresolved hostility. I'm sort of looking forward to their game against Columbia. Unresolved Hostility versus Ten Pounds of Crazy in a Two Pound Bag is gon' be good. The other starters didn't really impress me, though that may simply be because I'd not seen Brown before and it's always a little easier for me to keep an eye on a team if I've seen them before.

LIU already seems to be going deeper into their bench than they were two games ago, as I don't recall Kayla Ramsby playing in the Columbia game. I would have remembered a player who basically looked like a poor man's version of Deanna Nolan, not just in superficial physical appearance, but in speed and vertical leap. I like her. I like a lot of LIU's freshmen. Krystal Wells is a pretty solid young point guard with a good sense of the game. Tamika Guz has size and (at least in practice) hands like clamps; she just needs a little more wherewithal and some shooting lessons to be a real force on the inside. Ify Obianwu gave them some good minutes, and she's another player who saw very limited time in the Columbia game. Because it was such a blowout, we got to see MaryAnn Abrams, who couldn't buy a basket no matter how hard she tried but at least got a rebound, and Tessy Hetting, who moves very gracefully. Justine Stevenson needs to learn not to bring the ball down; if you're going to play the post, you never bring the ball down because the guards will go "OOOOH NEW TOY SHINY *grab*" and there will be a scrum. Marika Sprow's minutes were unimpressive, but whatever, she's still a fellow Liberty fan.

Heidi Mothershead sneaks up on you. I looked down at my clipboard at halftime and went "!!! Mothershead has 12 points! How the shit did that happen?" She had one wicked block that made us all go "ooooh!". Kiara Evans still needs to learn when not to shoot (for example, going one on three: don't shoot), but she rifled some passes to Chelsi Johnson that were things of beauty. Making things happen- always good. Johnson is rapidly becoming a favorite of mine, because she's a very communicative player and because she gets it done on the inside, plus that sweet little foul line jumper makes her a threat further out as well. Palmer looked a little winded before the game, and when she went down in a heap in the first half, I was a little worried (also, to the troglodyte behind me who complained because of the injury timeout, I must hope that you are not related to a Brown student, because otherwise I must assume that you have been cuckolded, because no one sired by a troglodyte would be able to get into an Ivy League school). Fortunately it looks like it was just her ankle, and not a severe injury; she spent part of halftime and a couple of timeouts running, presumably to keep it from getting stiff, and there was one long runout that pretty much proved that as long as she kept moving the ankle would be fine.

Pretty solid reffing crew. No real complaints here.

I really like Streigler's coaching style. She usually stays very calm, but always stays involved in the game, always keeps her players on their toes, and instills pretty good sportsmanship in her team. They're pretty good about having a hand to help an opponent up.

All in all, a deeply satisfying game. GNoD approved!