January 27th, 2018: Sacred Heart at LIU

Just the Facts, Ma'am: Sacred Heart rode a strong second quarter to a 50-46 win. Candice Leatherwood led the Pioneers with a game-high 21 points, while Abigail Kangudie had 15 rebounds. Denisha Petty-Evans led LIU with 10 points.

For minor injury concerns, youth cheerleaders, terrible passing, and other embarrassments, join your intrepid blogger after the jump, as long as you remembered to bring a bottle of Lethe.


Note to self: always lie to mom about tip-off time. We just barely made it in the door in time.

It's halftime of LIU-Sacred Heart as I type, and the Pioneers are up 30-21. The Blackbirds are taking some of the dumbest shots I've ever seen (and I've seen this team take a lot of dumb shots in their time, believe you me). I think having the two seniors, Stylz Sanders and DeAngelique Waithe, off the floor with foul trouble hasn't helped- they really don't have anyone to bail them out. And Angel took that second foul badly- she got stompy, and then there was a water bottle on the floor and everyone but her cleaning it up. Be an adult. Seneca shouldn't have to literally clean up your mess.

We had two youth groups cheering at half. Unfortunately, I went for soda and missed the Diamonds but saw the younger, less talented group.

Jeydah Johnson hasn't played. I wonder if she's still in concussion protocol. At least she seems to have lost the light/noise sensitivity.

Denisha Petty-Evans's family, or at least the people who cheered loudest when she was introduced, is out in force and making noise. That's good, because I'm still getting over crud and can't sustain my usual noise levels.

That was not good. That was, in fact, very bad. I don't think either team could have been happy with that performance, though I suspect Coach Del Preore was far more vocal and more profane in her opinion than Sacred Heart's coach was. There was no sustained energy, no real desire to fight back against the brief pushes of momentum that Sacred Heart occasionally, somehow, managed to put together. It seemed like we were going through the motions, and that's not really something you can get away with when you're a middling to bad team in a bad conference. The one thing we have going for us is our hustle. When we don't that, hoo boy are we going to have a bad time.

I can't tell you as much as I'd like about Sacred Heart's substitution patterns, because our PA guy was asleep at the wheel and could barely be bothered to announce when people were coming in. Since the Pioneers don't have names on their jerseys, half the time I only noticed someone new was in because she scored or committed a foul. Y'all. This is not acceptable, I don't care if this is "only" the NEC. Either get better PA guys or put names on your jerseys, okay?

In any case, sorry about the disgression. Olivia Dabney was part of Sacred Heart's constant trapping and pressing, a defense that kept LIU on their heelsl and never let them get into a rhythm. Jayla Davis gave the Pioneers a quick spurt of offense when she first came into the game in the first half. Asia McCray got inside a bit to help deflect rebounds.

Erin Storck has a strange looking shot. I'm not surprised that it often took strange angles off the heel of the rim. She wasn't afraid to put it up, even when she was contested. Sacred Heart as a team was prone to travels, but she was especially guilty with shuffling the extra step on the drive to the lane. Tykera Carter was quick, and came up with a couple of baskets late in the game to help the Pioneers put it away. Candice Leatherwood is a little bit scary on defense- she's got a very effective mean mug. We kept fouling her at the end of the game, and she kept hitting free throws. (I may be a tiny bit salty that she took more free throws than my entire team did. But we'll cover that more later.) The Sacred Heart fans behind us kept calling her Candy, and it just doesn't seem to fit her. Maybe she's one of those people who looks tough but she's really a sweetheart.

I'm really trying to get a clear picture of Adrianne Hagood out there, and I'm failing miserably, though part of it is most likely my desire to burn all the tapes of this game, even the ones inside my head. Abigail Kangudie did a really nice job of keeping DeAngelique Waithe off her game. She might not have had much of an impact on the score line, but she killed it on the glass, and she made sure that LIU couldn't get too much going off rebounds.I don't know if defense is usually her role, but she did yeoman's work bodying up on Angel.

If Tia Montagne doesn't figure out what's wrong with her shot, someone's hair is getting torn out, and I don't know if it's going to be mine, Coach's, or hers. She's both too hesitant and too willing to shoot, which is paradoxical and probably indicates just how much is wrong with this team. I do like her heart, but she just didn't have it today. Paris Jones gave spot minutes at point, but she didn't seem to be meshing with the other personnel on the floor. I think she was expecting something from them, and none of them knew what she wanted of them. That's actually pretty close to how everyone was behaving towards everyone, but Paris was especially spanner-in-the-works like there.

Destoni Willock was actually pretty solid on the boards. I'm surprised Coach didn't go back to her more in the second half, given the foul trouble on everyone whose number ended in 0 and happened to be sort of tall. She scrambled for balls on the baseline and came up with a lay-up off a steal. Ella Vaatanen looked a little lost, and still seems to be ranging her shot, but for the first time I saw this season seemed more confident in her height and her body, using them both to her advantage defensively on the perimeter.

I don't normally ask this about my favorite, but I found myself wondering by the end of the game exactly how DeAngelique Waithe had gotten that stick wedged in such an uncomfortable position, and just how long it was going to take her to dislodge it. She spent most of the day looking like she had run out of damns to give. There were flashes of her usual self, especially in the third quarter, when she flashed into the lane for boards or shots, and she kept her shot-blocking game on point. But her usual energy was missing, and that makes me sad. Stylz Sanders picked up the slack in the first half, which is a refreshing sort of look, but couldn't keep up the energy level through the fouls. Y'all know Stylz can't defend everyone at once, right? I still maintain she's going to end up a coach one of these days. She just seems to have that awareness of all the things. Seneca Richards got the start for Jeydah Johnson, and while she's still much more perimeter-oriented than I usually like my players, she's at least trying to be more of a forward inside on defense. Her teammates need to understand what her angles are, though. She's usually better from the corner than from the middle of the floor.

Drew Winter does fancy tricks with the ball, but breaking the opponent's ankles does no good if you can't hit the shot. And I love her offensive rebounding, but it doesn't help if no one can hit the shot. She's got to be smarter with the ball. If Denisha Petty-Evans doesn't stop launching threes from somewhere in the vicinity of Bridgewater Commons, and if she doesn’t start following those shots in the event of her taking them, someone's going to lose their mind and it might not even be me. As it turns out, her family has opinions about as strong as mine regarding the importance of offensive rebounding, especially on long shots. I like them.

Coach Del Preore spent most of the game looking like she was in desperate need of a strong drink. I don't really blame her. I don't know if the team just didn't care, or if they were engaged in the fine art of Not Running The Expletive Deleted Play (a well-known St. John's Strategy) or what. But there were a lot of teaching moments called for. That being said, Coach, if one of your players goes down in front of you, can't get back on defense, and is visibly limping when she does get up? It may be time to call for the deliberate foul or call a time out. Just saying.

(By the way, Sacred Heart did not score 5-on-4.)

The officiating was a terrible hot mess. Lots of contact that went uncalled, with bodies sprawled all around. I'm pretty sure one ref actually mistook the ball for someone's head. Pretty much no part of the NEC covered itself in glory in this game.

They must have been expecting quite the crowd for the double-header- LIU actually set up a souvenir stand and an orderly queue for the concession stand.

We didn't stay for the men's game. I was unprepared (I thought they were playing Sacred Heart as well) and wanted to get the taste of failure out of my mouth. (As it turned out, the men beat Central Connecticut in OT.)

Besides, a tall, handsome gentleman wants to take me on a date to Iona tomorrow! How can I possibly resist?