February 21st, 2016: St. Peter's at Iona

Just the Facts, Ma'am: A strong start gave the Iona Gaels the cushion they needed to beat St. Peter's, 64-50. Joy Adams had 20 points and seven rebounds to lead Iona, with Alexis Lewis contributing 19 and seven off the bench. Hala Mostafa and Sajanna Bethea each had 13 to pace the Peacocks.

For travels, mild pink rage, defiant pins, brilliant crazy plans, defensive tip drills, personnel mistakes, heat-checks, multi-colored Sharpies, and accidentally firing someone else's coach, join your intrepid and somewhat charitable blogger after the jump.


Hey, y'all! How y'all doin' on Daytona Day? Well, for your intrepid blogger, it's not Daytona Day, it's Iona Day. We're at the Hynes Athletic Center for my last Iona game of the season. (Possibly ours, but definitely mine. I had a crazy idea, so my honey may be doing a cannonball run next week.) The Gaels host St. Peter's, giving us another opportunity to vent our spleen upon Patty Coyle.

It's PinkZone at Iona, and they're offering free admission if you wear pink. I haven't seen anything for donations yet, so I'm a bit irked, but maybe they're just not set up yet. We had a miscommunication with our ticket supplier, so I ended up in pink, which also annoys me. (I don't believe in "raising awareness", I believe in raising money. Pink shirts mean nothing without support for research and treatment.)

Iona's struck up a deal with ESPN, so everything's on ESPN3, which means they had to adjust the lighting. (It's about time.)

I see the milestone ball for Aaliyah Robinson's 1000th point. Iona does a good commemorative ball.

I don't know what happened, but they just replaced the net in front of the road bench.

At halftime, Iona is up 36-22. Alexis Lewis and Joy Adams each have 10 for the Gaels; Sajanna Bethea has eight for the Peahenscocks.

I forgot my wi-fi card today and Iona's guest network isn't letting me sign on, so I am a very frustrated Johnnie. And a very frustrated Pirate. And a very frustrated Ram.

They honored a trio of breast cancer survivors at half, and they're selling shirts with the proceeds going to breast cancer research, but apparently they got, er, shirty with my husband for wanting to donate without buying a shirt.

The biddy game went a smidge overtime, and the Peacocks looked like they were about ready to start clearing the kids off the court themselves.

Woo-hoo! Autograph day! And a win! That's the best combination. We got our scorecard signed- Iona uses the variety pack of Sharpies, so we have all kinds of colors. (Treyanna Clay knows: purple Sharpie is best Sharpie.) They didn't quite have enough tables, so by the end you had all the seniors clustered with Alexis Lewis and Philecia Gilmore at the last table. I mean, I was okay with that because, hey, that's the cool kids' table.

You get the feeling St. Peter's might be a better team if they had a better coach. At least I do, but I've had misgivings about Patty Coyle since she took over the Liberty. I know I'm biased. But there were personnel decisions she made that affected her team and were questionable at best.

Breana Spencer came off the bench late and had a nice and-1 on Kristin Mahoney. She might have potential if she's able to turn those long limbs into a defensive asset. Marcia Senatus played in the first half, had one spectacular steal, and then never got in the game in the second half. Alyssa Velles put in the last basket for the Peacocks, a free throw line jumper, but never got the ball in position to fire up a three. Bridget Whitfield mostly seemed to be frustrated. Imani Martinez has a big body, but no touch.

Samantha Meier started the game, got two quick fouls in the first quarter, then fell into the Bermuda Triangle and was never seen again. Hala Mostafa got the second-half start and went to work. Every game, she'll pull out one beaut of a hook shot, usually late in the game. She's not my idea of the ideal ballhandler, but she did the job well enough, even against the Iona pressure. She positions herself well on the boards, too. Sajanna Bethea will be brilliant if she finds a coach and learns to handle herself down low on defense without fouling. She's got some pretty, pretty offensive moves, and no fear. I love to be frustrated when she gets open for the midrange jumper.

Rebecca Sparks slashed through the lane for pretty much all her moves. That started to work against St. Peter's in the fourth quarter- Iona's defense had toughened back up, and the Gaels got two offensive fouls against her (one charge, one push-off, I think, but it might have been two charges). I don't know how thoroughly her head was in the game, though; there was a sequence where it looked like Bethea had to talk her down, and it seemed like an odd dynamic to have the sophomore talking the senior back into the game. Talah Hughes tried to get going in the second half, but when she got more aggressive, she started getting called for fouls. We'll talk a little more about the refs later.

Kristin Mahoney is kind of adorable. Still wet behind the ears, but adorable nevertheless. Casey Wortley went back and forth between not setting the screen strongly enough (thus letting the defender get around her with ease) and trying to set it too hard (which led to the offensive foul on the moving screen). Iida Ahvenainen really needs to hit the weight room, or do whatever is necessary to get more oomph on her shot- all her shots fell short. She still looks lost out there, but you can see the effort. Treyanna Clay was very active on the boards, even if she didn't come down with a lot of them. I think she needs to get a little more experience working with her teammates in order to be the screener and setup person she needs to be. Alexis Lewis was fantastic. I love watching her shoot. I love watching her rebound. She's a game-changer, and she could be something special one of these days.

Marina Lizarazu was not making good decisions with the ball today. She had some good passes, but her shot selection was really bad, and if the officials had been paying more attention, she would have gotten dinged for a boatload of turnovers. She and Aaliyah Robinson rocked the backcourt pressure. A-Rob was solid on defense and hit a three early. She'll always make at least one heady play on the ball that makes me love her. Philecia Gilmore brought the offense in the second half and helped bring the ball up. Sometimes she got a little shot happy- she and Lexi both have a tendency to heat-check themselves and come up lacking. I'll never fault Fee's passion, though.

Karynda DuPree was back to being passive today, soft on defense and tentative on offense. She had a pretty sweet block on a Sparks drive, though. At least she wasn't throwing up three-pointers, which is what used to happen when she was playing like that, so that's an improvement. And I've learned that we're getting her for another year, so that's big. I never thought we'd miss her, but she's grown on me. Joy Adams came on strong as the game went on. She's at her best when she's driving, using the jumper to shake things up, instead of relying on the jumper and then driving. At least that's my opinion. She's phenomenally athletic, and if she could shoot straight she'd be a sure-fire draft prospect.

Strange personnel decisions on both sides. I understand Iona going deeper into their bench earlier on, given the opponent, but I wasn't expecting to see Iida or Casey in the first half. As for St. Peter's... Senatus plays passing lanes well. You'd think that would be useful when Iona's ball movement amongst the forwards was sharp. So of course she didn't play the second half. And then there was the Bethea foul situation: with 3:25 to go in the second half, Coyle put Bethea back in with two fouls. On the next possession, six seconds of game time later, Bethea picks up the third foul. Why, why, why, why would you put your top scorer back into the game in that situation? (And why would you not drive at her in the second half after she picked up the fourth, Iona?)

Iona got the benefit of most of the whistles today. There were a couple of sketchy out of bounds calls, but Denise Brooks says those are the hardest calls in the game, and I'll believe her. But on travels, on fouls, on contact, Iona was getting the calls. I'll take it. I won't be happy about it, but I'll take it.

Buzzer beaters are in the air. Even tiny children can hit them now.

For some reason, the PA announcer kept including Jenny Palmateer on the St. Peter's coaching staff. Who has been at Monmouth for five years. Who has never been affiliated with St. Peter's in any way, shape, or form, from what I can tell from her bio. Pat Coyle's WTF face was utterly priceless. And then they issued a correction. That still included Palmateer.

Iona did what they needed to do, and Lexi's going to be a star. I hope. She's streaky, but I think she just might be okay.