January 9th, 2019: Richmond at Fordham

Just the Facts, Ma'am: Fordham came on strong in the third quarter to win going away against Richmond, 60-48. Bre Cavanaugh led the way for the Rams with 20 points and 12 rebounds. Alex Parson had a team-high 12 points for Richmond.

For unaccompanied majors, the burning need for caffeine, and ennui, join your intrepid and blasé blogger after the jump.

Good morning, everyone! Your intrepid blogger is enjoying her last few days of freedom before starting a new job, which means going to all the morning games. I missed any pregame at Fordham, thanks to getting a late start.

So it's halftime here at Rose Hill Gymnasium, and Fordham is up 34-25 on Richmond. Five threes in the first quarter helps with that. Unfortunately for my sanity, the stupid Simon Says guy is our halftime "entertainment". I don't want to know how cheap he works if he does so many of these events, and if he's working the St. John's game on Friday I may scream, and not in the way the PA guy wants us to.

So far we've been getting the benefit of most of the calls (yeah, that was a big screen by Hinds-Clarke, but I thought it was legal). I don't know how long that's going to last.

I'm just saying, if you're here to support a member of the opposing team, you could consider not sitting across from the home bench, or spending most of the game staring at your phone, including the time that the girl you so enthusiastically applauded for got her bucket. Ugh, I'm too tired for this and my lower left wisdom tooth is coming in. Is there a nap corner I can use?

Still very tired. We'll see just how coherent these notes are, but at least I've now had lunch and some caffeine. Caffeine is love. Caffeine is life. The caffeine must flow.

Richmond doesn't seem to be particularly anything. They're not terrible at defense but they're not great at it; they don't have any extreme tendencies towards three-point shooting or interior play; no one really has an on-court demeanor that stands out, one way or another. Even the coach is unremarkable. I suppose there has to be a team like that somewhere, but boy does it make the GNoD even harder to write than usual.

Imani Mustaf has the physical and stylistic profile of someone who hit a very late, very spectacular growth spurt and was told that she would now be playing basketball. She moves like she's afraid her body will break if she goes too hard or takes too much contact. She definitely needs to bulk up a little, gain some stamina, and get more confident in herself and her ability. Jayana Ervin and Ragan Wiseman only got into the game at the very end; Autumn Truesdale didn't beat them in by much, but had just enough time to make a post move. Kailyn Fee's three came near the very end of the game.

Aniyah Carpenter got off to a fast start for the Spiders, scoring on pull-ups in the lane. She got a lot of minutes, especially in the second half, both because she was scoring and because there was foul trouble for Richmond's starting backcourt. Daijia Ruffin, on the other hand, got off to a rough start, with a couple of shots missed short and a terrible passing turnover. But she settled down in the second half. She's a big, stocky guard, but her speed and smoothness belie her build. Madelyn Neff provided the bulk of the reserve minutes in the frontcourt, but I'd have to review the tape to see what impact, if any, she made on this game.

I'm glad Amy Duggan is all right after coming up limping in the first half. That being said, perhaps that will teach her to watch her feet a little more carefully on both ends of the court- she got called for tripping at least once because of how wide her stance was, and how she had them turned out. She fought well in the paint for rebounds. Jaide Hinds-Clarke came alive briefly in the fourth quarter, with back-to-back steals (including a very impressive pickpocketing of Bre Cavanaugh- that's not easy to do) and tough and-1s in the paint. She spent much of the game in foul trouble, which made her far less effective.

Alex Parson wasn't afraid to shoot, and got on a three-point streak in the third quarter. Her release is pretty quick, and she's got some range. I just don't see that much more to her game, though I'm ready to be proven wrong if this game was an outlier. Claire Holt was slim, and shockingly pale, and did all right for herself going to the hoop. Molly Mraz picked up two fouls early, and with Carpenter producing on offense, I can understand why Richmond's coach went with the lineups he did.

I'm trying to come up with more details, but Richmond was so ridiculously pedestrian, so unrelentingly average, that you'd think they were representing Lake Wobegon or something. If you're going to have no distinguishing features as a team, at least put names on your jerseys. Sheesh.

So Coach Gaitley completely emptied the bench at the end of this one, to the point where players I thought weren't even available were suiting up. Welcome back, Ralene Kwiatkowski! I like how willing she was to take a charge, even right back from an injury. And I thought Edona Thaqi was sitting out a transfer year (she's from UConn... okay, UConn-Avery Point, but the point still remains) but she got into the game at the very, very end. I don't think she's ready yet, and I might not have played her at all this year. The entire bench was ready to get up and get hyped for Katie McLoughlin and Catherine Polisano if they scored, and Bre looked so heartbroken when Katie's shot went in and out. Vilisi Tavui continues to be tall and unsure of what to do with this information. I would really like to see more of Alexa Giuliano. Someone needs to give Lauren Holden a break at some point.

Coach Gaitley put a lot more focus on the inside game in this one- I think this is the most I've seen Megan Jonassen play in one game. She gave us some good tough boxouts. Quiet game for Zara Jillings, and one where she seemed to be getting more Teaching Moments than usual. Maybe she's just not a morning person. I know that feeling. I'm definitely more of a night owl.

Quiet game for Kaitlyn Downey. I'm disturbed by the number of three-point attempts, but I think a lot of them were in the first quarter, or at least the first half, when the team was collectively feeling it, so I can understand her thinking. If that was the shot Richmond was allowing, then it wasn't the worst idea in the world. Mary Goulding cleaned up on the inside- her teammates did a really good job of finding her, both the guards and the posts (I think Megan had an especially nice feed to her on the inside.

I don't understand how Kendell Heremaia and Bre Cavanaugh can do such a good job of connecting on the backdoor cut, and do such a terrible job of communicating on the glass. One day, they're going to go after the same board at the wrong angle, and someone's going to get hurt (especially when you throw Mary's hustle into the mix). That all being said, I don't want anything to change about their shared desire for the ball- just maybe their ability to entrust the other person with it. I love Bre's rebounding, though I'm perturbed that one of our guards is consistently leading the team in rebounding- yes, she's playing a lot of minutes and I haven't crunched the advanced stats, but it feels like the advanced stats are heavily in Bre's favor as well. I love how Kenny's developing. She seems poised to take over as point guard when Lauren Holden graduates, and I can already tell that she'll be a different kind of point from Lauren. I'm okay with that. For some reason, the word "collaborative" comes to mind. Lauren had the three-point shot going from deep early. I'm not always happy about that, because she'll usually start leaning on it even when she goes cold, but she was driving the lane more in this game (even if her floater still needs a lot of work).

Our passing game was pretty sharp in this one. With the guards we have, I shouldn't be surprised by that, but it's always a pleasant surprise when it stands out.

I do apologize for the delay on this, but it's been a bit of a crazy week, and I cannot emphasize enough how relentlessly uninspiring Richmond was. It was close for a while, and then we went on a run in the third quarter, and I'm still not entirely certain how it happened.