January 14, 2017: St. Francis at LIU

Just the Facts, Ma'am: Iverson Fleming had 13 of his 16 points in the second half as LIU came away with the 65-58 win. Fleming was one of four Blackbirds in double figures, with Jerome Frink adding 15 and Jashaun Agosto and Nura Zanna each contributing 12. Rasheem Dunn of St. Francis led all scorers with 21, but he and Yunus Hopkinson (18 points) were the only Terriers in double figures.

For not dunking the ball, cheerleaders on the road, big plays, odd numbers, a mix of colors, and sweet revenge, join your intrepid and exploratory blogger after the jump.

Time for men's basketball now! Battle 2 will begin shortly, with LIU and St. Francis taking another shot at each other. We'll see if I can write anything about this game without my lingering RAAAAAAAAAEG at the first game bleeding through.

The size of men's players, even at this level, always takes me by surprise. It's not even the height so much as it is the width and the breadth. There are some very impressive shoulders out there.

Most of the St. Francis women have wandered out. LIU's taking a lot longer, but we still got to reassure Brianna Farris that she had a good game. (She really did. Four threes and strong defense.)

Because the benches typically reverse when it's a doubleheader, we're now technically in St. Francis territory, but I'm too tired to care. I have Game Notes to write; I don't have time to play musical bleachers. (Besides, I'm a sucker for Glenns.) And then it turned out the benches weren't reversed after all.

Oh, good grief, Angel, did you forget your backpack too? This is starting to edge into Tari Phillips space cadet territory. Stylz had to haul it along with hers.

At halftime, it's 23-21 LIU, but St. Francis has had the momentum for most of the first half. This halves thing is really confusing me. It's been a while. Yunus Hopkinson has 10 points for SFC, while Nura Zanna and Jaeshaun Agosto each have six for LIU. SFC has had a lot of opportunities at the rim and blown them with astonishing efficiency.

That game was entirely too close for comfort, but I'm glad LIU was at least able to salvage a split of the doubleheader. Big plays at the right time for Iverson Fleming and Nura Zanna, and SFC's persistence in missing at the rim did them in at the end.

SFC brought a lot of length off the bench, in general; I think all of their reserves were playing at the basket. Jagos Lasic gave the Terriers some good minutes late in the first half, rebounding and setting picks. Jahmel Bodrick really impressed me with his work on the offensive glass, which led to good hard putbacks. Josh Nurse had good length, though he was committing some rather stupid fouls. He had a wicked block on Jerome Frink in the second half. I'm trying to remember what Keon Williams did out there, and I think it was mostly being tall and rebounding.

Robert Montgomery had some trouble with fouls, so he spent a lot of time on the bench, which was what allowed those big reserves to shine. We were sitting near Glenn Sanabria's family, so I was kind of hoping he'd have some big plays, even though I was rooting for LIU, and he did have a nice three near the end of the shot clock. He kept getting in foul trouble, though. Gunnar Olaffsson lived up to his name for stretches, going deep early and often, but what annoyed me more about him was the foul that should have been a flagrant- you hug a guy around the waist after the ball goes up, there should at least be a review, because that's not a play on the ball.

What really shone for St. Francis was their backcourt. Yunus Hopkinson got started early, creating offense on the fast break and firing away from three. But even then, I liked the look of Rasheem Dunn more, though Dunn only had three points at the break. He broke out big time in the second half, creating his own offense and displaying a nice combination of range and ability to create his own shot. The two of them sparked the Terriers, and they're going to be fun to watch this year in the NEC.

The Terriers' coach needs to switch to decaf. That all being said, I think this young SFC team has a good chance to go where they have never gone before and take the honor of being a 16 seed crushed in the first round.

For LIU, Julius van Sauers was the utility post in the first half- whenever someone needed a quick rest or got in foul trouble, he got up for a little bit before it was time to go back to what seemed like the regular rotation. When Nura Zanna got a better grasp of his fouls, van Sauers was somewhat redundant. Raul Frias had a really nice putback in the first half and a little bit of speed. Raiquan Clark wound up a couple of monster blocks that got the crowd fired up (at least the LIU portion)- the one in the second half was especially spectacular.

Jerome Frink was rock solid down low, though he is not a guy I would like to see shooting long jumpers very often. He reminds me a little of Aaron Williams, back when I used to follow the Nets- not as chiseled, perhaps, but broad and strong on the inside. Nura Zanna needs to get back on the free throw line and keep practicing- there's no excuse for missing six free throws, all but airballing one of them. He made up for one of the misses with a powerful putback. His game is all about power and strength. He lacks finesse, but that's okay. I like post players.

I do also like guards, though, and though I spent the first three-fourths of the game wanting to smack Iverson Fleming upside the head for showboating and generally living up to his name and number in all the wrong ways, he was clutch late. He got the big baskets, both inside and outside, and stepped up on defense. His game is inconsistent, but well-rounded. Jashaun Agosto penetrated the lane and sort of sneaked up on everyone- I certainly didn't realize how much scoring he had done until I looked at the scoresheet. Julian Batts broght speed, and one big basket relatively late in the game, but was otherwise unremarkable.

I was really expecting LIU to rely even more on the power game than they did. They need to finish better; there's no reason they shouldn't.

The crowd was pretty evenly split, as one would expect when the two schools are so close together. I was surprised that there weren't that many more people there for the men's game than the women's game, though part of that was because most of the very large group of elementary school cheerleaders left after the women's game was over.

(Speaking of cheerleaders: you know it's a rivalry game when the opposing team brings their cheerleaders, and the cheerleaders bring their pom-poms. SFC's cheer squad was behind their bench.)

I couldn't find it in me to be upset when one of the St. Francis women got hit with a stray pass that went out of bounds.

This was a game worthy of the rivalry, even if the officials did their level best to look like amateurs out there.