March 2nd, 2018: Bryant at LIU

Just the Facts, Ma'am: LIU raced out to a 21-4 first quarter lead, then held on tight in the fourth quarter to preserve a 69-61 win over Bryant. Denisha Petty-Evans had 22 points and five steals to power the Blackbirds, with DeAngelique Waithe adding 20 points and four blocks. Sydney Holloway had 18 points and 11 rebounds to lead Bryant.

For reluctant farewells, seniors with traveling families, defensive stops, unexpected offense, people who are in the wrong section, gyrations, and no small amount of pride, join your intrepid blogger after the jump.

Good evening, ladies, gentlemen, and of course our well-mannered folks who defy and deny the gender binary! We're not quite the post office, but we're not going to let anything like a nor'easter keep us from a game. Your intrepid blogger comes to you as one of the eight people currently in the stands at LIU as they take on Bryant.

Believe me, I'd rather have skipped this game and gone Sunday for Senior Day, but of course that's the day the Liberty are doing their select-a-seat event up in White Plains, and there's no way we can do both.

For God's sake, Stylz, put a shirt on, you're making me cold just looking at you. Granted, the new t-shirts are reasonably pointless and I can understand not wanting to wear them, but still.

Denisha Petty-Evans just blocked a pass with her face, I'm starting to think this is going to be a long night.

Literally the entire sections behind and in front of the visiting bench are empty, why have the Bryant fans decided to park in the section across from the home bench? I hope Nish's family shows up and gives them whatfor. Come on, man. You literally have to walk past the visiting bench and the sections near it to sit over here.

Seneca Richards always looks like she's running on two hours less sleep than she actually needs, but now there's an enormous shiner under her left eye, and her right's not looking all that great either.

Drew Winter's still hurt, Paris Jones is hurt again, and Destoni Willock's been getting taped up for half of warm-ups. Injuries are really starting to take their toll. I mean, it's the end of the season, we have, at best, two more games left, so there are worse times, but it's rough, man. It's rough. (Actually, looking closer at Destoni, she also looks a little dinged up around the eyes. Who's been throwing 'bows in practice?)

I have no idea what this song is, but they just namedropped Pinky and the Brain, so hello new favorite artist. Now, if the DJ could turn the volume down so that it's not vibrating through my feet, preferably before my ears start bleeding, that would be great.

I've never had occasion to use this in the positive sense, but what even is happening?! It's 42-19 at the half. 42-19 LIU. Hands up, everyone who expected that. Bryant is shooting like they've never seen a basketball hoop before. Denisha Petty-Evans has 13 points and a ridiculous number of steals to lead both the Blackbird offense and defense. Haley Connors has 5 off the bench to lead the scattershot Bryant offense.

I don't know if we can keep this up in the second half. We're short-handed, after all; eventually the energy spent on defense is going to come back to haunt us. We just need to hold on to enough of it.

We held on to enough of it. Bryant made a big run in the fourth quarter, but they made their move too soon, and we were able to recover defensively to hold the line. I love what this team brings on defense so much. We are so terrible on offense and so determined on defense that it makes my teeth hurt sometimes.

Brooke Bjelko did some work on putbacks right at the basket, but also missed a bunny down there. She's got good height, but she still needs a little work. She's only a freshman. She'll learn, I'm sure. Kathleen Everson was the belle of the ball for the people behind us, who were her family and extremely proud of her. I would be more appreciative of their appreciating her if her dad didn't do that ear-piercing whistle thing. She set a beautiful screen to set up one of the threes for Stephanie Lesko. I'm pretty sure she got multiple offensive rebounds on the same possession- there was one sequence where Bryant had three or four cracks at the basket before getting it to go down.

When I put together the roster card/score card for this game, I spent entirely too much time trying to figure out whether Stephanie Lesko was related to Tori Lesko at Iona. I probably should have waited until gametime, because while I love Tori, she does not have a jump shot, and this Lesko definitely has a jump shot. She came up big for Bryant in the fourth quarter. Haley Connors had a spurt of offense from the right wing in the first half, enough that we knew we couldn't leave her open. Kandis Taylor tended to be on the defensive end of the offense-defense substitutions. She's pretty stocky, and wasn't afraid to body up on anyone (I'm pretty sure she ended up entangled with at least one of our posts at least once).

Sydney Holloway plays like she wanted to play for Mike Carey and his physical West Virginia teams. (Yes, if you're from Morgantown and every foul you commit involves checking someone into the boards, you will get Mountaineer references, put your sunglasses on and deal with it.) She was able to draw a lot of fouls on paint penetration, and credit where credit is due, she converted on them. That's an incredibly important and underappreciated skill. I was impressed with her hustle, even when it cost her team (she was so enthusiastic about following up on a free throw that she committed a lane violation and negated a made shot). The people who shouted "HOLLA!" when she hit shots were simultaneously annoying but appreciated. Despite my "get off my lawn" tendencies, I like passionate opposing fans. They just need to not be on my lawn. Hannah Scanlan showed touch at the basket in the third quarter, but I think Bryant was happier with what they were getting from Everson than from Scanlan.

Naomi Ashley was really tough. She made a lot of plays happen low to the ground, whether it was wrestling the ball out of our guards' hands or getting an offensive board on the baseline. She went hard in the paint and on the glass, and she got rewarded for it. She made a lot of good things happen for Bryant on both ends of the floor. I kept thinking Kierra Palmer didn't play much, and then I looked at the box score and saw that she played over half the game. That probably doesn't say a lot of good things about her. The box score tells me that she threw up a lot of threes, but I don't remember seeing Bryant put up a lot of threes. Most of the bad shots I remember them putting up were random heaves in the paint at the basket. Masey Zegarowski had a pretty, pretty pass to set up Bjelko for an outside jumper, and a steal in the fourth quarter- I'm trying to remember if she or Ashley was the one who brute forced the ball out of Denisha's hands.

I have to give Bryant credit- they figured out who they were in the second half. They got outside shots to fall from their shooters, and converted better on the inside against our tired defense. They adjusted. I'm glad they didn't adjust enough to win, though.

Destoni Willock is going to be the death of me, if she's not the death of Coach Del Preore. You can't fault her hustle. You can fault her occasional urges to play for the Maple Leafs, or her occasional inability to recognize her teammates, or her lack of a shot. She'd be less dangerous to us and more dangerous to the opponent if she could consistently control her physicality. I was surprised not to see more of Ella Vaatanen in the second half- I thought she brought good energy on defense and decent size to cover on the perimeter. Jeydah Johnson hit big shots in the second half, but I'm not sure whether she was paying attention to what the play call was supposed to be. Sometimes it worked out. Sometimes it didn't. She had to play out of position a lot thanks to our short bench, and I don't think it affected her game positively.

Tia Montagne had probably the most freshman game that it is possible for a freshman to freshman. She made a whole lot of horrific passes that had no business attempting to go where she was attempting them. (Although, to be fair to Tia, the worst passing situation of the night came from our grad student.) She looked like a freshman trying to spearhead an offense that isn't exactly much of a spear to start with. She also had a monster block on Zegarowski, played frenetic defense on the ball, and sank two clutch free throws late in the game. Up and down, with moments of facepalm and moments of glory- if that's not the definition of a freshman, I don't know what is. Denisha Petty-Evans slowed down, or was slowed down, in the second half, but came up with two huge threes to help ice it in the fourth. Sometimes I question her shot selection, but someone on this team has to shoot and I'm pretty sure it's not going to be Tia. That being said, when they say to hit your teammate with the pass, they don't mean it literally. This isn't dodgeball. (Also, I love Angel to pieces, but she should have had enough court awareness to, y'know, not literally get hit with the basketball.) Seneca Richards continues to impress me with her clock awareness, though that might be because no one else on this team seems to really have it. I look forward to seeing how she develops next year.

Solid, solid game from Stylz Sanders. That's the best word that comes to mind for her. She hit the shots she needed to hit on the inside, especially in the first quarter. She made the defensive stops she needed to make, save those that would have involved her needing to be several inches taller. She boxed out well and rebounded well. She spoke up for her teammates when the refs were being, well, NEC refs who probably weren't looking forward to going home in the teeth of a nor'easter. I've grown to admire her leadership this season, taking the kids in hand. DeAngelique Waithe had herself a day on the inside, though there was a stretch in the third quarter where it looked like the coffee wore off and she was completely tuned out of the game. A particularly emphatic teaching moment ensued, and Angel got her head on straight once more, making a big defensive stop down the stretch and finishing with a bang on the fast break lay-up. I love to watch her defend. I enjoy watching her take good shots in the paint, too, but I really love to watch those long arms in action.

I knew we couldn't sustain the offensive pace we were putting out in the first half. I was worried about the collapse in the fourth quarter, because Bryant is good enough, and we're mostly young enough, that it might have gone all the way down. But I should have remembered that our seniors and our grad student weren't going to let that happen. Nish made buckets, and Angel made stops, and we held the line.

Granted, this may also have been because the players were getting tired, but we went from a total of six fouls in the first half to something like fifteen fouls in the third quarter. It wasn't like it was dangerously physical in the first half and needed to be reined in, either. The refs just seemed to remember that there were whistles around their necks and wanted to take full advantage of them. And then Bryant didn't get called for a foul until midway through the fourth quarter. It looked a little fishy, but we got through it.

The halftime scrimmage involved unusually small Brooklyn Bulldogs. They didn't look old enough to be in college, but you know how kids are starting their education younger and younger these days. (The joke here is that Brooklyn College's teams are called the Bulldogs.)

Dance team has been working on their moves. Spines don't work that way!

We got to say goodbye to Denisha's mom and grandma after the game, and then to DeAngelique herself when she came out to say hi to her family. Man, I am so bummed I'm going to miss this Senior Day. This senior class has been so clutch for us.