Sunday, December 4, 2016

December 3rd, 2016: Lafayette at St. John's

Just the Facts, Ma'am: The Red Storm clamped down on defense, holding Lafayette to 27.8% shooting from the field, to claim a 64-46 win. Jade Walker had 13 points to lead St. John's, adding six rebounds. Olivia Gumbs led Lafayette with 14 points.

For color coordination, ninja, back pain, flaring tempers, cross-checking, the extra pass, and bootleg game boards, join your intrepid and silly blogger after the jump.
Game day at Carnesecca! It's St. John's and Lafayette in Queens on a pleasant autumn day.

At halftime, St. John's is up 28-15, with pretty balanced scoring all around. We're watching the dance campers doing their halftime routine, and it's actually not bad. Better than they usually manage.

Substitute announcer today, and he is not on his game. You should be giving more than name and number during intros, even for the opponent.

The group in front of us brought a bunch of kids to the dance camp. It's a mild inconvenience, but nto much more, and at least they haven't looked at us too funny for being loud. (And no one has asked me {yet} if my daughter is on the team. It happened again in the Miami game. Next time I'm telling them I'm Imani's long lost twin sister.)

The boss lady is behind us. If it weren't for doom, I'd be asking her some pointed questions right now. Kathy, you got saved.

I don't remember Lafayette's colors being this cherry before. I think that's why Coach Grentz has the leopard-print scarf- that maroon/cherry color would very much not suit her complexion, but leopard-print allows her to still sort of be in team colors.

Officiating has mostly been in our favor so far. I fear what will happen in the second half. (I mean, they broke the first rule! Jade pushed off on an early possession and they didn't call her for a foul!)

Joe, No-Shave November ended earlier this week. Scruffy is not your look.

We really got to see the freshmen shine in this one- for both teams, for both good and for ill.

Theresa Grentz either wasn't happy with a couple of her starters, or they weren't actually starters and someone else was in trouble. She swapped in Sarah Agnello and Olivia Gumbs to start the second half. Agnello really didn't have much of an impact. Olivia Gumbs was a solid offensive option, but as the game went on, she got more physical and more flat-out dirty. You don't usually see a ref call tripping, especially with the signal for it (often another signal takes precedence). She's got a nice shot and good strength- there are ways to use that in basketball that don't involve deliberately hurting your opponent. They were swapped in at the start of the second half for Harriet Ottewill-Soulsby and Alex Cantwell. Ottewill-Soulsby used her length to block shots, but her hand-eye coordination is not very good. Cantwell had a lot of family, friends, and/or other supporters in the building, some even with signs. They were not pleased with the cut in her playing time.

I don't know whether Grentz was in "throw everything at the wall and see what sticks" mode or if there was a rhyme or reason to her subs that I wasn't getting, or if she's a more situational subber than a rotation subber. So, for example, Nia Holland was the first bench player in the game for Lafayette in the first half, and then didn't appear again until the fourth quarter. (Unless she was there and I just didn't notice her- our PA guy was not on the ball with sub calls.) They've actually got some pretty decent size, or at least some decently physical size, in Ashley Lutz, Angela Ribarich, and Alexis Santarelli. Santarelli was especially impressive getting boards close to the basket. Their bigs, in general, did a nice job of setting screens for their guards, and we did a lousy job of calling them out.

Anna Ptasinski got shut down. It seems we learned from the Albany game to stay somewhat closer to the opponent's most notable player. She's got realy good instincts, and you can see that she knows how to play the game. Maia Hood is a little bit of a mismatch because of her size, but I think she saw more offensive opportunities for herself than might have been called for in the game plan. Sammy Stipa seemed to be running the offense, and was one of those invisible point guards ho doesn't really get herself noticed. There's a place for that role, but I don't know if it's here and now.

I think there's a disconnect between the players that Lafayette has, the coach that Lafayette has, what Coach Grentz expects from those players, and the current state of women's basketball on the college level. Old school can definitely be a thing, but I get the feeling the game has moved past Grentz.

We got to see all the reserves again! I like this pattern. I like it very much. Shamachya Duncan actually got some extended run in the fourth quarter after a cameo in the third. (And after all the time we spent wondering how to pronounce Shamachya, it turns out she goes by Machi.) It would be easy to dismiss her as Aaliyah 2.0- a slightly built guard from Staten Island with some moves- but she's a little more offensive-minded and not as inclined to set up the offense. She may need to move to point in future just because of her build, though. (On the other hand, I'm not entirely sure she's done with her growth spurt- her head seems a touch too big for the rest of her body.) Everyone was rooting so hard for her to get that first bucket, it was adorable. Kendyl Nunn went hard after loose balls and rebounds. Tamesha Alexander was last off the bench and coughed up the ball pretty much the first time she brought it up. Her handle isn't as good as she thinks it is. And like many Johnnies, she's got to put in more work at the free throw line.

One of these days, the universe is going to figure out that Crystal Simmons's shot may actually break the laws of physics as we know them, and that day may possibly bring about the end of the world as we know it. But until then, I'll continue to wonder how a follow-through that goes across the path of the ball somehow manages to direct it forward. I talk about how much I love her defense, but you're going to have to keep hearing it, because she does so much that doesn't show up in the box score. Andrayah Adams is coming along nicely. I still have some doubts about her, and I still question why she was so cavalierly handed #15, but she's doing all right. I thought it was interesting that she was directing the offense late in the game. Maya Singleton came up with big offensive boards and physical defense- the latter to a fault. No, Maya, you can't have a piggyback ride, and you can't just reach in for the ball. Sandra Udobi made herself available in the paint for offense, but wasn't moving as well on defense as I'd like (but I have to remember what to expect).

Jade Walker had the jumper working, but more importantly, she was going hard in the paint along the baseline. She and Gumbs were going at it in the second half, and by the end Jade looked ready to start a fight (or at least finish one). It's not a beast stat line, so you'll have to trust me when I say that this was one of Jade's best games so far this year. Imani Littleton was quietly efficient- she has a knack for getting to the right place at the right time. Fun to watch is the wrong phrase, but fun to pay attention to might be closer (if somewhat creepier).

Aaliyah Lewis is trying to do too much with the ball, trying too hard to succeed by needless misdirection. She kept the drama to a minimum this time. She drove hard in the lane, and those were fun to watch. I'm not saying there isn't a place for misdirection in her game, or that she doesn't use it effectively, but sometimes I get the feeling she crosses people over for the sake of crossing people over. Akina Wellere has been having the worst puck luck lately- lots of shots have been rimming out. I think she'll get through it, and she's picked up the nifty habit of making up for it at the defensive end. Somehow, the last couple of games she's been the one to make the big defensive stops near the end. Alisha Kebbe needs to put a little more oomph in her shot, and to work on her ball security. If the speed of the college game is catching up to her against Albany and Lafayette, it's really going to catch up to her against the Big East. Or, for that matter, against the defense of Rutgers.

Play got more physical as the game went on, and officiating got looser. There were a lot of players knocked down, mostly Johnnies. We were having some flashbacks to the infamous Southern Miss game (though unlike back in the day, we're carrying enough players that losing the entire starting five to injury and having one DQ'd wouldn't leave us with four on the court- that's actually really reassuring).

Jordan Agustus did not appear to be with the team. More on this as it develops.

There was a huge group seated in the upper deck. We don't know who they were, or what they were doing there, and they disappeared sometime in the second half. My theory is that they were a school of ninja, and they didn't actually leave- they just engaged their ninja stealth.

I'm not going to lie and say that this was a great game of basketball. But we needed a win, and we came away with a win; we needed to give minutes to our deep reserves, and they got minutes. The only thing I can complain about is being too tired to write it up properly. But it's already on to the next one. Basketball never stops, after all, no matter how much my back hurts.

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