February 16th, 2018: Seton Hall at St. John's

Just the Facts, Ma'am: St. John's started strong and was never threatened in a 75-56 win over Seton Hall. Alisha Kebbe had 20 points to lead four Johnnies in double figures. Nicole Jimenez led the Pirates with 17 points.

For orange ribbons, surprising concern, endless shoelaces, mugging for the camera, three-pointers, and the happy kind of tired, join your intrepid and quickly turning around blogger after the jump.

Awkward Bowl, round 2, FIGHT!

They brought out the big guns for this game- LaChina Robinson is on the call and Madame Commissioner herself is in the house.

It's '90s night, and someone in graphic design has had a lot of fun adapting the wordmarks into various '90s franchises. If there is a merciful god, neither of these teams will live up to the theme.

Who dunked Jayla Jones-Pack's head in the Kool-Aid? She knows SHU is doing their BHA night next week, right?

Supposedly Seton Hall is bringing two busloads, which may be why Tony was okay with my husband chilling on the red side of the force.

Substitute announcer. Maybe this one will announce subs.

Overly stylized anthem. Dude did not have the voice to carry it off. It works sometimes, but not when you don't have the voice.

I don't know how good a plan it is to publicly and brightly burn bridges, but you do you.

At halftime, it's 40-23 St. John's, and I think Seton Hall's lack of depth, at least as compared to the start of the season, is starting to get to them. Inja Butina looks like someone peed in her Cheerios. I'm not sure if she thinks it was Alisha Kebbe or not. St. John's is shooting well and defending well, a deadly combination.

Our halftime entertainment was the student section playing NBA Jam. (Well, I'm exaggerating. It was only two thirds of the student section.) That explained the Drexler and Duncan jerseys.

I may or may not have loudly screamed "WE'RE DOOMED! WE'RE ALL DOOMED!" when I saw Brian Enterline emerge as one of the refs for this game. I will neither confirm nor deny these allegations. (I did not realize that Denise Brooks was the female ref. She looks like hell.)

So I think St. John's may have taken that loss at Walsh a little hard. And I think Seton Hall's loss of depth has caught up with them- not that they're shallower than we are, but they don't have players they were used to having; while some of the people may not be missed, their skills are.

The flurry late in the game for Deja Winters, where she was pressing and getting easy lay-ups off steals, should give her confidence going into the final round of games next week. I really hope so; she's one of my favorites. She's had more trouble than I'm used to getting off the bench. Kaity Healy came on late in both halves, either for defensive purposes or just because to heck with it, the game was over. I think Kaela Hilaire has taken her "no personal space allowed" philosophy to the next level and is now working on making sure her assigned player has no space in her own head. She was messing with us all night. The only other question I have is whether that is in fact a spider shaved into her hair, and if so, why there is a spider shaved into her hair.

Jayla Jones-Pack and her mostly pink hair got a couple of minutes in the first half, matching up against Kayla Charles. They were not effective minutes, and I think it says a lot about the way she played that even in the waning minutes of a game concluded in all but time she didn't get back on the floor. Selena Philoxy brought a lot of hustle. I want desperately to say moxie, but I think I only get to make that pun a set number of times in her career and I'd like to save them for her senior year. She dove at passes and either got the steal or lost the gamble and found herself out of position. She dropped the hammer on Andrayah Adams on a monster block. I really love the way she's developing. (Queens represent!) Now, if she could hit a shot, or at least set for a shot instead of throwing the ball in the general direction of the rim, she might just be all right.

Credit where credit is due: Nicole Jimenez got three fouls in the first quarter and managed not to get called for any more over the rest of the game. (There were a couple I thought could have been called, but this is a rivalry game. Certain liberties are expected to be taken.) She fired up shallow threes and nailed them, and used her size advantageously to get into the passing lanes. But there were stretches where that same lack of size became a pronounced disadvantage, when having a far taller and larger defender on her cut down her options substantially. Inja Butina drove to the basket well, but got frustrated whenever the whistles went against her, whether it was calls she wanted to get on offense or calls on plays she made defensively. You could see it written on her face, to the point where I thought something was genuinely up with her. JaQuan Jackson had pretty much every perimeter player on St. John's defending her at some point or another. Sometimes it worked out for her, like when she crossed the daylights out of Qadashah Hoppie on a drive. Much of the time it didn't, and she was frustrated or denied. She didn't even score until the second half, and the game was such that I barely even realized until I heard the PA guy say her name.

Kimi Evans deos so much to facilitate the Seton Hall offense that it's not even funny. She's a formidable presence in the middle, of course, and makes a big target when the penetrators realize they might have dug too deep. But she's also surprisingly mobile for her size and almost constantly sets screens to get her teammates open (she had a particularly nice one on 'Cole's third or fourth trey). She plays a role for them similar to the one Carolyn Swords once played for the Liberty- it's not glamorous, it's not statistical, it's not sexy, but it's integral to the team's success. Shadeen Samuels looks like she's recovered from the knee issues she seemed to be going through earlier in the year- not to any great effect, mind you, but her athleticism was on display in her moves in the paint. She had some very nice drop passes to Kimi.

We were really able to hassle them on passes. When they got the press working, though, our guards weren't always ready to handle it.

Our bench loves Shamachya Duncan so much. It's adorable. If all she ever does is hit three-pointers late in games that have already been decided, she'll still be getting big pop from her teammates. Tamesha Alexander almost single-handedly gave Deja Winters back her confidence with terrible passing decisions out of the trap. Sox, I love you dearly, but good gracious that was a hot mess. Kayla Charles actually got some good run tonight. We're debating whether her hair counts as part of her height or not. She scored on putbacks and held on to some rebounds instead of letting them hit off her hands.

Andrayah Adams had a rough night. Most of it was spent staring in disbelief at the officials for calling her for fouls. I've mentioned how not fond I am of Andrayah-at-the-four lineups, right? Because we went small to counter Seton Hall going small, and sometimes I'm not sure that's the best plan. When it works, it works because her offense is still flowing. It wasn't tonight. Tiana England was up and down- superior enough defensively that she got the second half start ahead of Qadashah Hoppie, but still too tentative on offense. Sometimes I can't shake the feeling that she's trying to be a player she's not, a methodical point guard instead of a free-flowing offensive player.

Qadashah Hoppie had her shot working, especially beyond the arc. She was careless enough on defense to lose the start for the second half, but she more than made up for it with her threes. When she's on, she's so much fun to watch. It's when she thinks she's on and she's not that we end up with problems. Akina Wellere was also hot from outside, and her size on defense gave Seton Hall problems- she usually plays more of a three in our lineup, but she was defending out on the perimeter against the fun-size guards, and that match-up was definitely in our favor. She's not the fastest, and she's nto the most agile, but she gets the job done.

I think Alisha Kebbe has been dipping into whatever mojo the Eagles used to win the Super Bowl, because she was on fire. Her shot was going down, and she brought in loose balls with fantastic ferocity. She was all over the place and it was glorious. The best part might have been when she blocked the much taller Kimi Evans. I'm a sucker for guards blocking posts. Imani Littleton did all the non-glamorous stuff on defense that doesn't get in the box score but definitely makes things happen for the team. Maya Singleton brought the rebounding. I'm not sure how I feel about her taking that many jumpers, but they were clearly working for her, so there's only so much arguing I can do with them. She seemed to pick up strength as the game went on.

We got some really good looks- there was one play where (I think) Akina was so naked on the wing that it was practically indecent exposure. Lots of good looks, lots of good shots. I don't think Seton Hall was ready for the initial onslaught, and I don't think they knew how to recover except against our bench.

I've said a lot of bad things about Bryan Enterline as a ref, and I undoubtedly will continue to do so. That being said, I appreciate his concern for injured players. He was very solicitous of both Selena Philoxy and Kayla Charles when they took hard hits. That doesn't mean I don't think he's a bad ref, but he's at least a decent person.

There was, of course, a moment of silence for the latest tragedy in our gun-saturated country, but if I get too much into that I'm either going to start swearing or the gun nuts will show up in my comments and I don't have time for that.

To the little girls in the front row of my section: yes, we get it, you can see yourselves on the jumbotron. Turning your back to the game so you can wave at yourselves on the screen for the entire fourth quarter just might be overkill.