Saturday, December 9, 2017

December 9th, 2017: James Madison at St. John's

Just the Facts, Ma’am: St. John’s broke open a close game in the third quarter to beat James Madison, 81-64. Akina Wellere led four Johnnies in double figures with 18 points. Kamiah Smalls of James Madison led all scorers with 19 points.

For snow, delays, the real MVP, apple cake, getting the gang back together, partying like it’s your nerdy birthday, ball movement, and three pointers, join your intrepid and chilled blogger after the jump.

I know these people, right? St. John’s has been too long away from home, but the girls are back in town for a match-up against James Madison.

JMU has a very nifty bus. Of course, I can question why they bussed up from Virginia, but hey, y’all do y’all.

Pro tip to public safety: the first snow day of the season is not the day to start setting up security late, dither over the proper placement of bins, and open the doors almost fifteen minutes late. Y’all have done this before, can y’all act like you’ve done this before?

Getting the gang back together: Sky Lindsay (who works for ESPN3 and the BEDN) is chatting away with Da’Shena Stevens and Shenneika Smith over by the St. John’s bench. Pass the ball, Sky.

I’m not sure how I feel about Andrayah Adams in an undershirt. It’s not the most flattering look for her.

I’mma need my band family to get here in a hurry. People are starting to take their seats.

Somebody’s horn just made the most godawful squealing noise, and I’m really glad it’s only warm-ups.

Shenneika, if you’re going to wear suspenders, admit you’re wearing suspenders and don’t leave the loops hanging by your sides like you’re expecting someone to hook something to them. I see you. I SEE EVERYTHING.

I’ve never actually been at a game where someone forgot the words to the anthem before. And it wasn’t like he was doing a great job of it before flubbing the line, either.

I don’t want to say that the cheer clinic kids behind me didn’t care about the game, but they bailed as soon as their performance was done. They didn’t even wait until halftime. Heck, they didn’t even care about the t-shirt toss. I mean, jeez, y’all.

Chuck a duck is back! New charity is Go for the Goal, which probably explains why every spirit group has a junior version and why anyone who could swap out their laces has the gold laces. (I presume the inability to swap shoelaces is why most Johnnies have them tied around their ankles.)

38-30 St. John’s at halftime. Uncharacteristic number of three-pointers. We’ll see if we can sustain it in the second half. JMU relies on good ball movement, and our defense has been able to negate that.

I’m not happy with the minutes the starters put in in the fourth quarter- and for that matter, that goes for both teams. Sixteen points with two minutes to go seems pretty safe, since I don’t think anyone is going to pull one hot minute again, and if they do you have time to sub out the bench players.

(There is a man practicing bagpipes on the platform at 75th Avenue. Why is there a man practicing bagpipes on the platform?)

Either Aneah Young’s shot was really off today, or it's just that bad and she’s convinced herself that it’s good. It wasn’t. I think it was the first shot she took where we left her wide open, she hesitated, then decided to shoot a three and proceeded to slide it down the far side of the backboard. Going from Kamiah Smalls to her was definitely an offensive downgrade, to the point where Coach O’Regan skipped her in the rotation for much of the second half. Tori Harris got the call in that spot in the third quarter (though Young would enter later). My first impression of her boiled down to “long, lanky, and eager”- she seemed to be desperately trying to prove herself on defense. She got her buckets in the fourth quarter, one on a straightaway three and one on an easy lay-up. Logan Reynolds did a lot of running around out there, and made a nice defensive stop to curtail a Red Storm fast break.

Kayla Cooper-Williams is very tall and very slim, looking a little bit fragile and a little bit foldable. She’s very raw, and I seem to remember an ACL in her past; if that’s accurate, that could explain the hint of timidness to her game. She pulls down boards well, and knows how to use her height in that regard- there were two or three that she just pulled out of the hands of shorter Red Storm posts like she was the claw in the toy machine. But wow, was her shot a mess of hot garbage. Someone has to work on that with her quickly. Devon Merritt backed up Kelly Koshuta, and brought a little more low-post physicality than Koshuta did, including a neat seal of Imani Littleton to leave Lexie Barrier open for a midrange shot.

I’m not used to Hailee Barron doing something that isn’t shooting a three. She was such a specialist early on her career, but she’s developed other facets of her game over the last four years, and as a basketball fan, that makes me happy (and makes me take note of Kenny Brooks and Sean O’Regan as coaches). She was scrappy on defense and had a good defensive board. I keep thinking Lexie Barrier should be a defensive stopper because of her name, but she was more offensive-minded in this one, slashing to the basket. If she’s going to take as many threes as she did in this one, though, she’s going to need to practice them a lot more. Kamiah Smalls was the star of the show, stopping and popping and often driving. Ballhandling was a little suspect, but our defense does that to people, so I’d want to see her against a less defensive-minded team than mine before judging her on that. She’s not the scoring superstars of old that JMU once had, but she’s a damn good offensive option.

Kelly Koshuta has a surprisingly nice outside shot for a player of her height and build, but I don’t know that I’d use it as often as she did in this game. Yes, it stretches the defense, but she might have been as or more effective down low, especially with the foul trouble our posts were in. (We’ll get to the foul trouble later.) Tasia Butler barely played, and I don’t know what the story was with that. I’ll have to ask a JMU fan about that.

I liked JMU’s ball movement- yes, we were able to frequently disrupt it, but that’s our specialty. When we weren’t able to disrupt it, it was crisp and effective.

I’m starting to understand why Joe has no confidence in Kayla Charles. I’d really like to see her develop, but she’s got to understand that there are going to be other people her height, and maybe even taller, on the floor. She doesn’t seem comfortable with that, and she doesn’t seem to know how to play them. This is a problem. This is especially going to be a problem if Imani and Maya are going to get in foul trouble every game. Alisha Kebbe brought defense, and briefly joined the three-point party, but was otherwise quiet. (Too quiet.) Andrayah Adams alternated picture-perfect three-pointers with wild drives that ended in wilder shots, the very definition of “no, no, yes!” I’d still like to see more improvement from her on defense, especially if Joe’s going to have to go to crazy four- and five-guard sets, but she’s getting there.

(seriously, Joe, we were up no less than fourteen the entire fourth quarter, you couldn’t have let Sox or Machi give Tiana or Kina a break?)

The more of Maya Singleton I see, the sadder I get... because I would have liked to see a whole lot more, but she’s a junior college transfer so we only get two years, and that makes me sad. I love me some Maya. She rebounds ferociously, she’s not the worst dribbler in the world, and she can score at the basket. Once she got going, she wasn’t going to stop going. Imani Littleton got into early foul trouble, and between that and the one missed chippie, I don’t think she ever really found her rhythm. I get the sense- and it could be completely off base- that Imani spends a lot of time in her own head, and for the next four months or so that’s not a good thing. For the rest of her life, it absolutely is, and I appreciate that sense of deeper self about her.

Rough game for Qadashah Hoppie, the first I’ve seen her have. It wasn’t so much that she was out of sync than it was she didn’t seem to fit in this lineup. She needs to step her defense up, and not just her on-ball defense, if she’s going to fit into our defensive schemes. Tiana England scaled back her “where offense goes to die a strangled death” tendencies- and when she’s zipping the ball around, shock of shocks, the offense actually works. She had a couple of nifty passes to Akina Wellere (and to hear her tell it, there should have been more!) including an early backwards bounce pass that set Kina up for three. It’s really good to see Akina in her offensive flow. When her three is falling, she has much more confidence in the rest of her arsenal, and that’s when the drives start falling, and everything in her game just kicks up another notch. She made some bad decisions that had me going, “Kina, why did you do that?”

I don’t think the three-point shooting is sustainable, but it’s fun to watch.

Officiating. Hoo boy. I’m tired of the multi-body scrums not being called, and the ticky-tack hand check fouls being called. I let them have it a few times, to the point where I think the one guy I liked the least (Farlow, I think?) heard me. (After a whistle finally went our way, I maaaaaay have said something along the lines of “Blessed glory hallelujah, you finally got one right!” And he may have said to one of his colleagues, “That’s what I wanted to hear.”) I think the things they’re being asked to emphasize are not the things that are inherent to the integrity of the game and the safety of the players.

Getting the band back together, the junior edition: after the game, spotted Sandra Udobi and Mallory Jones chatting with Ashley Perez, who’s working at James Madison.

Autograph day! Decided to go for the flag because that was the shorter run and I thought I had a D&D game to go to (turns out our sorceress canceled and I hiked my butt to Sheepshead Bay for no good reason). Complimented Tiana’s passing, and she said thank you, and that’s when she asked Akina why she drove on a particular play. I don’t know the context, but while I was still back in the line, I heard one of them ask, “Did you lose your words?” I heart my team so much.

The Fordham game is going to be more awkward than I thought, but I’m looking forward to it anyway.

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