December 13th, 2015: North Texas at Iona

Just the Facts, Ma'am: The Mean Green mounted a third-quarter comeback behind 10 of Kelsey Criner's 19 points, but it wasn't enough to erase a 21-point halftime deficit, and Iona came away with the 62-51 home win. Alexis Lewis led all scorers with 22 off the bench for the Gaels, who got 17 points from Philecia Gilmore and 10 points and 19 rebounds from Joy Adams. Teadra Jones added 13 for North Texas, while Bria Frierson flirted with a double-double, ending at nine points and 12 rebounds.

For localized rosters, music making people come together, bad decisions, big threes, counting down to defense, hard bleachers, and questionable pizza, join your intrepid and fatigued blogger after the jump.


I may regret this being gameday after karaoke last night, but it is in fact game day, as Iona faces North Texas. It'll be our first home game of the season for the Gaels, and I'm looking forward to seeing some of the rumored changes at Hynes. I'm also looking forward to seeing the North Texas team that knocked off Oklahoma.

Aaaaand I'm really not seeing how North Texas knocked off Oklahoma, given that they're down 36-14 to an Iona team that's not the Iona team that gave Marist fits, including a one-field-goal quarter. Alexis Lewis is on fiyah for the Gaels, with 14 all by herself. This is probably the best coaching job I've seen on the Iona bench in a few years.

Aaaaaand then the third quarter happened, with some of the dumbest basketball I've ever seen from a team I root for, and I can't even word some of it. How do you forget the shot clock twice in the same quarter? I think people just get their kicks out of making me look stupid.

Kasiney Williams is the tiniest basketball player I've seen in Division I in my life! I've seen a lot of short guards, and I've seen a lot of slight guards, but she's super short and she's super slight. I think Leilani Mitchell- she who the Board Junkies call Fluffy Little Bunny- has four inches and forty pounds on her. She left the door open for short jokes when her first shot attempt was a fast break lay-up that ticked the underside of the rim. She's fearless, though, but I guess you have to be if you're going to play D-I basketball at that size. Brooke Jolivette played brief minutes in the first half, of minimal interest.

Acheil Tac showed some flashes of athleticism in going for loose balls. She could do with a little bit of meat on her bones- might make her more effective in not getting knocked around down low without sacrificing any of her sproing. That's a science word, dontcha know. Tosin Mabodu mixed it up in the middle a little bit. There's something I like about her, but I can't put my finger on it.

Bria Frierson took care of business near the basket, at least on the boards. She positioned herself well opposite the shooter and got good reads off the rim. She took a lot of hits and made the most of the contact she got. Terra Ellison seemed constantly surprised that anyone would consider calling a foul on her when she was so always clearly wronged. (Sarcasm mode enabled.) Throw up bad shots, you're going to miss them. It's going to happen.

Teadra Jones got some nice baskets on the fast break. Candace Adams did her scoring late, getting on the board in the middle of the fourth quarter. She was aggressive on defense. I was most impressed with Kelsey Criner, whose name our PA announcer so carefully enunciated so as to not garble the C into a G and imply a familial relationship where none existed. She's the kind of guard who draws my eye and keeps my attention: aggressive, athletic, able to score outside and in, willing to gamble hard on the ballhandler, maybe not the best defender in the world within the system but who makes plays happen. I like her.

I think the Mean Green got more aggressive in the second half. It helped that the shots were falling when they hadn't been falling before, but they were getting better shots and closing the door on second chances on the boards.

With this specific starting lineup, I like the idea of bringing both Alexis Lewis and Aaliyah Robinson off the bench. They're both streaky shooters, but the odds of both of them being off on a given day are pretty slim; this way you can play the hot hand. Each of them also has her own knack: Alexis pressures the ball better, while A-Rob boxes out players far bigger than she is and goes hard for rebounds. Today Alexis was the hot hand, beyond the arc, on the break, and in the midrange. There's something about the way she holds herself, and the way she wears her hair, that reminds me of Damika last year. She's not Damika Martinez, not by a long shot, but I see what the hype is about. Aaliyah had trouble finding her range- if anything, she was getting too close to the line and shooting too strong. Clearly she needs to challenge herself more.

Iida Ahnenvainen came in briefly near the end of the first half, threw the ball away, and never saw the light of day again. I could be petty here, and I could be snide, but it's not really worth it. Ashley Murray is growing on me. When she makes moves to the basket, and when she makes her presence felt, good things happen for the Gaels. She just has to watch her feet, but more on that later. Aurellia Cammock came into the game for brief spurts when the starters were in foul trouble, and she cleaned up on the glass. She has to be willing to go back up with the ball, though. You're not going to get minutes if you don't try to score.

¿Qué te pasa, Marina Lizarazu? Her shot was really, really bad today. She always goes too much to the left, but even her left-handed shot in the lane had failed her for most of the day. She showed some flashy passes, even if they mostly ended up being footnotes to missed shots. Philecia Gilmore started the game off red hot, hitting three straight threes to open the scoring for Iona. She's sometimes too aggressive for her own good, but I think I'd rather that than a player who's not willing to make plays.

I love Karynda DuPree's blocks, and I love when she hits that little drop shot in the lane, and I love when she's not jacking ridiculous threes. I don't love when she's standing around instead of rebounding, or when the ball goes off her hands, or when she commits moving screens. Treyanna Clay ran the press well with Alexis Lewis, but that was her only major contribution to the game. Joy Adams needs to hit her bunnies, but I love how she skies for rebounds. Joy frustrates me sometimes, and I don't know if it's how she's being used or how she responds to it. I don't think the current system plays to her strengths, and I think her response is not to work within it, but to work against it. She's going to do her thing, come hell or high water, or she's going to be bad a the things she's told to do. There's failure to communicate at both ends, and I don't think the constant flux in the starting lineup helps that.

Things were going really well in the first half. I thought this was the best lineup we could run out there, and I liked the sub patterns as well. Then the third quarter hit and everything turned into a trainwreck. The first play that bothered me was a held ball- with one second left on the shot clock, Alexis was tied up with a North Texas player, UNT arrow. Iona called timeout. Under the old rules, that wasn't a bad play. But you get one fewer timeout now. In this case, I would have saved the timeout, let the arrow go, and then had the arrow in my favor. It didn't help that they came out of the timeout with no sense of urgency.

The next issue came at about 6:42 of the third quarter, when the clocks stopped briefly. I thought it was a two-second stop, which would have put the shot clock at 9. The officials disagreed with me, moving the clock forward five seconds, so that there was 6 left on the shot clock. The team came out of the official stoppage and played the possession out as if they thought they had 9 seconds. You have to know time and score when you come out of a timeout. No excuses.

There were a lot of mental lapses in general in that game. Too many Iona players boxed out their own teammates or displaced their own rebounders. Aaliyah accidentally took out Ashley. Things like that. We've got to be sharper. We've got to have better common sense, at the very least.

Other than that issue with the clock, I didn't really have any issues with the officiating, but counting seconds shouldn't be that difficult, should it?

Nice shooting during the timeout contest.

We have a band now! Okay, it's more of a quintet, and it's more jazz and less pep, but we have a band! Iona's also one of the few schools to take advantage of the new rules about music during stoppages, piping in chant cues before the ball is triggered in.

The official attendance is 503. I call shenanigans. 300 at most.

There's a lot of work that needs to be done still, and I don't know if this is the right combination of player and coaching personnel to get it done.