Just the Facts, Ma'am: St. John's put four players in double figures and led wire to wire in their 75-38 win over Boston University. Eugeneia McPherson and Shenneika Smith each had 15 to lead the Red Storm, with McPherson adding six steals. Chantell Alford had 12 for the Terriers, while Rashidat Agboola had eight points and eleven rebounds.
For cool hats, exhaustion, ennui, and unexpected points in the paint, join your intrepid and ringing blogger after the jump.
The last Game Notes of Doom of 2011! Hard to believe, isn't it? The year's gone by so quickly...
I have to give BU fans credit- they took advantage of the three-day layover in New York and came in force. There were a lot of them. I also like their player-family gear. Johnny Thunderbird was almost too friendly to them- he darn near ran out of hats by the time he got to our section. (Yes, we got New Year's hats. Mine was red. /preens)
Our band has a gnome. Your argument is invalid.
BU looked exhausted. They were a step slow for most of the game; we're a good defensive team, but I've never seen us stay with a team through as many moves as we did. They would fake one or two or three times, and we'd be with them every time.
We saw a lot of their bench in the second half, because, y'know, thirty-point game, even a Terrier knows when to lay off. The spelling of Troi Melton's name makes me wonder if her family were Trekkies (but that's just because I'm a Trekkie myself). She gave them some good minutes. Whitney Turner was the first one off the bench in both halves, bringing them some size and physicality. Kristen Sims played a lot, but wasn't able to accomplish much. Greenberg started mixing in her deeper bench early in the game, so we saw a lot of players for short spurts.
Chantell Alford played well. She has a nicely balanced game, which I like in a player. Caroline Stewart didn't have a boxscore kind of game, but I like the way she took up space and the defense she brought. Rashidat Agboola did not demonstrate the world's greatest ball control, especially in the first half, when she had two bad turnovers in a row. Alex Young tried to make something happen, but it didn't happen. Mo Moran, who I dimly recall from her freshman year being someone to keep an eye out for, wasn't much of a factor.
Maybe someone gave Kelly Greenberg downers, maybe she's gotten one too many technicals, maybe she was wiped after three days in New York, but she was a lot calmer than I remember her being. I'm not sure if this is a good thing for her team or not.
Jennifer Blanding! The most popular woman in the room and the namesake of our Christmas tree, she got in late and made an impact. Big girl takes up a lot of space in the middle, and I wish Kim Barnes Arico would use her in those situations more. Briana Brown can't shoot straight, but she hit a three in an attempt to light the tree (alas, Mallory Jones went scoreless, meaning that Jennifer Tannenbaum is the only St. John's tree lit up today). Tesia Harris played surprisingly well, coming up with more loose balls than I think even she was expecting. Keylantra Langley was solid but unremarkable except for the one three that beat the shot clock. (Her flair for the dramatic usually annoys me, except when it has to do with the shot clock.) I think someone clued Mary Nwachukwu in to the fact that she needs to get her act together if she's going to get minutes, with Da'Shena's return and Amber's improvement. Either that, or she's still BC enough to get up for a game against BU, and she'll go back to soft mediocrity against Providence. But it was nice to see her hitting shots and going for loose balls.
Oh, hey, Nadirah McKenith! Nice to have you back. She's still a couple of steps slow, and the knee's bothering her, but she's going to be back, and I'm quite glad of it. She and Amber Thompson hooked up for a couple of beautiful plays. Amber was more assertive on offense than I've seen her in a while, and kept up her hustling for rebounds, even if she wasn't always able to get her hands on them. Shenneika Smith was quiet and a bit fumble-prone early in the game, but as time went on, that dagger-like shot showed up for the party. Eugeneia McPherson went for the shot instead of the foul, and her game was better for it. This is the Gina I enjoy watching- the one who goes to the rack without fear, who gives up her body without hesitation, and who strips the ball from her opponents like a pickpocket working Times Square. Da'Shena Stevens was bothered by injury- she was noticeably slow getting up and down the floor, and her shots were way off to the right.
The offense was a little loosey-goosey, and I think the coach got a little frustrated with the way they weren't taking care of the ball. But I liked the defense. Defense is good.
The officiating was the usual combination of confusing and solid. I'd really like to see more of an emphasis on tripping in the women's game, though. Too many knee injuries for us not to be careful with that.
It was hard to really get into this game after the big run in the first half. After it was 7-6, things got rapidly out of hand, which was refreshing and much needed. Now the hard part begins...
Saturday, December 31, 2011
December 31st, 2011: Boston University at St. John's
Saturday, April 12, 2008
December 1st, 2007: Boston University at St. John's
St. John's Red Storm 76, Boston University Terriers 69
Obvious referee is obvious, crazy coach is crazy, Monique McLean is Shameka Christon, and turnovers are bad.
Important life lessons learned today: throwing a temper tantrum will sometimes get you your way, but you'll look like an idiot afterwards and in the end you won't get what you really want out of the deal. Also, making nifty passes is good for the team and good for the karma. Also, it is possible to win a game despite making every apparent effort possible to throw it away, often literally. Also, I love this team, and love for one's team should be reiterated at every possible moment.
Let's not even talk about the anthem. Really, it's come to a point where it would be more respectful for the team to just play a recorded version, because the band kind of sucks at it. Also, Sky? Please stop fidgeting through the whole thing; if you simply have too much nervous energy to keep still, could you at least be more subtle about it than stretching your arms out wide and then rolling up your jersey straps? Show a little respect, kplzthx.
For most of the game I kept thinking, "You know, I've seen the BU coach before, I know she's been here before, where have I seen her before?" The answer, when it hit me, was so obvious that I felt exceptionally stupid for asking it- the last time I saw her was the last time I saw BU at Carnesecca. Wow, I think this is the first time I've been at a repeat performance. Ahem. Anyway, Coach Greenberg was… very spirited, and very much embodied the concept of being a Terrier. She never shut up and she kept at the officials as if she wanted to pick them up by the back of the neck and shake them until they went limp. At one point, she honest-to-God flipped her shit and yelled at her team "Don't let them push you around! Push them back!" loudly enough that half the arena heard her. Not exactly smart, ma'am. Not exactly smart.
As for the actual players in the game… we were fortunate that Kasey Devine got in foul trouble, because when she got the ball on the inside, she was too big and too strong for us to answer. One of her fouls was the breaking point for the BU coach; yeah, she might have ended up with an elbow in the eye, but that was because she grabbed the rebounder's arm. Monique doesn't play dirty; she'd break a nail if she did, and that wouldn't be good. Our defenses too often left Jesyka Burks-Wiley and Amarachi Umez-Eronini open, and while Umez-Eronini didn't take as much advantage of it as I'm sure BU would have liked, Burks-Wiley did, finishing with what would appear to be 23 points on my scoresheet. By the end of the game, I was hollering at my team to stop leaving her open, because I was running out of slots to put the field goals made. Cheri Raffo was a dead-eye shooter, nailing four threes to make the game a little more interesting- being as she's a Jersey girl, the boy tossed a couple of pointed remarks in her direction. I suspect that BU plans to make their big conference run this year: their top players are all either juniors or seniors, so this may be their last chance for a few years, depending on how the current underclasswomen and recruits pan out. I don't know if they're going to get some of the calls they got today, or if they're going to wear down from their coach's hysterics, but they've got the tools to make a good run: they have a big post in Devine, they have a shooter in Raffo, and they have a scorer in Burks-Wiley. (According to the boxscore, they also have an efficient distributor in Christine Kinneary, but one of the few things I'm not good at is noticing a point guard who doesn't at least look for her shot.)
This would have been a great game for a Liberty fan to be at, because Monique McLean was doing her best, full-blown, "are you sure she doesn't go to Liberty games?" Shameka impression. She hit the long shots, she hit the shots that were just a smidgen not long enough because they were only twos, she rebounded (though not to her usual standards), she played startlingly inconsistent defense, and she had occasional brain freezes that made me think that she'd snuck a Cold Stone before the game. It wasn't Kelly's day, on the other hand, although I love the way she makes plays along the sidelines. Sky… on the one hand, we do need a scorer to take the pressure off Monique and Kia, but on the other hand, do we really need a singularity in the lineup, one from whom the ball does not escape once it enters her event horizon? Too many times today I saw her go for her shot early in the clock and/or when teammates were in better position. She needs to watch her own team: the law of reciprocity is always in effect, so if she passes off to one of her teammates, they'll hit her back not long after. (Remember during the Dartmouth game, I remarked on Joy and Tiina sharing one of those? Today it was Coco and Kia- Coco dished a gorgeous little pass to Kia in the lane, and Kia returned the favor two possessions later.) Tiina seemed to spend most of the day in an extended blonde moment, which caused Coach to yell at her quite audibly near the end of the game, when we just needed to inbound the damn ball before the BU coach tried to bully the refs into calling a fast five seconds. Joy worked her ass off, as always, fighting for the ball, and I recall one of her tie-ups resulting in either a jump ball or a steal by a teammate when BU was starting to make things a little interesting in the second half. There were a couple of moments, though, when she was open and supposed to be receiving a pass and just completely blanked out. I don't know what's up with that; she's usually the one keeping everyone else awake, with a loud deep voice you could probably hear up in the upper level bleachers. Kia's almost back to speed, although I wonder if her ankle's bothering her; she doesn't seem to have her full speed and there's no lift on her jump shot, which defeats the "jump" portion of the program, or so I thought. She had two absolutely boneheaded stupid passes today that were completely inexplicable, but she also had a pure teardrop that brought to mind another St. John's point guard. Recee was the victim of one utter bullshit call and one verrrrrrry borderline call, and I'm sure it's a coincidence that both of those calls came after the BU coach called her out by number and told the refs to watch her. She did not look pleased about this. Strong as she is, she still needs to learn to be more assertive about gaining position, and someone needs to work on her footwork- while she's fast for a big girl, a la Ebony Hoffman, she's not so good at maintaining position with her feet. Coco is rapidly shaping up to be Joy's heir and apprentice, which makes me happy. Now, if only both of them could hit free throws, we'd be in shape. Kristin barely played, much to my dismay. Moar Kristin, kplzthx.
I decided today that I was going to put my knowledge of the basic jumper to the test and watch warm-ups to see who was shooting well, who wasn't, and why this might be. That's why I guessed Kia's ankle was what was bothering her, despite the lack of medical attention that seemed to be paid to it. There's that, and there's the almost total lack of spin on Sky's shots, which makes them pretty when they go in, but a whole lot less likely to go in in the first place. And there's Joy's form, which- I love the girl, but someone has got to get her hands under control when she shoots. It's ugly. She's got potential as a useful spare part if she puts on a little muscle and develops a shot, but she's gotta do that ASAP. Kristin has major ups- she seemed to be doing all the jumping that Kia so far couldn't. I think Coco was the one with no followthrough, but don't hold me to that. These are correctable things, though. These can be fixed with a patient coach who knows his or her shit.
"Let's Make a Deal" was one of the in-game activities today, and the contestant was Coach's son Trevor, who ws so damn cute it wasn't even funny, except that it was funny when he kept imploring his mother with the puppy dog eyes to help him pick the items or the box, while she was completely immersed in telling her team how not to lose the game.
These were clearly not experienced referees. Travels, they mostly knew how to call, but they didn’t seem to be able to count above that. I'll gladly admit that in the beginning of the game, we got the benefit of the doubt on some non-calls, and perhaps that was good for BU, but there were some horrendous calls that had both coaches in rage. The refs were clearly intimidated by the BU coach's tantrum instead of telling her to suck it up and stop screaming. There was one play I recall pretty clearly- Coco had gotten into the paint and was scrapping for a rebound with two Terriers. One of them pulls her down by the ball. Jump ball called. Coach is not pleased and yells, "Why was that not a foul?" One of the officials replied, with maddeningly simple logic, "It was not a foul." Oh, helpful!
We play the A-10 for a change next game, which ought to be more of a challenge. We need to work on our shooting and our turnovers, because even with the comfortable lead we built late in the first half and early in the second, we almost threw the game away, in as literal a fashion as possible. 18 turnovers is not good.