December 17th, 2017: UCLA at Seton Hall

Just the Facts, Ma'am: Seton Hall kept coming back, but UCLA kept pulling away in their 77-68 win at Walsh Gymnasium. Monique Billings had 17 points and six blocks to lead five Bruins in double figures, with Jordin Canada adding 11 points and 10 assists. Donnaizha Fountain had 23 points to lead the Pirates.

For blinking lights, Christmas decorating, tall people, banging the clipboard, gym drop-offs, guests, and moral victories, join your intrepid and packed blogger after the jump.


Good afternoon! Or good morning if you're of the West Coast persuasion, which I imagine more of you than usual are. It's game day at Walsh Gymnasium, and the Pirates are hosting nationally-ranked UCLA.

Pretty much exactly as I type these words, UCLA has entered the gym and started stretching. The blue seems darker than I remember. They have lights or sensors or something in the little rolly things they use to stretch.

Seton Hall's pre-game warm-up clothes range from undershirts (Kaela Hilaire and Taylor Brown) to standard jerseys (most of the team) to hoodies (Shadeen Samuels and Deja Winters). I didn't think there was that much of a temperature swing in here.

A lot of the usual suspects have arrived earlier than usual to stake out their usual seats- in fact, we got here about quarter past twelve and our regular spot was occupied.

Miscommunication between the band and the color guard. You're not supposed to start the anthem until the color guard is on the floor and the flags are in position, right?

Just for the record, it is poor form to complain about the officials when you're up double digits, and to then make unsubstantiated allegations against a player. Just saying.

Exciting game- UCLA is up 39-32, after being up as much as 13. Seton Hall's defense is there, but the offense is tentative, and UCLA's size is giving us all kinds of problems. Michaela Onyenwere got off to a very hot start for the Bruins and leads them with 10 points. Donnaizha Fountain has 12 points to lead the Pirates. Great defensive minutes from Kimi Evans and Deja Winters off the bench.

Well, I can't say we didn't have chances. I can't also say that UCLA didn't answer every single time. There's a reason they're nationally ranked, after all.

According to the ESPN box score, Chrissy Baird played, but I don’t even remember seeing her. The solid seal that allowed Japreece Dean to get to the bucket came from the big body of Lauryn Miller, no matter what my personal stat sheet said. (Poor kid kept getting misidentified in those stats- accidentally gave her the foul that Selena Philoxy committed. I should be used to my own formatting by now...) Chantel Horvat is tall for her position, like many of UCLA's players, but unlike her more experienced teammates she doesn't seem entirely used to it yet.

I can see why UCLA picked up Japreece Dean on the transfer- she's similar to Jordin Canada in build and spewed, though at least in this game she seemed to have more of a jumper and less inclination to drive. I think she's a good pickup for them. I don't know why Monique Billings didn't start, but she played most of the game. Something about her reminds me of Candace Parker- maybe it's just the build and the face. She was a shot-blocking machine in this one, with some spectacular ones to get the Bruins going in the first quarter. When she goes up above everyone else, she's unstoppable. But I don't know how much she relies on her physical advantages and how much she relies on skill and talent. I'm not sure how she'll produce against players of similar size to her on the next level. But I'm impressed with her play at the basket.

I don't know what I expected to see out of Jordin Canada. I'm still not sure I saw it, whatever it was. She's definitely super quick, offensively and defensively. When she drives to the rack, the only winning play is to get out of the way lest ye be run over. She's got fantastic court vision. But I see why people bring up her lack of a reliable jump shot. She had one or two that were very short, and I'm not sure they were just the three-pointers. She's also very slight (which is an amusing contrast to the rest of the UCLA squad). I see her strengths, but now I also see her possible downsides. Kelli Hayes was the backbreaker- whenever we got on a run, she'd hit a three and UCLA would find new life from it. That's the thing seniors are supposed to do, and she did it. When she got into foul trouble in the fourth quarter, Kennedy Burke stepped up in that role. Burke had a solid defensive game- she extends the defense, making sure the other team has no chance to get comfortable in the frontcourt. Most of the time, we can at least make the side-to-side passes that indicate a dithering offense, one that isn't sure what it wants to do. Burke's length on defense ensured that we couldn't even be indecisive comfortably.

Lajahna Drummer got the start in place of Billings. I... do not think the three-point shot is among her strengths. Judging by how quickly Drummer got pulled out of the game after that feeble attempt, I don't think Cori Close thinks it's one of her strengths either. She did not have a good game in the few minutes she got. On the other hand, I ws very impressed with Michaela Onyenwere, who seemed to be doing her best to make up for Billings being benched all by herself in the first half. I think she had the first six points for the Bruins. She cuts into the lane like a hot knife through butter. She's got a whole lot of potential- I can't believe she's only a freshman.

UCLA needs to work on ball security, or at least how to handle a swarm of smaller defenders. They could use some polish on offense, as well. They'll stop a lot of people who can't deal with their length and speed, but they're not necessarily going to win a shootout.

Coach tried inserting Selena Philoxy briefly in the second quarter, since our posts were either in foul trouble or really, really having trouble with UCLA's ability to sky for rebounds. She's more physical than most of our posts, but that still didn't help, so I'm not surprised she didn't play again in the second half. We actually got good minutes from Jayla Jones-Pack and the streak of Pirate blue in her hair- probably one of the better games I've seen her have. She seemed to be in her element amongst the tall trees of Westwood, even if the one shot she hit was mostly sheer dumb luck. She had a fantastic block on Jordin Canada. Kimi Evans showed flashes of defensive potential in her minutes.

Big offensive game from Nicole Jimenez. She hit the shots when it counted in order to keep Seton Hall in the game. Her insistence on slowing down the offense is going to drive me to drink one of these days (and I'm already on my second Diet Coke of the day). She's got to get a sense of urgency late in games. I mean, I shouldn't be riding her as hard as I am, given that she was the main reason we stayed in this game as long as we did, but her late-game clock management left something to be desired. I was very impressed with the day that Deja Winters had on both ends of th efloor. She, at least, seemed to have some understanding of time and score at the end of the game. She was ferocious on defense and timely on offense, and at least once combined the two with a steal and fast break lay-up. I love seeing her diversify her offense, and she did that in this one.

Now this is going to be the fun part, in the sense that repeatedly poking a bruise is fun. Kaela Hilaire's head was not in the game. I don't know where it was, but it was not in Walsh Gym. She gave up twice in a row on drives by Canada, which I think is when Tony lost his patience with her. Her defense was generally slipshod, and I can't even think of where she was on offense. JaQuan Jackson's shot briefly deigned to join us in the third quarter, then left again. I think it was a combination of Quanny being on a bad streak and UCLA's defense keying on her that shut her down, but boy howdy was she ever shut down. Donnaizha Fountain put up big numbers, much of them on volume. Sometimes I think she gets into her own head too much when she misses one or two shots, and that's pretty much a guarantee she'll miss at least one or two more. She seems to have become more offensive-minded than defensive-minded.

I disagreed strongly with the second foul on Shadeen Samuels, and that set the tone for the rest of her day. She played limited minutes and was hindered in those minutes. I love her pursuit of loose balls, but in everything else she was outclassed today. Taylor Brown played good defense and rebounded well, but couldn't hit water falling out of a boat. At least two of those misses were on the same sequence. I appreciate her toughness, but her inability to put the ball in the basket was a problem I just can't look past.

Time and score, y'all. If there are two or three minutes left in the game, and y'all are down nine, you've got to shoot fast. You can't blow ten-fifteen seconds of the clock dribbling on the wing because you're not sure what you want to do. Situational awareness didn't kill us in this game, but it killed any chance we had to have a chance.

Officiating was at the usual level of terrible. Counting is difficult, scrums are okay, and no one cares about contact. (On both sides. Don't think I didn't see you whack Laj Drummer in the head, Taylor.) I thought UCLA was being allowed to get away with more contact; a UCLA fan I was corresponding with during the game thought Seton Hall was getting all the calls. Clearly we can't both be right.

I've seen communication breakdowns between players and coaches, and between players on the floor, but I think this is the first time I've ever seen it happen with two cheerleaders- the one who was supposed to be lifted was on the wrong side of the floor, and one of the cheerleaders who was supposed to be lifting her let her have it.

Pretty full house. I would have liked for it to be a sellout, but I'll take what we got, especially since the side of the upper deck I couldn't see was apparently very full. Turned out that the people sitting in front of us had also sat next to us at a Liberty game, so they've survived the experience twice now. Bless them.

There was a dude at the media table who I swear was either Eric Thibault or his doppelganger.

Everything is a learning experience. We went up against one of the best teams in the country, and we had far from our best game, especially from our star players, and we gave them a fight. Credit where credit is due.