January 13th, 2019: Creighton at St. John's

Just the Facts, Ma'am: St. John's fought hard, but came up short again in their 65-63 loss to Creighton. Alisha Kebbe had 18 points to lead the Johnnies, with Kadaja Bailey adding 10 off the bench. Temi Carda led the Bluejays with 22 points in the win, while Audrey Faber added 17.

For ruling the roost, backdoor cuts, polite bumping, an inability to hold the line, piercing whistles, and devotion to duty, join your intrepid and frustrated blogger after the jump.

Good afternoon, ladies, gentlemen, boys, girls, and otherwise-identifying folks of all ages! We're back at Carnesecca Arena, where St. John's will be taking on Creighton in the back end of the We Couldn't Find You A Better Travel Partner schedule pod.

(In case you were wondering, I think of the pods as the following: Eastern Seaboard {Villanova/Georgetown}, Great Lakes {DePaul/Marquette}, Old Northwest {Butler/Xavier}, New York Metro {STJ/SHU, aka Awkward Bowl}, and The Leftovers {Providence/Creighton}. We really need two more teams for this to work properly.)

Our team looks so sparse during warm-ups. It makes me sad. Creighton looks like they've been hit by the injury bug, too, with three players in the tees and sweats of the inactive.

Solid anthem. I approve.

It's 31-22 St. John's at the half, and there are moments I'm still wondering how. Scoring is pretty balanced for the Johnnies, with Alisha Kebbe's nine points leading the way. Temi Carda has nine to lead the Bluejays. We've been able to force them into turnovers, and even capitalize on those turnovers! There have been some rough moments, and I'm pretty sure Q is playing sick. I can't see us continuing to stymie Creighton the way we have so far, and I can't see us maintaining this level of shooting. Creighton uses a lot of movement and has gone deep into their bench. Technically, we've gone as deep into our bench as we can, too, but that just means giving Jasmine Sina meaningful minutes.

Machi, when Debbie says to shoot 'til your arm falls off, you know that's a metaphor, right? That's not what she literally wants you to do. She's got a torn muscle in her shoulder. This is not good.

I am completely here for Meemo's WTF face at the PA announcer butchering her name. It doesn't rhyme with Oneonta.

Welp. That was a thing that happened. We did so much right, and yet here we are, having a game come down to a call in the final second. This time we got the foul in our favor, and we still couldn't capitalize. It's exceedingly frustrating.

I'm starting to think these two teams don't like each other very much. There was a lot of bumping going on, more than I'm used to for either team. Nothing that went too far over the line (and in fact, there was a moment where Payton Brotzki bumped Meemo and promptly apologized profusely), mind you, but it was unexpected.

Chloe Dworak got some extended run in the first half- it was a little hard to tell initially because there was some confusion with the subs. She ran some point. I wasn't impressed. Brooke Kissinger got the start in the second half over Jade Owens, and took over point guard duties. Her shot did not join us for this game, for which I am extremely grateful. Rachael Saunders provided some offensive pop for the Bluejays off the bench, and Coach Flanery rewarded her with big minutes down the stretch.

Payton Brotzki probably still needs to get into collegiate shape, but she's got a lot of potential for the Jays. She drove the lane hard and finished pretty well. Morgan Turner is tall, and when she gets the hang of Creighton's motion-heavy system, she's going to be very useful for them. She might not put up the big numbers, but she'll make sure that her teammates have the opportunity to put up the numbers- she had a particularly nice screen on a three-point attempt from Carda.

I have no idea what happened to Jade Owens, or why she went from starting the game to not playing at all in the second half. I didn't see an injury, though maybe there was something that I didn't see. She didn't play well, but not badly enough to be completely passed over in the rotation. Jaylyn Agnew had a large wrap on her right hand, and I think it might have affected her shot a little bit. She's fast, and explosive with that speed, which makes a lot of things happen for Creighton. Temi Carda used hesitation moves effectively to get space and finish on pull-ups and floaters. She had a knack for finding the places where we weren't and scoring from those spots.

Gracey Griglione got herself into foul trouble early in the game, and with the guards being more effective off the bench, Creighton could afford to go smaller. She'll be useful for them after a year or two. Creighton gets a lot of use out of tall forwards like her to free up their shooters and slashers. Audrey Faber cleaned up on the offensive glass, and took advantage of terrible defensive match-ups to slice us up inside. She also had a couple of big blocks, including one on Alisha Kebbe right near the end of the game.

So much cutting. So much movement. So many mismatches. Creighton isn't necessarily the most talented team in the conference- in fact, on sheer talent, I think we might be better. But they executed well, and they forced us into bad situations.

Jasmine Sina got some run at the end of the first quarter into the beginning of the second, which I actually agree with; short-handed as we are, especially if anyone's under the weather, stealing a few minutes here and there can't hurt. And she hit the three! We were so happy for her! It's kind of hilarious how small she is on the floor- I have to resist the temptation to lapse into netspeak and refer to her as a smol. Kayla Charles has got to do a better job of finishing at the rim. We need her to play heavy minutes, especially on days when Meemo is in foul trouble. This didn't happen today, but it's still disturbing. I like her work on the glass, but she still has to finish. On the other hand, Kadaja Bailey looked like she might be finding her stride again. She was at her best on the fast break, both leading it and finishing it. When she's on her game, she's so smooth.

Alisha Kebbe has really stepped up her game in the last couple of weeks. Her three-point shot has improved (though we've established I'm still not the world's biggest fan of it) and today she maintained her intensity on the glass. She got blown by defensively more than I'm used to, and I'm going to need to keep an eye on that going forward. Qadashah Hoppie came off in the first half at one point, looking ready to throw up, which is what makes me think she's under the weather. She had a rough game shooting, and she made some dubious decisions on defense. But if she wasn't at 100%, then I can't really complain too much. Tiana England had a solid game at the point, at least passing. I'm not sure how I feel about her shot selection, or how many of them were desperation shots at the end of the shot clock because too much of it had been run down in hesitation. But it's not just her, or at least it's not just her anymore.

Because we need to have a talk with Akina Wellere, or at least with Akina Wellere's shot and her confidence in said shot. It's something we noticed in the Friday game, and I see it more now that I know to look for it. For whatever reason, she's not taking open shots; instead, she's letting the defense come to her, and then not taking advantage of the open teammate. She used to be faster, I know it. I don't think she was ready for the responsibility inherent in being the lone four-year senior on the squad. Curteeona Brelove had a couple of communication issues with Q, including one at the end of the first half that led to Meemo taking a long two and both of them barking at each other as they came off the floor. She played well on the inside, but I do wish the box score had blocked attempts so I could see how much Creighton's length bothered her.

To borrow a popular memetic mutation, I just don't know what went wrong. For that matter, I just don't know what went right. We were able to force them into dead-ball turnovers, but we tried to cross them over too many times and lost the ball for our troubles. And when we lost the gamble, Audrey Faber going backdoor happened.

Officiating was the standard hot mess, and I'm pretty sure that if they didn't call the last foul to get Qadashah to the line, Joe might have actually lost his mind, given the way the Providence game ended. As it was, the crowd was irate that it wasn't a three-shot foul (which turned out to be crucial, since Q missed the first), but I thought she was not in the motion. There were terrible calls favoring both teams- we spent most of the fourth quarter lambasting the officials only to see Creighton get nailed on a terrible call. (Not the last one, though. One about a minute of game time earlier.)

It's kind of a shame the game got off to such a slow start, since it was a pretty good crowd. I don't know if this was the kind of game that would encourage people to come back.

Not that the call in the Providence game was a sore spot, or a dubious call, or anything of that nature, but Akina didn't even realize it was on her until well after the fact.

Today was another autograph session, and since we don't need anything else autographed, we just rolled through to give our regards to the squad. They had an impressive array of posters available, though. I was impressed.

I just don't know what to do with this team. I love them dearly, but I just don’t know what to make of them, where they're going, or if they're even completely certain of who they are. There's the potential for passion- we saw it in the third quarter when the bench woke up a little. But the word that comes most to mind right now is "dutiful", and I don't know if that's a good defining attribute for a team.