November 29th, 2017: Fordham at Manhattan

Just the Facts, Ma’am: Both Fordham and Manhattan had second half surges, but the Rams’ third quarter run was enough of a cushion to withstand the Jaspers’ fourth quarter run as Fordham came away with the 54-48 win. G’mrice Davis had 19 points- 11 in the fourth quarter- and 15 rebounds to pace the Rams. Amani Tatum’s 13 points, all in the fourth, led the Jaspers.

For senior power, the 1 train, gold and green, strange layouts, long-distance family, and secret steps, join your intrepid and unrivaled blogger after the jump.

I am a glutton for punishment and a sucker for rivalries, and tonight is the Battle of the Bronx at Manhattan College, where the Jaspers will take on the Fordham Rams for borough supremacy.

I keep forgetting that the best way to get to Draddy is to go through the parking garage. Eh, some stairs are good for me. I did find the second elevator, though.

Came in right behind Kendell Heremaia’s family, in town for the holidays. Her little sister is so cute!

There are free shirts! I love free shirts! They’ve got “Battle of the Bronx” on the front in a graffiti-esque font.

I was expecting the court to be greener, for some reason.

DJ needs to be quicker on the bleeps, or use radio edits.

There is a tiny Manhattan guard who is practically swimming in the Battle of the Bronx shirt. I think they only made it in XL, and she is emphatically not. You can see about an inch of the bottom of her shorts, and everything else is t-shirt. Tiny guard is Gabby Cajou, who looks like Moriah Jefferson shrunk in the wash.

It has not exactly been the most inspiring basketball, but Fordham is up 18-15 at the half. Balanced scoring for both teams. Each team has had a sequence with at least four shots where they came up empty.

Tonight features charities against pediatric cancer, including gold laces on all the players. I should go give people money.

We had a wedgie in this game and none of the players even tried to take it down. I am ashamed of you all.

Huge fourth quarter. Stars step up when their team needs them, and as long as the refs weren’t calling the extra step, G’mrice Davis was going to take the ball. I love it.

Someone remind me next time: parking garage to the quadrangle and across the bridge. Too many stairs, cannot cope.

Short rotation for the Rams in this one- only the Kiwis got off the bench. Zara Jillings brought defense, including a resounding block to end the third quarter- you could hear that ball get the taste smacked out of its metaphorical mouth from four rows away. Kendell Heremaia just couldn’t get the ball into the basket for the longest time, but when that first three fell, we all cheered. (Her family must have been so cold. They had flip-flops. It’s supposed to get into the 30s tonight.) She was active on the glass, deflecting rebounds, even if Manhattan sometimes came up with those tips. Love her heart and hustle.

Bless your heart, Mary Goulding. And I mean it in both the genuine and Southern senses. She’s loveable because she makes all the hustle plays. She goes to the floor for loose balls and scraps for offensive rebounds. She’s excruciatingly frustrating because she can’t hold on to the ball for love nor money, her shot is a mess, and she has hands like stone. I’m not quite sure how to run plus/minus, but I’m pretty sure that she would have the most deceptive zero plus/minus in sports. This wasn’t Johanna Klug’s night. For whatever reason, she was losing passes out of bounds on the baseline and missing badly at the basket. Maybe she’s hit the freshman wall, but I have faith she’ll get over it, or through it, or whatever one does to metaphorical walls. G’mrice Davis couldn’t get off a good shot for most of the game- Manhattan has a lot of height. But in the fourth quarter, she started driving more, and she got the non-calls on the extra step, so she was able to either blast to the basket or stop and pop the free throw line jumper. And, as always, she was dogged on the glass. And her hair looked fabulous.

Lauren Holden was matched up defensively on Kayla Grimme. Kayla Grimme is about a foot taller than Lauren. Lauren arguably had more success against her than she did against players closer to her own size- she was at the perfect height to attack Grimme when Grimme went into the triple threat position. She was a little more hesitant than usual to chuck her long threes, but when they went down, they did so with a splash. Bre Cavanaugh had a fantastic game- she was on fire in the first half, and knocked down her free throws in the second half. She skied for rebounds like I haven’t seen from a guard in I can’t remember when. I’m still not entirely sure if she meshes properly with Fordham’s propensity for slowing the game down whenever possible, but other coaches have made that change-of-pace player work.

Y’all have got to hold on to the ball, Fordham. Ball security matters; if you think the A-10 is going to let you get away with this, y’all have another think coming.

Manhattan’s coach tried a lot of players in the first half, then drastically shortened the rotation in the second half after seeing what worked. I think she thought Alex Smith was going to work, but two quick travels put the kibosh on that, and she was laboring after a very short time. Nyasha Irizarry came in in the second half as either a three-point specialist or as a fresh set of fouls- I’m not entirely sure which. Sini Mäkelä seems to be so new to Manhattan that their PA guy is still getting his mouth around her name. Either that or no one is giving out pronunciation guides. She needs to develop a little more strength to get her shot off.

Gabby Cajou is very tiny (really, if she’s 5-4, I’m Sue Bird), very slight, and very fast. She blazed through the lane for her first two baskets so fast that I don’t think Fordham realized she had checked into the game. She eventually cooled off, and the defense eventually adjusted to her. I don’t like Courtney Warley. It seemed like she took every opportunity she could get to shove someone or raise an elbow, or do something else uncouth. I was surprised she was called for as few fouls as she was.

My hat is very much off to Amani Tatum. She has an enormous attitude, but as the song goes, it ain’t bragging if you back it up, and in the fourth quarter she backed it up to the hilt. She took the “three-and-D” role up to 11, hitting corner threes and making huge defensive plays (she had one steal that was such a pickpocketing that Lauren Holden should be double-checking every set of pants she owns). She stepped up when her team needed her. Lynette Taitt hit a couple of back-to-back jumpers from the free throw line extended, helping Manhattan get off to... okay, it was an 8-5 quarter, so a good start might be an overstatement? I might have kept her in longer if I were Manhattan’s coach, but at the same time, you couldn’t really have both her and Cajou on the floor, and Cajou’s speed was a problem for Fordham. Taylor Williams turned it up in the fourth quarter, though I admit there were occasionally moments when I got her and Warley mixed up because of the hair.

Mikki Guiton lists as a center, but I’m going to call shenanigans on that; most of her shots came from the perimeter. I mean, maybe there are occasions when she plays inside, and yes, positions are becoming more and more fluid these days, and maybe she just gets listed as a center because of her height. But I’m still calling shenanigans on that position listing. Kayla Grimme hit a three, but overall was a more traditional post player, getting inside to pull down boards and make defensive plays. Very solid game for her.

Credit where credit is due: Manhattan got down big in the late third and early fourth, but their seniors never acted like they were out of it. They held their ground, forced turnovers, and hit big shots. If they’re going to have a year, this is going to be that year.

I would like for people to please stop hitting Bre in the face, thank you very much. (On the flip side, Lauren, please stop with the leg whips. Someday someone way bigger than you is going to take major offense.) I mean, it wasn’t the worst-officiated game I’ve seen all season, but that just means there were fewer moments where it could be mistaken for a rugby game. I’m starting to wonder if the referee pool has been depleted, for whatever reason, and if there’s any noticeable difference between mid-major refs and BCS refs.

Have I ever talked about the strange way Draddy Gymnasium is configured for basketball? Because even for a multi-use facility it’s weird. The court is laid out in the middle of the track, with the bleachers on all four sides. It looks rather like a race of basketball-loving aliens dropped it right in the middle. Princeton has a similar facility, but I think they put the court at one end instead of right in the middle.

Seniors, man. Never underestimate them.