February 28th, 2016: Creighton at St. John's

Just the Facts, Ma'am: Creighton broke open a nip and tuck game with a strong fourth quarter to win 64-57 at St. John's. Sydney Lamberty led the Jays with 18 points, 14 in the final frame. Aliyyah Handford of St. John's led all scorers with 19.

For giving up too many opportunities, missing too many makeable shots, bad calls, seniors, small posters, large quantities of New Jerseyans, dancing in unauthorized areas, switching to decaf, and going it alone, join your intrepid and penultimate blogger after the jump.


It's Senior Day at St. John's, also known as "Punch Me Right In The Feelings, Why Don't You?" Day. Two of the best to rock the red, Danajah Grant and Aliyyah Handford, play their final regular season home game today against Creighton.

So that was Jennifer Blanding I saw on the bus! Or if not, someone else closely affiliated with St. John's. (No, that's definitely Big Love. Nadirah arrived at halftime and made a bee-line for her and the adorable kid. Ballers and small children are an adorably hilarious, or hilariously adorable, combination.)

People. Y'all have got to stop putting kids behind the opposing bench. It's really super bad manners. Creighton actually brought a fairly large contingent, and they're eight or nine rows above their team because there are kiddy groups parked in the seats that are supposed to be theirs.

I'm pretty sure a statistically significant portion of the population of Newark is here today.

O HAI BRI. Or maybe that's not Briana Brown chilling with Team Jersey. I detect a theme here.

Senior Day was, as usual, uninspired. Managers got flowers and a framed jersey with either #11 or #12. Not sure if those were leftovers or the year of their matriculation. Our senior stars got one of their pink jerseys in a frame. And of course there were flowers. But that's really about it. Seton Hall does it better.

At halftime, St. John's is up 32-27, #Liyyah2K is 17 points away from happening, and it's going to be a race to see who can throttle the refs first. Flanery has the hotter temper, but Jade Walker is losing her patience with the travel calls, Liyyah had a crap call right before the half on a pushoff by Creighton, and Joe never likes refs.

DSPN brought a few friends this time around. Let's get some noise in this joint!

Another autograph session, but I might just hang around to wish 'em good luck in Chicago and maybe squee a little at Liyyah. (Which I did. I don't know if I should have, but I did.)

Senior Day should not turn into a #refshow. No game should ever turn into a #refshow, but Senior Day definitely should not turn into one. Two calls made too much of a difference.

Creighton really rubbed me the wrong way in this one. I suppose losing instead of winning might have something to do with it, and part of me does get that getting a win to end the regular season is a big deal. But Creighton celebrated the end of that game as if it had clinched them the Big East championship, and that bothers me. Don't dance on the logo, even if it's only a far corner of it, on someone else's floor. Lose with grace, win with grace.

I didn't even notice Kylie Brown enter the game, so you can tell how much of an impact she had. Tessa Leytem came in very briefly in the first half- I think she was helping relieve some of the foul issues with MC McGrory. Lauren Works is much more annoying when you don't have the bench drama between you and the court. She makes shrill, distracting noises on defense (which, yes, is a valid strategy, but an annoying one) and celebrates a bit too much for my liking. She does work hard, and probably hears puns like that far too much in her life, but I don't like her. And I don't have to like her. Neener neener neener. Brianna Rollerson was stronger today than Friday, and I think that was part of Creighton's change in strategy- the weak-side corner was being more closely guarded than in the Seton Hall game, but that opened up space in the middle both for the big girls and for the guards to cut.

Or, if you're Jade Owens, you throw up one-handed push-roll-shot-things and they go in. I'm
really impressed with her. She's fiery, she's got sweet moves in the lane, and she knows how to find the open player. MC McGrory got into foul trouble real quick in the first quarter, and somehow managed to not foul out. She's very tough. She had the advantage of being well-rested in the fourth quarter, which gave her a chance to make some big plays late down the stretch. Sydney Lamberty has such a pretty shot. She finds ways to get open. I don't know if I'd go as far as to say she can make her own shot, but she's good at using the space she gets. You'd think we'd have figured out the three-point shooting thing at some point, but nooooo. She's a mismatch and then some.

Bailey Norby continues to make smart, heady, frustrating plays. In this case, it was the rebound of the missed Owens free throw that then set up Lamberty for the three that ultimately won the game for the Bluejays. She makes things happen on the glass. Audrey Faber showed a little bit on defense, with a big block on Crystal Simmons. She's got decent stroke from outside, too, but that's sort of to be expected if you're playing for Creighton.

Jade Walker's back! She was playing more outside than inside, but that's pretty normal for Jade on a good day, much less Jade two days after sitting out with a knee injury. They were calling her for the step on her move to the inside today, and she was not a happy camper. Crystal Simmons brought the defense, but she has to stop being afraid to shoot, this is not a recording. She passed up good shots for panic shots. That's not a good thing. Akina Wellere brought some rebounding, but she also needs to be less afraid to shoot the ball. There aren't that many games left for y'all to rely on Aliyyah and Danaejah, y'all are going to have to step up around them.

Aaliyah Lewis got off to a hot start in the first quarter, but you can't run the same plays for her that you can run for Aliyyah Handford. Tiny Aaliyah has spectacular ups that give her somewhat of a height advantage, but she's still shorter and she's still not as athletic as Liyyah. She can't make all of those shots. Danaejah Grant had two Jays on her pretty much all night, usually Owens and either McGrory or Works, and it curtailed her ability to do pretty much anything offensively. On the plus side, we got to see her ability to pass out of the double-team. Aliyyah Handford tried to take the game back single-handedly in the waning minutes, with two steals and fast breaks, but the third time was the reverse of the charm- she got called for the reach-in for her fifth foul, and that pretty much ended the game.

Too much hesitation. Too much time wasted. Too much time spent in our own heads and not enough spent focusing on the game. Creighton took us out of our game, and we let them do it.

We let the refs get to us too. There were calls that went in our favor, to be sure. But there are two calls that stick in my craw, because I think they together changed the tenor of the game. The foul at the end of the second quarter on Aliyyah- where it looked like a Creighton player pushed her and she got called for it- turned out to be the second of five. It doesn't look like the end of the world when it's the second, but when there are three legit fouls after it, that's a problem. The other one came at the beginning of the fourth quarter, when Jade Walker got called for a block that sure looked like a charge on Jade Owens. Owens hit the basket, then missed the free throw- but Norby got the board and set up Lamberty for a three that was compounded by Imani fouling away from the ball- which in college is a sideout to the team so offended. Thank all the forgotten gods that Faber committed an offensive foul, or it might have been a seven or eight-point possession and either Joe would have done something drastic or Mama Handford might have jumped the rail.

General inconsistency bothers me. Calling cheap contact bothers me. Ignoring blatant travels on one end bothers me. But I'm starting to feel like I should yell at these refs to get off my lawn.

This was a bad loss. This was a loss we really shouldn't have taken. We're down to the four seed now, when we had a shot at second or third. It's on to Chicago now, and your intrepid blogger will be there every step of the way. There's just one more bit of business to take care of…