Thursday, February 8, 2018

February 8th, 2018: Fairfield at Iona

Just the Facts, Ma'am: Despite a strong fourth-quarter push, the Iona Gaels fell 78-68 to the Fairfield Stags. Khadidiatou Diouf started off strong for Fairfield, with 12 of her 20 points in the first half, but it was Samantha Cooper who led the way and shut the door, leading the Stags with 29 points and 12 rebounds. Alexis Lewis led Iona with 21 points.

For three-point shooting, running low on gas, starting to dislike the county, late arrivals, early departures, the travails of youth, and running out of words, join your intrepid and shell-shocked blogger after the jump.

It's entirely too early for this, but I'm doing it anyway, because despite all their efforts, I still do love Iona. So I'm currently on an uptown 6 train in the Bronx. It's 8:42 AM. I've been up since 6:30 and traveling since 7. This probably means I shouldn't be dealing with small humans, but it's Kids' Day against Fairfield, so dealing with small humans is inevitable. I brought protein bars, though, so I probably won't eat them.

Taking the 6 to Pelham Bay Park to catch the 45 is a constant exercise in counting, balancing the number of stops left with when the bus leaves. Eleven stops in thirty-three minutes seems doable, but those are famous last words.

If they're holding a Kids' Day and only half a dozen schools are coming, I reserve the right to laugh, and laugh, and laugh some more. I mean, I don't mind having the elbow room, and I can't do weeknight games, but still. It's just silly.

Welp, not only do I not see Tori Lesko, I don't see Jayden Eggleston. Maybe it's not time to panic yet; Iona can be cagey about injured players sometimes. But it would fit the pattern of this season for Jayden to break out and then either get injured or disappear in a puff of smoke. Okay, there's Tori, but that makes the lack of Jayden even more disturbing.

Things I miss about being in with the in crowd (aka the ops people who get things done): not fighting with the wi-fi because I had the password. But that was a long time ago and probably two computers in the past.

There are not nearly enough Gaels here. At least Jayden is present and accounted for.

At halftime, it's 35-27 Fairfield. It could have been worse, but Jayden had the presence of mind to throw up a three at the buzzer; even though she missed the shot, she drew the foul on Khadidiatou Diouf and got two of the three free throws. Diouf has 12 points for the Stags, 10 in the first quarter; she was pretty much going bucket for bucket with Iona by herself for stretches. Toyosi Abiola has 11 to lead the Gaels. Things might get better when we actually get more than three minutes out of Trey Clay.

We have a dance performance from one of the campus dance groups. It seems like fun. It finally occurred to me sometime in the third quarter that BSU probably stands for Black Student Union and the performance was vaguely related to Black History Month.

Trumpet solo anthem. Started strong, but lost breath in the middle. He got through it, but I think it would have been better with the whole band.

And now one of the school groups is doing a step performance. I don't know how I feel about middle school step teams; good stepping takes a lot of synchronization and a lot of time to learn, but these kids aren't bad.

Okay, putting up with several hundred kids screaming the lyrics to "Let It Go" was worth it for watching Olivia Owens (our freshman with dangerously good taste in numbers) join the singalong, complete with dramatic arm gestures.

Well, I can't say we didn’t have our chances. We had a chance to tie the game in the third quarter and we blew it. We had momentum behind Alexis Lewis and her ridiculous three-point shots, and we couldn't cash in. We ran out of gas. Happens when you don't have a lot of players and a lot of the players you do have are in foul trouble.

For some reason, our PA guy kept pronouncing Kendra Landy's last name like there was an R in it. I understand that Landry is a more common last name, but either that is one funky pronunciation, or our dude didn't get Fairfield's pronunciation guide. She made an impact pretty quickly, laying a block on Toyosi Abiola as one of her first moves. She always seemed to be in the right place at the right time. Kristen McLaughlin lists as a guard, but more often than not she was subbing for one of the forwards. She brings a lot of length off the bench. I don't honestly remember much of what Sam Lewis did.

(I'm sorry. I'm not in a good mental place right now, especially in terms of women's basketball and Westchester County. I have a semi-professional obligation, but these are not going to be my finest game notes.)

Macey Hollenshead seemed to get the benefit of the doubt an awful lot of the time from the ref, especially when she hit the floor. That should not have been a charge on Toyosi. Casey Foley argued with a lot of the calls on her. Yes, Casey, sometimes you commit fouls. It happens. Sam Kramer was efficient from the elbow, though full disclosure forces me to admit that I kept getting their Sams and Samanthas mixed up, at least the short ones.

But this game was about the bigs for Fairfield. Khadidiatou Diouf took over in the first half with nice moves in the paint, including a beautiful baby hook that took my breath away. Long-time readers know of my infatuation with Elena Baranova and her hook shot, and that I am always a sucker for hook shots. But the one who stepped up every single time the Gaels got momentum going, the one who shut down every "DE-FENSE!" chant that the crowd tried to start, the one who killed us in the paint and even stepped outside for shots, was Samantha Cooper. She's got touch, she's got toughness, and she's got good size. We couldn't stay on her, even when we had a roving double keying on her. She's a gamer. Not much you can do about that.

You know what happens when you're in the intentional foul derby and four of your top six players have four fouls? Absurdity happens. The final couple of minutes of play-by-play are undoubtedly filled with subs. I think Coach may have waited too long to press the panic button and bring in Tilasha Okey-Williams; T's only job was to make sure that Jayden wasn't on the floor to pick up her fifth foul. We could have used some of her offense. Kristin Mahoney looked tentative on offense, almost like she wanted to call her own number but couldn't quite do it. And then at the end of the game, when it was intentional foul time, she thought it was a good plan to just give a good hard tug on the back of her opponent's jersey. That earned a video review and an unsportsmanlike conduct foul. Admittedly, it was weak, but you have to at least be pretending to go for the ball on that play. If you yank the jersey in front of two refs and a savvy veteran coach like Frager, you're not gonna get the benefit of the doubt.

Amelia Motz showed a whole lot of moxie on the offensive glass, charging in after missed shots like there was no tomorrow. Someone's got to do something with her shooting motion, though, especially on free throws; she puts way too much spin and not enough follow-through on the shot, and it goes wherever it wants, which may or may not be where Amelia wants it to go. She had better luck driving the lane and putting up lay-ups. Alexis Lewis started bombing threes in the second half, including one from the A in the giant Iona logo at center court, so a fair 27 or so feet out. I love to watch her shoot. I think she started running out of gas in the fourth quarter, though- she looked like she wanted a chance to get out of the game and Coach Chambers didn't think she could afford to give it to her.

Rebekah Justice couldn't get going, both in the sense of momentum and in the sense of actual literal motion. We needed her size to counter Diouf and Cooper, but she simply couldn't keep up with them, and they went around her like a stream going around a rock. I don't blame Coach Chambers for not starting her in the second half. She's got nice touch around the basket if she wants to use it, but she's too enamored with her outside shot for my liking. Treyanna Clay doesn't go up as high as her teammates think she does, but she's a fighter in the paint. She was swarmed by the Fairfield defense in the second half, getting doubled and tripled. I think it wore her down in the end. Jayden Eggleston brought rebounding, but a bit of timidity on the offensive end. I'm not thrilled with her taking shots just over the three-point line, either- either step back and take the three, or step forward and take a better-percentage shot. But she's a freshman. She'll learn.

Toyosi Abiola was on fire in the first half, but ran out of gas in the second. You could tell she was leaving shots short and not getting enough elevation. She had a crossover move that backed her opponent up so far that the kids were oohing and aahing. She hasn't put all the pieces together at once yet, but she's a freshman. That's been one of the only things getting me through this season, to be honest. They're so young, and yet next year they'll get Tori back (I'm almost certain she's going to redshirt this year, there's no reason to bring her back and I'm pretty sure she's missed enough games). I think they'll win more than one game next year. Well, if we bring in a point guard. We don't really have anyone on the roster who fits that role well. Adrienne DiGioia's still struggling to find where she fits, and I think Coach Chambers is losing patience with her.

We gave it everything we had to make it a game again. I know I've overplayed the "fight the good fight" line, but that's Iona's motto and it sure seems to be this team's philosophy. Even when they're down big they never give up.

I swear the oldest of the three refs thought the kids were there to see him, the way he was blowing his whistle on even the slightest contact. Dude. Staaaaaaaahp.

I do like how Iona organizes the group exodus, by bringing up one bus at a time.

Admittedly, I'm a little disappointed that this wasn't an autograph day, the way so many Kids' Days are at Iona, but it is what it is. I guess I'll have to wait until next year to ask Rebekah Justice where she stands on the Becky nickname. (It's a Rebecca thing, no matter how we spell it. We all seem to either embrace it or hate it.)

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