November 14th, 2017: St. Peter's at LIU

Just the Facts, Ma’am: The Blackbirds of LIU Brooklyn held St. Peter’s to under 28% shooting from the floor to come away with a defensive 57-46 win in their home opener. Denisha Petty-Evans led all scorers with 18 points. Talah Hughes put up a double-double for St. Peter’s with 12 points and 11 rebounds, but she was the only Peacock in double figures.

For unrequested fashion critiques, offensive struggles, defensive poise, new friends, making some noise in this joint, and the rough patches, join your intrepid and possibly sick blogger after the jump.

Good evening, ladies and gentlemen! We must always remember that basketball never stops. I think I have to hold on to that rather harder than usual right now. It’s opening night for the Blackbirds of LIU, as they take on the Peacocks of St. Peter’s. (Should be Peahens.)

The schools really seems to be emphasizing its academic colors in the stands- cheer has pastel blue shirts and the accents on everything seem to be blue.

I like LIU’s new warm-ups shirts, especially with the design on the back.

Coach Del Preore’s three-inch leopard-print heels are a bold choice. (She’s also cuter with kids than I expected, since she was dancing with a kidlet who I guess belongs to one of her assistants.)

At this point, should I just be assuming Paris Jones will never dress?

Band anthem! I always appreciate when the band gets to play the anthem instead of going to a recording.

At halftime, LIU is up 30-28 on St. Peter’s. Drew Winter is showing off her stepback jumper. Talah Hughes of St. Peter’s is having herself a day down low. I think she heard the years of hype and accolades for Sajanna Bethea and decided that this was going to be her year instead

The PA guy can miss me with this “Lady Blackbirds” nonsense. We’re Blackbirds.

Does no one give the PA guy a pronunciation guide? This dude mispronounced Sajanna, and she gave him a double-take like you wouldn’t believe.

I like the gradient effect on the Peacocks’ uniforms.

The tickets got misprinted as being for the NEC championship, and somehow I was the first person checking in at will call to notice this.

Foam fingers! Blue ones! See, I told you LIU was emphasizing the academic colors more. I’m not sure how I feel about this when the team name is the Blackbirds.

I still do not have enough rhythm to keep up with the spirit squad.

Going to LIU games is going to be a lot of fun this year if Denisha Petty-Evans’s family shows up as loud as they did tonight. At least I’m assuming they’re her family; they were loudest when she was announced and when she did things, though they were also pretty enthusiastic for Drew Winter.

Sitting in front of a bunch of St. Peter’s fans was awkward, but survivable. We just had to be louder than they were, and the scratchiness of my throat suggests that we pulled it off.

Can cheer and pep squad please coordinate their chants? I suppose the cacophony has a strategic use, but as a fan, I need to know what I’m supposed to be yelling.

Samantha Meier has a big body, and I get the sense she knows how to use it. I also get the sense that she would like to use it more often. Brianna Tarabocchia was mostly in at the end of quarters. I don’t have any clear recollection of what she did on the floor. Precious Featherson got her time in the second half, unless her substitution in the first half wasn’t announced. She was pretty solid in the paint. Had a good look down low that didn’t go down.

Zoe Pero managed to get called for all the fouls that I thought were on Talah Hughes (seriously, on all three of her second-half fouls, I had the pen poised over Hughes’s foul count, and then I had to dart back down). She showed some range, but she had a tendency to shoot into contact. It did not serve the Peacocks well. (I do have to ask my Noona for some good Greek insults for the next time one of my teams plays them, though. I should get in touch with my roots, after all. Nothing too heinous, just enough to be distracting.) D’Aviyon Magazine got most of the guard minutes off the bench, showing some speed, a nice-looking shot, and perhaps less of an inclination to listen to her coach than is wise in a college freshman. I mean, okay, if Patty Coyle were my coach, I might not be listening either, but that is from my painful experience as a Liberty fan, not any sort of experience as a college athlete.

It is not a good idea to leave Alyssa Velles open for three. St. Peter’s was able to take advantage of some bad defensive switching by LIU to get her looks, and I think we’re fortunate more of them didn’t go down. I think she’s the one who tripped Drew Winter, so I’m not charitably inclined towards her. Daijah Martin had a really nice rebound on a second-half shot where her timing struck me as exceptional. Looking back, I think I should be surprised she didn’t play more; on the other hand, Pero was doing what St. Peter’s needed defensively, and also I should never be surprised at Pat Coyle’s substitution patterns. Sammy Lochner brought speed, but not much else.

Sajanna Bethea had an emphatic block on DeAngelique Waithe, and I keep forgetting that she can, in fact, step out and hit the three occasionally. She was hassled, and occasionally doubled, and couldn’t keep hold of the ball on the baseline. This was not her night. Perhaps having her name messed up during intros messed with her head, or maybe our defense was just that tight. Talah Hughes took advantage of some serious size mismatches to score in the paint and tear down a boatload of offensive rebounds. Such a fantastic game. I think she might just come into her own this year, and while that might be a little later than St. Peter’s might hve been hoping for, it’s still pretty awesome.

Someone needs to get Coach Coyle in touch with Mangina’s tailor. Phyllis’s suit looked spectacular.

I’m not a fan of the rolled-up shorts look that Jeydah Johnson and Destoni Willock are rocking. You do you, but I feel like y’all would be more comfortable if y’all just got shorts that fit right.

Unfortunately, I don’t think Destoni’s ready for primetime yet. It’s her second game, I’m not terribly surprised. Seneca Richards got some good minutes, mostly in the second half, including a big block on Bethea that I wasn’t eexpecting from her (I’m sort of used to Seneca being a three-point specialist). I love the defensive hustle that Ella Vaatanen brought to the floor. Her head wasn’t always in the play (during one sequence it was in fact her shoulder that was in the play, on a deflection she should have been paying more attention to), but she was disruptive, in the best of ways. Tia Montaigne has a ridiculously, gloriously high-arcing shot. I’d like to see it go in a little more often, but I’ll be satisfied just looking at it. She still needs to figure out her spots on the floor, but she’s a freshman, so I can deal with that.

Denisha Petty-Evans ran point well, I thought. She drove the lane and took contact willingly. I don’t know if she and Coach are fully on the same page of the playbook yet, but it’s always a learning experience when you bring in a new point guard. She definitely runs the game faster than Drew Winter does. I’m not saying that as anything against Drew, mind you. Everyone’s got a different style. Denisha drives; Drew’s clearly been working on her crossover and her stepback. Her floater, maybe not so much.

I love DeAngelique Waithe’s defense to itty-bitty pieces. I love how she defends the inbounds like a demented spider. She rebounds like crazy and throws in a wicked blocked shot or two. But goddamn if her offense isn’t a dumpster fire that has been further set on fire sometimes. You’d think no one had ever told her to aim at the square on the backboard when she throws up those putbacks at the rim. I can understand why Coach got frustrated with her so much last year. Stylz Sanders did her some work on the offensive glass, and she and Drew both got stuck with some rough mismatches on the defensive end, dealing with Hughes down low. This is not a good plan, especially as it concerns Drew. Stylz also has trouble finishing at the rim, but I can’t fault her hustle. I really like what Jeydah Johnson has brought to the floor. She’s got a nice three-point shot, but she’s not afraid to throw her weight around down low, either. I’m looking forward to seeing how she develops over the next couple of years.

I love LIU’s team defense. The biggest problem I’m seeing right now is that we can make the first play on defense- the rebound, the block, the deflection, the forced miss- but we can’t always recover to make the second. Our reaction times need to be better. Yes, I realize we’re talking the NEC here, and there are probably reasons why I shouldn’t be expecting them to react as quickly as I’d like. On the other hand, we were playing a MAAC team that historically hasn’t been very good, so I feel like we should at least have been faster on the uptake than they were.

Officiating was very focused on travels in the early part of the game. There was a lot of contact they were letting go. Drew got a forearm to the throat, and play was stopped briefly after DeAngelique was hit in the face. Given the back and forth between DeAngelique and Bethea, I really thought this game was going to end with one or both of them getting a technical- there were a lot of little elbows, shoves, and other such post player shenanigans going on all night.

Despite the usual array of commentary, the GNoD are not a fashion blog. However, I’m going to question Coach Del Preore’s choice of the black sheath for a game day, only because she spends a lot of time stalking the sideline, and it rode up on her more than once. (Yes, Steph, I saw you having to pull the dress back down. I see almost everything.)

LIU may not be very good, but they’re fun to watch. They’ve got the defense down- the end of game press was awesome. The offense is the more difficult part. In other words, the story of my life as a basketball fan.