November 20th, 2016: Miami at St. John's

Just the Facts, Ma'am: Miami brought the pressure and finished strong in their 62-50 win over St. John's. Erykah Davenport had 16 points to lead the Hurricanes, with Jessica Thomas contributing 15 (all but 2 from the line) and Keyona Hayes dropping a 13-point, 11-rebound double-double. Akina Wellere had 19 points to lead St. John's, but no one else mustered more than eight.

For the ref show, small children, STOP MAKING ME FEEL OLD, unexpected shooters, being up in one's feelings, and the biting wind of winter, join your intrepid and shivering blogger after the jump.
Waitin' all day for Sunday night- but I'll leave the football to everyone else. St. John's is hosting Miami tonight, and we've got a lot to prove.

This remix sequence is a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad idea. Some songs you just don't mess with; "Don't Stop Believing" is one of them.

Miami must have been running late or something, because they only arrived about ten minutes before the gates were scheduled to open. (The doors actually opened a little early, mostly because one dude kept whining that it was too cold for his kids to be outside. It's 40 degrees and they have winter coats. Suck it up, buttercup.)

Oh, good, someone clued in the dude in the orange Miami shirt that he had parked himself behind the St. John's bench. I was about to get righteously indignant.

Alisha Kebbe seems to be back, which is good. We'll see how effective she is.

At halftime, Miami is up 28-23, but dear Lord has the officiating been hot trash on a platter. Late whistles, an overabundance of travel calls, and a lot of very physical contact that's going uncalled. Either someone's going to get hurt or Joe Tartamella is going to do his best Cheryl Reeve impression, and I don't wish that on any jacket.

I admire Miami's dedication to their font, but it doesn't work for the name on the back of the jersey.

Looks like Alisha's got family in the house. I wonder how long it takes to get back to Philly from here.

We showed a lot of heart and hustle out there, but there's only so much you can do when it seems like it's 5-on-8 out there. We need a consistent scoring options- we have scoring options, but they're all inconsistent. Miami brought a lot of pressure, and we weren't able to handle it.

Nigia Greene has really quick hands. I was impressed with the work she did low to the ground. Sarah Mortensen got some minutes late in the first half, and made a hustle play on the sideline that had Coach Meier and the team cheering her on. Shaneese Bailey had her hand in a lot of plays defensively, and showed good speed. (I'd say she had her hand on a lot of balls, but, uh...) Khaila Prather got good position on the offensive glass, especially in the second half. I was impressed with her movement.

I thought I read about Adrienne Motley being a prospect at some level, but she did not have a very good game. The defense planned for her, and she did not get good looks. I didn't really see anything about her that screamed "pro-ready". Jessica Thomas is the prototypical very small, very fast, very feisty point guard you see a lot of in college basketball. She drove hard and got a lot of free throws. (I would normally say earned, but I have several bones to pick with the officiating.)

The defense, however, did not plan for Keyona Hayes, who's faster than she looks, and who has range one wouldn't expect from her. She killed us with some long threes that we weren't ready for (we gave her way too much space out there) and threw her body around down low to get boards. I was impressed with her toughness and her ability to create, then exploit, mismatches. Erykah Davenport was a monster on the offensive glass, cleaning up her teammates' sometimes terrible shots. She delivered two thunderous blocks on Maya Singleton. (Poor Maya.) Keyanna Harris went by Kiki most of the game, possibly because Keyanna and Keyona were pronounced the same way and the PA guy might have had an aneurysm trying to keep them straight. She got nailed for a couple of offensive fouls (one of which she might have had a case about, but my lack of sympathy, let me show you it).

Miami was really prepared for our switching on defense, which led to a lot of strange mismatches. They brought pressure, and especially in the fourth quarter, we weren't ready for it.

Oh, Sox. I love Tamesha Alexander to itty bitty pieces as a person, but whatever development we were expecting from her as a point guard has not materialized. One will not make a good first impression in a game with an immediate turnover. We needed her to step up with the foul trouble Aaliyah Lewis had, and she did whatever the opposite of rising to the occasion is. Jordan Agustus was the offense-defense switch for Imani Littleton, but if she's going to take that role, she has to hit the shots in the lane, and she has to have better shot selection overall. Kendyl Nunn does in fact exist, and got short minutes at the end of the game. Good hustle.

There are people on this team who should be taking eight shots in a game. Andrayah Adams is not one of them, not yet and possibly not ever. She was pressed into service due to foul trouble on both Akina Wellere and Jade Walker, and there were points near the end of the game where she was either the primary offensive option or she thought she was the primary offensive option. I get the feeling she's yet another streaky shooter. (She also got a little too into intentionally fouling at the interminable end of the game- Joe was even asking her, "Why are you fouling?") Maya Singleton needs to follow her shot, because it isn't as reliable as she thinks it is, especially when trying to get it over and around taller players. I love to watch her defend in the paint. And I love to watch Crystal Simmons on defense in general. On offense, she's not pretty- her shot has some of the strangest footwork and follow-through I've ever seen, and that's when she takes it. But she works on the ball and on the in-bounds like you wouldn't believe. Sandra Udobi has all the heart and knows where she should be, but doesn't have the oomph it takes to get there. She was the one who left Hayes open for the threes, though she got closer on the second one.

Jade Walker spent a lot of time out of the game, both physically because of fouls and mentally because of fouls. Maybe I'm misreading her and she's got the infamous "resting bitch face" (hey, I have it too). But she looked like she was in her feelings more than she was in the game. I understand her frustration, especially since this crew was following the first rule of SJUWBB: when in doubt, call a foul on Jade. You know the refrain as much as I do by now: Jade needs to go to the basket more, then start launching that pretty jumper. Akina Wellere was on fire from beyond the arc, but as the game went on, Miami's defense started to collapse on her, and she wasn't ready for the pressure. She made ill-advised passes and coughed up the ball. Imani Littleton continues to be solid on defense, and I'd like to see her be a more potent offensive option. I feel like the potential's there.

Aaliyah Lewis's shooting line looks a lot worse than it should be- she was the one with the ball in her hands at the end of every quarter and usually when the shot clock was running down. I suspect that might say something about who has confidence in whom when, and if it does, we have work to do. She was a little too in love with the shake-and-bake, highlight-reel kind of offense in this one, which didn't help either. Go for the shot, not the foul; heaven knows you're not going to get the foul call. Alisha Kebbe's shot was off most of the night, and Joe benched her pretty early. I don't know if I would have done the same thing, but on the other hand, I can understand not wanting to spend the time it would take to have a freshman find her feet against a ranked team. (On the other other hand, then why would Andrayah get so much time to work through her mistakes?)

I think Joe's a little too much in love with the straight-swap, offense-defense substitution philosophy. I'm worried that's he's allowing them to specialize too much and not be well-rounded players.

Time and distance have soothed my raging fury at the officiating, but it was still terrible- bad enough to be turrible, even. Poor Aaliyah came away from one drive/no-call/Miami recovery holding her shoulder. Foul differential killed us: by attrition, by forcing us into passivity on defense, and by forcing players into positions they were not ready for. And it was inconsistent, which is the worst thing.

Admittedly, my mood at the end of the game was not helped by the trio of preteens who sauntered into the section at the beginning of the fourth quarter and proceeded to ask if we were rooting for St. John's because we had a daughter on the team. I'm honestly not sure whether to be more confused about the visuals (I'm white, my husband's white, here's the team photo) or insulted at the age thing. (I would have had to have been pregnant in my early teens to have a daughter in college.) They then proceeded to root for Miami. (One of them was wearing Miami-colored socks, so they may have had their own kinfolk ties to do so, but still.)

Tonight was also an autograph session night, which might have been a wee bit awkward after a game like that. Senior privilege in action: pretty much everyone was up at the table, and yelling for Aaliyah and Jade to get up there so they could get started. Short line, which was good for getting home (though clearly not good for timely GNoD). Sorry, Maya, but I'm not quite up to kicking the refs' asses.

Could have been worse. Could have been better. We know what we need to work on.