February 26th, 2016: Providence at St. John's

Just the Facts, Ma'am: Danaejah Grant and Aliyyah Handford each had 27 points and seven rebounds to power the Red Storm to a 69-54 win over Providence. With a putback in the first quarter, Handford set a new career scoring record for St. John's. Sarah Beal had 19 points to lead Providence.

For screaming children, history, tiny posters, those Jersey girls doin' work, the t-shirt feeding frenzy, gimme questions, and squee, join your intrepid and unfinished blogger after the jump.
Good morning! It's Field Trip Day at St. John's, so there are several thousand children making a large amount of noise around me. Fortunately for my sanity, our usual seats were reserved (sadly, I have extra leg room because my husband has to hold down the fort at the office). Thanks, Veronica!

They're working off the kids' extra energy with dance music, which isn't the worst idea in the world. Ow. Right in my ear, kid. Right in my ear.

Nice reminder by the host that we're here for the basketball and the noisemaking should be related to said event.

Aliyyah Handford is four points away from tying the St. John's career scoring record, five away from breaking it. I AM SO HYPED. I missed Tab, and I missed Damika, but I finally get to see one, I finally get to see one! And I finally got to see one and it was awesome! (It was awesome as these dancers on the E train think they are. To be fair, the ceiling tricks are kind of cool. And the fist bump of a random passenger while hanging upside down from the ceiling rails. And the dude leaping over the dude. Okay, they were pretty awesome.)

You didn't get halftime notes because the place was so packed that I barely had space to pull out a tablet, much less a full-fledged laptop. Suffice to say St. John's woke up after the first quarter. I keep telling people we're not morning people, why does no one ever listen to me?

If you're going to be a small to medium-sized child behind me, you can either knee me in the kidneys, hit me in the head with a poster, or scream in my ear. You can't do all of the above.

Providence came out scrappy and aggressive on defense, and they ran some good plays to get whichever big blonde forward was on the floor open right at the basket, whether it was Evi Iiskola or Erica Meyer. But they didn't have the firepower or the ability to stay in front of our big scorers. There are a couple of good parts there, but Provvy might be a few years away.

There's something I like about Erica Meyer. She's making freshman mistakes, but they're such blatant freshman mistakes that you know she's going to stop making them or her coach is going to strangle her. I like her strength, and I like her tenacity on defense. Aliyah Miller would probably have been more effective if she could stay in the game- she's a strong player with nice touch around the basket, but she couldn't stay off her opponent on the defensive end. I suspect her physicality may be why she comes off the bench- she needs to be protected from fouls. Clara Che is a long guard, who in this freshman season comes off as gawky instead of lanky. I think she saw herself as being ready to run the offense more than her team did. Jovana Nogic saw time filling in for just about everyone and was solid, if unremarkable.

Brianna Frias had a strong start to the second half, scoring in the paint and getting to the line. She faded out pretty quickly after that, though. Evi Iiskola got position down low, but she also had an unfortunate tendency to be in the wrong place at the wrong time when St. John's was inbounding. I was surprised they didn't look for her more. I'm really not sure about those rebounding numbers for Allegra Botteghi, but there was one pretty good play where she got a board despite being boxed out perfectly by Danaejah Grant, so there's that.

Maddie Jolin is still working off the rough edges as a freshman, especially on the defensive end. She committed a couple of dumb reach-in fouls that were unnecessary. Sarah Beal is damn good. I don't necessarily like the way she carries herself- wait, that's not quite the right turn of phrase. She carries herself much like Lisa Leslie once did, or Tammy Sutton-Brown, or Kyra Dunn- something about the way she holds her body emanates prissiness and fussiness. And she rolls her shorts up. On the other hand, we're definitely kindred spirits when it comes to encouraging small children to scream; that is to say, neither of us approves of the situation (she had her hands over her ears coming out of timeout a couple of times). She's got game, a sweet pull-up jumper, and the urge to jump the passing lanes on dumb passes.

Tamesha Alexander came in at the very end and sunk a couple of free throws- she nearly had her pocket picked near the end, though. She's got to be more careful with her handle. Crystal Simmons brought some defense in the first half, and was rewarded for that with the second half start, whereupon she proceeded to commit three straight fouls, and that was the end of the day for her until the game was back in hand. She had a pretty solid fourth quarter, though. Akina Wellere had to deal with people outside her weight class- there's no good reason for her to be the one guarding a big post like Aliyah Miller. I wish she'd be less hesitant with her shot, but I wish that about a lot of people and it never happens. Jordan Agustus overshot everything. I think she was trying to compensate for the defense and overcompensated like a man with a souped-up Lambo.

Sandra Udobi got her first name mispronounced all game- either that, or she's had it mispronounced all season. She was limited, which was a bit of a problem, since we were also short Jade Walker (as discovered via Twitter, Jade has a knee injury and I haz a sad). She's tough. Imani Littleton kept committing stupid fouls. She's working on her fronting, though.

Aaliyah Lewis was quiet, but came up with the boards when they went long. Tiny, but fierce! I thought she did an okay job setting the pace of the game. Danaejah Grant is just rock solid. The only flaw in her game today was really her tendency to drive the baseline and then throw it to a Friar, and that's an ongoing Red Storm thing. Her give and go with Aliyyah Handford at the basket was fantastic- the two of them had two or three exchanges for sweeeeet lay-ups. Nae has grown up this year.

And of course, the woman of the hour, the all-time leading scorer in St. John's history, she of the 1,971 points and counting, the one, the only, Aliyyah Handford. Rocking the new headband, she made it abundantly clear that she wasn't waiting any longer to take that record and make it her own. She drove hard. She broke loose on fast breaks from steals. She took a couple of long jumpers, one of them even a three. She drew contact and got to the line. She was the Aliyyah who should be drafted. All shall love her and despair.

It's hard to get a good sense of the officiating when everyone around you hates the refs and your view is occasionally obscured by a Danaejah Grant wingspan poster. I thought there were a couple of blown out of bounds calls, and Crystal was absolutely robbed on her fourth foul (it was a push-off by the offensive player). Nothing changed the game, though, so there's that. (Joe, you're not going to get a call if it's you Aliyyah trips over.)

Some of Liyyah's family got to see the record and were so excited! I just wish they'd announced it at the time instead of waiting until the second quarter.

History! Liyyah2K is next, I know it. I AM EXCITE.

Next up, THE TIME OF FEELS SO MANY FEELS ALL THE FEELS.