February 17th, 2018: LIU at St. Francis NY

Just the Facts, Ma'am: A strong third quarter from St. Francis cemented their 64-54 win in the Battle of Brooklyn. Jade Johnson took game MVP honors with 23 points for the Terriers. Jeydah Johnson had 15 points to lead LIU.

For bad calls, possibly having the entire arena staring at you, literal-mindedness, dance teams, winning raffle tickets, dubious shot selection, and the fierce joy of rivalry, join your intrepid and emotionally exhausted blogger after the jump.

Basketball never stops. Neither do rivalries. We go from the Awkward Bowl to the Battle of Brooklyn, as LIU travels to St. Francis.

There's no nice way to say this: St. Francis plays in a dump. Except for permanent seating, the gym where my high school played its games was better (or at least better lit). Hell, the gym where we actually had gym class wasn't that much worse, and there were support columns in the middle. Pope is small, and not well laid out- you literally have to go through the cafeteria to get behind the benches. The lighting is bad. The red padding on the walls combines with the blue of the sidelines to turn them a purple closer to Albany or Hunter than any color SFC has ever warn. The bleachers are probably older than I am, and not well kept. It looks like the low-budget mid-major facility it is, with an added gloss of no damns given.

That being said, the graffiti-style mural on the wall is pretty cool.

I love everything about the design on the back of LIU's warmup shirts, from the Brooklyn Bridge to the milk crate.

Jeydah Johnson just ran up four rows bleachers to greet the folks behind us, so I'm going to guess that her family came out for this game. Didn't turn around to look (it's not polite to stare).

SFC is wearing Play4Kay warm-up shirts and LIU is wearing pink socks; if they've turned a rivalry game into a pink game I will be very annoyed.

Dance team just showed up, and I don't mean the Terriers'. I told y'all this was a rivalry. One of them has a kidlet in tow.

Aaaaaand Drew Winter's not warming up with the rest of the team. At least Autumn Ashe is off the crutches. Small mercies.

I don't applaud recorded anthems. Especially bad recordings.

At halftime it's 33-21 St. Francis, with a hearty amount of help from some of the worst officiating I've seen in years. Y'all thought Paris Jones fell down by herself? Nah. Meanwhile, we're getting hit at the other end with no call.

I don't know what god Coach put the fear of into the refs, but they weren't as awful in the second half. We had opportunities that we didn't capitalize on, and those are going to be the things that Coach Del Preore is going to hammer home in the next film review.

Destoni Willock got some run, mostly in the second half, and did very little with it. A reasonable chunk of it was spent subbing for players with four fouls. I'd really like to see something more out of her. I had lower expectations when I forgot that she was a junior college transfer. Stylz Sanders was actually switched to the bench for this game, but played a lot of minutes anyway. Her lack of size is becoming a more and more apparent problem, and I hate to say it, but it's a more or less self-correcting problem. She's a senior, after all.

Seneca Richards continues to improve, and that's been the bright spot in these losses. She's got a good head for what she needs to do on the floor at what time and score. Paris Jones, bless her heart, is so tiny and tries so hard, and she did hit a very nice three near the end of the game, but she's more than a step slow on defense. Going to her is desperation time, but these are the things you have to do when your starting point is injured.

DeAngelique Waithe picked up two quick fouls in the first two minutes, and that was it for her for the first half. When she came back in the second half, she looked a step slow and a whole lot confused. She shook it off in the fourth quarter, picking up boards and putbacks. I don't think she likes losing to St. Francis. I don’t think she likes losing, period, but she seemed to be taking this game even more seriously than most. Ella Vaatanen wasn't able to build on her success in the last game I saw the squad in, and she got benched pretty quickly, not to be seen again until it was time to give out fouls.

If Jeydah Johnson could consistently finish on those penetrations in the lane, we'd be in far better shape. She's also got to do a better job of being aware of time and score. If you're down three possessions with less than a minute to go and you have a shooter open in the corner, you don't go for the contested shot in the lane. I don't know if I should be riding her so hard, since her offense was part of how we were in this game, but her freshman tendencies came back to bite us late. I'm also not sure just how much she's listening when it comes to game strategy and how much she'd rather do what she thinks is the right thing to do, whether it actually is or not. Denisha Petty-Evans brought offense and quick steals, but came up hopping on a steal attempt. She shook it off. I'd love to know what the design on her sneakers was. It looked fun. We need someone like her, but a four-year player, someone we can build an offense around while everyone else defends. Tia Montagne shares the freshman affliction of timidity that plagues so many young point guards. She keeps looking for the perfect pass, the perfect shot, and she hasn't yet understood that she's not going to find it. When she drives, I'd like for her to be able to aim for the backboard and get it towards the basket instead of a wild heave.

Free throws win ball games, and we left too many points at the line. Given how few opportunities we had, not taking advantage of those stings quite a lot.

Y'all are undoubtedly tired of hearing me complain about not being able to tell St. Francis players apart (I mean, come on, can one of you at least wear a French braid or something?) so I'm going to keep it to a minimum. At least I'll try. That being said, shoutout to Dana DiRenzo for her headband and bun to differentiate her from the rest of her teammates. She didn't do a lot on the floor, but at least I can refer to her as something other than "the one with the ponytail". St. Francis didn't really go on the perimeter for their subs, for the most part; Mia Ehling was the only other guard to get off the bench, and she didn't play a lot. I think she hit her free throws at the end of the game during the foul derby.

Abby Anderson's not ready for prime time. Gotta hit the free throws, or else the opponent is going to just keep targeting you. Samantha Keltos was able to take advantage of defensive lapses to get close to the basket for easy buckets. She's a big girl and makes herself an easy target. Casey Carangelo played very briefly. She's tall, and she might be useful for them at some point.

The way the PA guy says Maria Palarino's name is so annoying that I was screaming for us to stop her just so I wouldn't have to hear it anymore. She brought a good amount of hustle to the floor. Lorraine Hickman did a good job of cutting to the basket and making herself available for passes and putbacks. Alex Delaney still thinks she has a three-point shot, and admittedly the one shot she did hit was a trey, but she's still at her best throwing her weight around in the lane. I admire her toughness and I'm glad she's managed to get some of the chippiness out of her game in the last couple of years.

Amy O'Neill has an odd hitch in her shot, but it works for her. She sliced through the lane like a hot knife through butter. Very quick. Very annoying. Jade Johnson decided this would be a lovely day to demonstrate that she can in fact hit shots while standing in one of the cabs on the Wonder Wheel. She was unstoppable, not that we seemed to be doing much to try to stop her. Beautiful jumper. It's no wonder she was the game MVP, and no one else really had any business being considered.

Too many three-pointers. Cannot cope. Too much second half rebounding. Cannot cope.

These notes aren't as detailed as I would like them to be because I was being very fannish for much of the game, screaming at the top of my lungs, cheering every possession, riding and dying with my team. Rivalries can do that. It's glorious and cathartic and enraging all at the same time. And I certainly have my reasons for disliking Thurston. (The rest of St. Francis I don't really have an issue with.)

St. Francis has a step team. They're not that good, but they bring good spirit on the sidelines. I miss our spirit squad.

Our dance team kicked their team's butts. Then again, either SFC has a really small team or they were short-handed, so that's not much to crow about.

There was an actual-facts Franciscan brother in the stands, in the brown robe and everything.

I'm sorry we lost, but I think we gave as good an accounting of ourselves as we could. I look forward to next year's Battle.