January 28th, 2018: St. Peter's at Iona

Just the Facts, Ma'am: Iona got off the schneid, breaking their 20-game losing streak with a 52-42 win over St. Peter's. Treyanna Clay and Alexis Lewis each had 12 points to lead a balanced Gael attack, with Lewis adding 10 rebounds. Zoe Pero led the Peacocks with 13 points and 11 rebounds.

For sweet release, being back in the New York groove, bad coaches, senior guards, and letting out one's inner Daniel Bryan, join your intrepid and relieved blogger after the jump.

How best to wash the taste of failure out of one's mouth than to head to a game where the two teams have four wins between them? And one team has all the wins? But always and forever, to heck with Patty Coyle. Iona should probably be able to beat St. Peter's. I certainly hope we are.

It's raining.

I swear St. Peter's actually changed the shade of their blue warm-ups between November and now.

I think that might be Talah Hughes in a boot for St. Peter's. Hey, we might actually have a chance.

I realize that we're the home team, but it still seems kind of rude to hop on the visiting team's bike to nowhere.

Tori Lesko is still in a boot for the Gaels. I'm sad.

It's halftime and we're leading and the world hasn't ended. It's only 25-23, so I should probably still be expecting us to screw it up somehow. Alexis Lewis has seven points and six boards to pace iona, while a whole flock of Peacocks have notched five points each. I'm worried about passing- theirs is better than ours. But I think we're shooting better. And if you put a gun to my head and told me I had to have either Billi Chambers or Patty Coyle as my team's coach, I'd take Chambers.

Pretty solid anthem. She hit her stride right at the end.

St. Peter's did not appear to realize there were two doors to enter the court from the locker room. The dance team did not appreciate having their tunnel crashed. It appears words may have been exchanged, and cheer seems unusually vindictive today. (I'm okay with that, especially the one cheerleader whose ululations drew a missed free throw from St. Peter's.) We're not sure if it was deliberate gamesmanship or if Coyle was in fact too stupid to realize there was another door. I'm a Liberty fan. I remember.

It's happening! It happened! We are no longer winless! Alert the media! Fire the party cannon! Release the hounds! Wait, don't release the hounds, that's a different meme.

I should not have been surprised that we beat a team coached by Coyle. Let's be honest, the nicest thing I can say about her is that she's had some phenomenal coaching support around her. She didn't quite ice her own shooter this time, but she was about two possessions late on doing the endgame things a coach should do, like timeout to advance the ball or foul to extend the game. (C'mon. It's 1.9 seconds left and you're down 10, make like Elsa and LET IT GO.)

You could tell it was "I'm frustrated, time to throw spaghetti at the wall and see what sticks" time near the end of the third quarter when Coyle abruptly went to Anna Maguire and Precious Featherston. Featherston got tagged with a foul on a rebound. Maguire needs to either bulk up or tone up. One of those. She's very skinny. Samantha Meier brought physicality in her brief minutes, and I might have used her more if I were St. Peter's. She's reasonably good at setting screens, so maybe she could have done something to set up one of their shooters.

Much as I don't always understand the logic of bringing Alexis Lewis off the bench, I really do not understand the logic of bringing Sajanna Bethea off the bench. Does this mean St. Peter's has written off this season and is just trying to see what the freshmen have? Or is this some strategy I am just not elite enough to see? Her passing eye has gotten sharper- she seems to be looking for angles for her teammates more than for herself. Her shot seems to have somehow gotten slower, or the MAAC's gotten faster around her. A lot of things are possible. I think she was not well used in this game, though I don't think that's the only reason we won. Sammy Lochner does not believe the opponent should be accorded personal space, especially around the midline, although KK does it better. Haley Dalonzo was aggressive driving the lane, sometimes to her detriment- there was a very late charge call against her that helped seal the deal for the Gaels. She did not take well to being called for fouls, even less than most players do. She's got potential, though.

Zoe Pero has some nice moves inside, but someone has to teach her how to use the backboard more consistently. She had more weird bounces off the inside of the rim, both in her favor and not, than anyone I've ever seen. She did a great jbo cleaning up both her misses and her teammates' misses close to the rim. With some coaching, she could be very good. But, well. She picked St. Peter's, didn't she? Maybe Phyllis can step in. I think Daijah Martin might be being groomed to replace Bethea, at least positionally, but she's not nearly as good, or as assertive. She's got the body type to do some damage inside, but couldn't get going.

Brianna Tarabocchia got a lot of cheers when she was introduced and there was a lot of heat from the corner behind the St. Peter's bench when she fouled out during the foul derby, so I think her family came over from Jersey. She's not afraid to take them from deep- maybe a little too deep sometimes. Aggressive on defense, too. She's a nice piece for the Peacocks. Alyssa Velles started the game on fire, and I thought that was going to be how we got blackjacked, since we weren't able to find her out on the wing. But she cooled off and the defense tightened up, and once you take away her shot, she's not all that useful. D'Aviyon Magazine looked to penetrate and found few openings. Most of her shots were contested and off.

Someone really needs to get St. Peter's a shooting coach. With just a little fine-tuning, they'd probably average another eight to ten points a game. Then again, I'm okay with them being a mess of a team as long as I have a team in their conference.

Amelia Motz drove the lane for two quick points, then picked up two quick fouls and that was the last we saw of her for this game. Gotta be smarter than that, Amelia. Kristin Mahoney had one of the most confident games I've ever seen out of her and I'm just so proud of her right now! It turns out all along her bread and butter shot wasn't the three-pointer, like we were trying to make happen- it's the finger roll down the lane from the left side. If after three and a half years, either Kristin or Coach Chambers has figured out that she's not a pure distributor- well, I'm just glad she's finally finding her footing. Alexis Lewis, sporting brighter, bigger hair, was all over the glass. She plays bigger than she is sometimes, using every inch of her build (possibly including the hair) to get boards. This time, she was able to rein in some of her ballhog tendencies and not just chuck the first shot that came to mind.

Adrienne DiGioia wasn't quite ready for this. I feel like this is not the first time I've said this this season. She has her days when she looks like a good distributor, but she's not reacting fast enough to even mediocre college defenses. Fortunately for us, today Kristin was up to the challenge. Toyosi Abiola still has to work on her ball control, and on her accuracy. These are not new complaints. But she dove all out into the passing lanes (I think she was the one who ended up draped over the scorer's table at one point- she and Alexis both wear a lot of leggings and were diving into the passing lanes) and was disruptive on defense.

Rebekah Justice was not nearly as effective as she could have been on the inside. She's got to use her body more. I swear to the sweet hypothetical baby Jesus, if she launches one more three with that awful release, I may have to make her change her name. We have standards here in the sisterhood. She had chances to back down Pero- who's tall and not a twig but a lot smaller than Rebekah- and couldn't get through her. I have a problem with this from a 6-5 player. I understand why she didn't get a lot of minutes. Treyanna Clay took a lot of contested shots in the lane, and for some reason thought a straightaway three from the top of the key was a brilliant plan. No one asked you to unleash the dragon, Trey. Jayden Eggleston seemed to get stronger on the glass as the game went on, pulling down huge offensive rebounds to extend our possessions. I think I could live with this being the role she plays for us. She's got to be a little more accurate on her shot, especially since most of her shots are coming fairly close to the basket, but that should come with time.

I also can't say enough about the positive energy the crew on the bench has been bringing. Olivia Owens may already be on the all-time list of great dancers my teams have ever had, to the point where if you told me she won the rights to #14 off Damika Martinez in a dance-off, I might actually believe you. (And then demand video footage, for great justice, or at least lulz.) She and Shayla Middlebrooks have kept the mood light through stoppages and way up during big runs. And Tori Lesko's been continuing to be a leader in the huddle. I love Tori and I'm really bummed she's been hurt for so long.

Officiating wasn't terrible, but it wasn't great. I thought we got the benefit of a couple of dodgy calls, but on the other hand, I don't think Coyle even got warned for being out of the box when she was up to the midcourt line, so there's that. They were unusually attentive to three-second calls.

Our PA guy got a little enthusiastic about a couple of long jumpers and thought they were threes when they were actually twos. I mean, really, Rich. Kristin was practically in the key.

Dance team did some pretty ambitious routines, and I couldn't help but wonder how St. John's would have pulled them off.

Shoutout to cheer and band for bringing the noise. We did what we could. I should probably pop a cough drop at some point.

Oh, and the rain had stopped by the time we got out of the arena.

We did it! We did it! We did it! Now let's do it again!