Just the Facts, Ma'am: St. John's started strong and kept the lead up in a 76-44 win against Lafayette to open the home schedule. Qadashah Hoppie led all scorers with 22 points. Alexis Santarelli led Lafayette with 14 points and five rebounds.
For trying to get back in the groove, physical posts, and the fly in the ointment, join your intrepid blogger after the jump.
Good evening! We come to you on an entirely too-cold night from the cozy confines of the redecorated Carnesecca Arena, as St. John's opens the season against Lafayette.
Men's soccer is in the Big East tournament against Providence (and has scored at least one goal) so attendance is scanty, to say the least. Most of the Usual Suspects, SJU Edition, are passionate enough about all Red Storm sports that they're at the soccer game and will be coming sometime after that finishes. So band appears to consist of one guy with a drumset, cheer appears to consist of four people, and dance has, like, two representatives. Well, guess we're going to have to work a little harder. Okay. Emergency reserve band has been revealed.
The new banners are very modern. The place still has that new vinyl smell. I don't know if I like them yet. Something rubs me the wrong way about having the Final Four banners and the NIT banners center-hung, but I realize I'm being irrational about this.
Magnetic schedules are pretty sharp. Already grabbed one for the door. The posters also look good, though that gets grabbed on autograph day and no sooner. I like that they're not the same design as the men, although a running motif with a coach that likes to slow down the offense is either misleading or indicates that Joe has maybe stopped playing scared.
At the end of the first, it's 22-14 St. John's. Qadashah Hoppie has gone nuts with 11 already. Defense looks good early. Yeah, the field goal percentage doesn't show it because when Lafayette has the ball long enough to get a shot, they can get a good shot. But we're doing work making sure they don't have the ball in the first place.
It's 39-25 Johnnies at the half. The freshmen need work, which makes sense this early in the season. Alexis Santarelli of Lafayette is probably not going to have a lot of friends in Queens by the end of the night.
So if a St. John's alumna who works for another Big East team shows up to a St. John's game, is she doing it in a personal or a professional capacity? Asking for a friend, or at least someone who says hi at games. (Meanwhile, I almost swallowed my Tootsie Roll whole {this is not a euphemism, it's medicinal} when I saw Curteeona Brelove approaching the bench with a warm-up shirt on, but it was one of last year's shirts and she kept going.
The rec life halftime game was plagued with turnovers, but hey, there were dunks, so there are people who almost certainly think it's inherently better than D-1 action.
I'm not sure what to make of Lafayette, except that they seem to know that they have tall, physical post players and want to use that to their advantage. Against a team that doesn't run a trap, or against teams that aren't as good defensively, they might be able to get their pick and roll action going on a more regular basis, and they might be able to use those screens to get their three-point shooters open more often. We are not that team.
Makaila Wilson was able to take advantage of her size in the post and put in some buckets- either she had a shorter defender on her or she had Kadaja Bailey, who couldn't make the turn with her in the paint. Jiselle Havas didn’t see a long stretch of time in one shot until the second half, at which point she and Tiana England seemed to be having some polite disagreements. Sydney Sabino saw time in the second and fourth quarters, though it was hard to tell sometimes (our PA guy needs to step up his game on substitution announcements). Tasha Vipond picked up mop-up minutes.
The stats aren’t great for her, and admittedly she got wrecked by the press, but I thought Sarah Agnello actually played pretty well. She looked the most in control of any of Lafayette's guards. The others were not particularly notable, especially at this late stage. (The catching up has been a nightmare.)
Alexis Santarelli definitely threw her weight around down low. She was able to get baskets close to the rim on offense and make space for her teammates with screens, some rather harder than others. Same deal with Natalie Kucowski, with somewhat less success. They brought a level of physicality to the floor that we couldn't match, even as we outplayed them on the rest of the floor.
So we got to see some of the deep bench in the fourth quarter, and the freshmen definitely need some work. Cecelia Holmberg doesn't have a sense where she needs to be on defense. Sophia Nolan made no impact. Emma Nolan got some good run, but she needs to be less scared to shoot. I don't know how many times we were yelling for her to shoot the ball. She forced three jump balls, and Lafayette had the arrow every time. Points for hustle, but a little help from the universe would be nice.
Unique Drake looks like she's fitting in pretty well. She wasn't spectacular, but I like her driving ability, and she didn't seem to be making too many mistakes. Honestly, sometimes that's what you want to see out of a freshman. I love the energy Leilani Correa brought on defense. She and Alissa Alston ran the backcourt trap and press to perfection. It gave me warm and fuzzy flashbacks of our old defenses. Shamachya Duncan hit a three and the squad rejoiced. Mascot is too strong and too dismissive a word for who she is to this team, but it's clear that she's their favorite.
There is a large part of me that loves Alissa Alston's policy of full body sacrifice, of going hard for loose balls and taking every possible charge. There is another large part of me that wants to scream, "Please stop breaking yourself, Alissa!" every time she measures her length on the hardwood. She's reckless and sometimes a little bit stupid, but I'm pretty sure I'll get used to it. So she'll be the Johnnies' entry in the "most likely to concuss your intrepid blogger via facepalm" contest. Tiana England had a nifty steal that she turned into a fast break lay-up, which makes me wonder why she doesn't do this more often. We keep blaming Joe for the team's tendency to slow things up, but there are times when I think it really is T's problem. Faster is better with this squad. Qadashah Hoppie bombed threes all night and kept the pressure on Lafayette. When she's on, she's so much fun to watch.
Alisha Kebbe continues to be rock solid and an all-around star. I love what she brings to the floor. Kadaja Bailey was the only real disappointment to me in this game. She was consistently a step slow on defense, she took bad shots, she couldn't get a hold of rebounds- basically, it seemed like wherever something went wrong, she was there. I know that sounds like a terrible thing to say, and I'm probably exaggerating. But she did not look good, and that worries me. She's a stud, or at least she has the potential to be one, if she uses it properly.
We've got to be better at dealing with physical contact. We have size, and we have players who are physical, but the Venn diagram of those two characteristics is a pair of non-congruent circles at the moment. Lafayette took advantage of that with their posts, and if a middling Patriot team can do that, then I don't know how we're going to deal with Mary Baskerville or Mary Gedaka.
That all being said, we have a lot of firepower if we just use it, and we have a level of depth we haven't had in years. I'm looking forward to seeing how this team develops.
Sunday, November 24, 2019
November 13th, 2019: Lafayette at St. John's
Sunday, December 4, 2016
December 3rd, 2016: Lafayette at St. John's
Just the Facts, Ma'am: The Red Storm clamped down on defense, holding Lafayette to 27.8% shooting from the field, to claim a 64-46 win. Jade Walker had 13 points to lead St. John's, adding six rebounds. Olivia Gumbs led Lafayette with 14 points.
For color coordination, ninja, back pain, flaring tempers, cross-checking, the extra pass, and bootleg game boards, join your intrepid and silly blogger after the jump.
Game day at Carnesecca! It's St. John's and Lafayette in Queens on a pleasant autumn day.
At halftime, St. John's is up 28-15, with pretty balanced scoring all around. We're watching the dance campers doing their halftime routine, and it's actually not bad. Better than they usually manage.
Substitute announcer today, and he is not on his game. You should be giving more than name and number during intros, even for the opponent.
The group in front of us brought a bunch of kids to the dance camp. It's a mild inconvenience, but nto much more, and at least they haven't looked at us too funny for being loud. (And no one has asked me {yet} if my daughter is on the team. It happened again in the Miami game. Next time I'm telling them I'm Imani's long lost twin sister.)
The boss lady is behind us. If it weren't for doom, I'd be asking her some pointed questions right now. Kathy, you got saved.
I don't remember Lafayette's colors being this cherry before. I think that's why Coach Grentz has the leopard-print scarf- that maroon/cherry color would very much not suit her complexion, but leopard-print allows her to still sort of be in team colors.
Officiating has mostly been in our favor so far. I fear what will happen in the second half. (I mean, they broke the first rule! Jade pushed off on an early possession and they didn't call her for a foul!)
Joe, No-Shave November ended earlier this week. Scruffy is not your look.
We really got to see the freshmen shine in this one- for both teams, for both good and for ill.
Theresa Grentz either wasn't happy with a couple of her starters, or they weren't actually starters and someone else was in trouble. She swapped in Sarah Agnello and Olivia Gumbs to start the second half. Agnello really didn't have much of an impact. Olivia Gumbs was a solid offensive option, but as the game went on, she got more physical and more flat-out dirty. You don't usually see a ref call tripping, especially with the signal for it (often another signal takes precedence). She's got a nice shot and good strength- there are ways to use that in basketball that don't involve deliberately hurting your opponent. They were swapped in at the start of the second half for Harriet Ottewill-Soulsby and Alex Cantwell. Ottewill-Soulsby used her length to block shots, but her hand-eye coordination is not very good. Cantwell had a lot of family, friends, and/or other supporters in the building, some even with signs. They were not pleased with the cut in her playing time.
I don't know whether Grentz was in "throw everything at the wall and see what sticks" mode or if there was a rhyme or reason to her subs that I wasn't getting, or if she's a more situational subber than a rotation subber. So, for example, Nia Holland was the first bench player in the game for Lafayette in the first half, and then didn't appear again until the fourth quarter. (Unless she was there and I just didn't notice her- our PA guy was not on the ball with sub calls.) They've actually got some pretty decent size, or at least some decently physical size, in Ashley Lutz, Angela Ribarich, and Alexis Santarelli. Santarelli was especially impressive getting boards close to the basket. Their bigs, in general, did a nice job of setting screens for their guards, and we did a lousy job of calling them out.
Anna Ptasinski got shut down. It seems we learned from the Albany game to stay somewhat closer to the opponent's most notable player. She's got realy good instincts, and you can see that she knows how to play the game. Maia Hood is a little bit of a mismatch because of her size, but I think she saw more offensive opportunities for herself than might have been called for in the game plan. Sammy Stipa seemed to be running the offense, and was one of those invisible point guards ho doesn't really get herself noticed. There's a place for that role, but I don't know if it's here and now.
I think there's a disconnect between the players that Lafayette has, the coach that Lafayette has, what Coach Grentz expects from those players, and the current state of women's basketball on the college level. Old school can definitely be a thing, but I get the feeling the game has moved past Grentz.
We got to see all the reserves again! I like this pattern. I like it very much. Shamachya Duncan actually got some extended run in the fourth quarter after a cameo in the third. (And after all the time we spent wondering how to pronounce Shamachya, it turns out she goes by Machi.) It would be easy to dismiss her as Aaliyah 2.0- a slightly built guard from Staten Island with some moves- but she's a little more offensive-minded and not as inclined to set up the offense. She may need to move to point in future just because of her build, though. (On the other hand, I'm not entirely sure she's done with her growth spurt- her head seems a touch too big for the rest of her body.) Everyone was rooting so hard for her to get that first bucket, it was adorable. Kendyl Nunn went hard after loose balls and rebounds. Tamesha Alexander was last off the bench and coughed up the ball pretty much the first time she brought it up. Her handle isn't as good as she thinks it is. And like many Johnnies, she's got to put in more work at the free throw line.
One of these days, the universe is going to figure out that Crystal Simmons's shot may actually break the laws of physics as we know them, and that day may possibly bring about the end of the world as we know it. But until then, I'll continue to wonder how a follow-through that goes across the path of the ball somehow manages to direct it forward. I talk about how much I love her defense, but you're going to have to keep hearing it, because she does so much that doesn't show up in the box score. Andrayah Adams is coming along nicely. I still have some doubts about her, and I still question why she was so cavalierly handed #15, but she's doing all right. I thought it was interesting that she was directing the offense late in the game. Maya Singleton came up with big offensive boards and physical defense- the latter to a fault. No, Maya, you can't have a piggyback ride, and you can't just reach in for the ball. Sandra Udobi made herself available in the paint for offense, but wasn't moving as well on defense as I'd like (but I have to remember what to expect).
Jade Walker had the jumper working, but more importantly, she was going hard in the paint along the baseline. She and Gumbs were going at it in the second half, and by the end Jade looked ready to start a fight (or at least finish one). It's not a beast stat line, so you'll have to trust me when I say that this was one of Jade's best games so far this year. Imani Littleton was quietly efficient- she has a knack for getting to the right place at the right time. Fun to watch is the wrong phrase, but fun to pay attention to might be closer (if somewhat creepier).
Aaliyah Lewis is trying to do too much with the ball, trying too hard to succeed by needless misdirection. She kept the drama to a minimum this time. She drove hard in the lane, and those were fun to watch. I'm not saying there isn't a place for misdirection in her game, or that she doesn't use it effectively, but sometimes I get the feeling she crosses people over for the sake of crossing people over. Akina Wellere has been having the worst puck luck lately- lots of shots have been rimming out. I think she'll get through it, and she's picked up the nifty habit of making up for it at the defensive end. Somehow, the last couple of games she's been the one to make the big defensive stops near the end. Alisha Kebbe needs to put a little more oomph in her shot, and to work on her ball security. If the speed of the college game is catching up to her against Albany and Lafayette, it's really going to catch up to her against the Big East. Or, for that matter, against the defense of Rutgers.
Play got more physical as the game went on, and officiating got looser. There were a lot of players knocked down, mostly Johnnies. We were having some flashbacks to the infamous Southern Miss game (though unlike back in the day, we're carrying enough players that losing the entire starting five to injury and having one DQ'd wouldn't leave us with four on the court- that's actually really reassuring).
Jordan Agustus did not appear to be with the team. More on this as it develops.
There was a huge group seated in the upper deck. We don't know who they were, or what they were doing there, and they disappeared sometime in the second half. My theory is that they were a school of ninja, and they didn't actually leave- they just engaged their ninja stealth.
I'm not going to lie and say that this was a great game of basketball. But we needed a win, and we came away with a win; we needed to give minutes to our deep reserves, and they got minutes. The only thing I can complain about is being too tired to write it up properly. But it's already on to the next one. Basketball never stops, after all, no matter how much my back hurts.
Friday, December 19, 2008
December 19th, 2008: Lafayette at Rutgers
Rutgers Scarlet Knights 61, Lafayette Leopards 29
The Game Notes are wroth with the Rutgers athletic department, yet still feel love for the freshmen.
I really want to compliment my team. I really do. And I shouldn't be upset at a 61-29 victory, because it really does say a lot about the team, and a lot of it is good. But at the same time I get the weird and conflicting feelings that we should have won by more because Lafayette couldn't get out of their own way, and that we should have won by less because the bench should have had more time to work out the kinks. I don't know. I'm just confused.
I'm really not thrilled with Rutgers University right now. Ticket hikes are one thing, but I shouldn't have to bootleg a scoresheet at a BEast school. LIU, Columbia, St. Francis- there I can get scoresheets, but not at the premier WCBB school in the New York metro area? Are you kiddin' me? Also, please feel free to get your PA system fixed so that we can actually make out the names of the opposing players. The RAC is a wonderful arena, but it deserves more than cut corners inside.
But I did miss the band. They rock.
So, Lafayette. I don't know if it was the stifling defense- they certainly had trouble getting the ball over to each other- or their own ineptitude (since they graduated their biggest offensive threat from last season), but they were really lost out there on offense. I thought their opening drill for warm-ups, a hand-off drill, was a really good idea, but it didn't seem to do them a lot of good in actual game action. RU must have been marking the hell out of Wright, because she was a big scorer for the Leopards last year, but only got four points, all in the first half. She also set up the unfortunately named Elizabeth Virgin for a first-half bucket. Garner and Spicer had nice steals- I remembered Spicer from my trip to Kirby Gym as a ball-hawk, and there she was. Virgin and Wright also had nice plays on the defensive end. Plus, hey, any time you can see Lauren Jackson play… all right, all right, this Lauren Jackson was a brunette guard from Texas who showed a lot of hustle and not much else, but you take your amusement where you can.
Stat that stands out in the game: RU missed 32 shots, 38 if you count missed free throws. They picked up 23 offensive rebounds. So yeah, pretty impressive percentage there. Nice shooting by Piph, but I can't help but wonder if it was really necessary to not only keep her in the game for 37 total minutes (when no other starter topped 30, and the only one who came close was Kia Vaughn, who had to come back into the game late because Junaid was a wreck), but keep her shooting down to the last minute of a game that had long since become a blowout. At least feed one of the freshmen or something. She was also really aggressive on defense, more than she usually is, and I think she should have been called for a couple of more holds than she was. I did like her plays on the sideline, though I suspect Melissa Downey will disagree with me on that. Vaughn was solid inside, with pleasingly few of the glaring mental errors I've come to expect of her. (She does, however, have to learn to go before she leaves- there's nothing quite as disconcerting as seeing your starting center run pell-mell for the locker room.) Heather Zurich started getting into a groove, then started getting into foul trouble, and that was, as they say, that. She and Ray both took their turns on LaKeisha Wright, and both had success on her. Ray didn't really need to get into the offense. McCurdy, I honestly don’t remember, and that's frightening, given that she's one of my favorite Scarlet Knights. I'm really liking Rushdan's hustle and work on the boards. Like, a lot. Sykes has good instincts, but she needs to learn when not to pull the trigger. C'mon, April. You're a big, badass young woman. Take it inside. You don't need to be popping MCBB threes from the top of the arc. I'm liking Nikki Speed. It was nice to see Lee and Pope, and I liked Lee's screen to set up the two by Rushdan.
Best play of the game: Rushdan's interception at midfield returned for a touchdown steal at halfcourt that resulted in a Prince three.
Most awesome play in the history of ever: the absolutely bone-crushing screen thrown by the girl in the #10 jersey during the halftime ballkid two-on-two game. I swear to God, if I were Kim Barnes Arico, I might have tried to offer her a scholarship right then and there. The Red Storm don't set screens that solid. Hell, some Liberty players don't set screens that solid. We're talking damn near Screen of Death here.
You know how I mentioned that I hadn't seen Bonita Spence in a while, before the game at St. John's on Tuesday? Yeah, guess who showed up again. Does she hibernate until December or something? Because if she does, she's doing it wrong. So wrong. This was great hibernation weather. Some truly horrible calls- travels that were caused by fouls, fouls that were called as travels, some textbook holding not whistled… Bonita, really, I expect better of your crews.
The weather was absolutely disgusting, but a surprising number of people made it out. Probably not that many fewer than would actually consider Rutgers-Lafayette to be a match worth checking out. I do wish the guy in the scarlet sweater who was obnoxiously rooting for the Leopards the whole game and then "Rah rah Rutgers rah!"ing after the game hadn't been able to make it. Does that make me a bad person?
So yeah, we won, and we won big, but really, relying on one player to score the bulk of your points is so mid-major. She's got to learn to trust her young players, and at least in this game, she did give Sykes and Speed chances. Baby steps. Baby steps.
Monday, April 14, 2008
January 26th, 2008: Lehigh at Lafayette
Now this is what a rivalry game's about.
The Grand Tour continued on Saturday, as we ventured to our third state in this quest, crossing the Delaware for one of the oldest rivalries in college sports: Lehigh-Lafayette. For once, we had excellent directions, as Lafayette's website was very useful in providing address information and specifics about the arena's location on campus.
Kirby Sports Arena sits along College Hill, a simple building with a modern, elegant interior that celebrates both Lafayette's varsity sports and its intramurals; as Glenn pointed out, you might be at an academically inclined school if one of your intramurals is backgammon. Their gym, much like Princeton's, is set up for indoor track, but unlike at Jadwin, the extra space is muffled so that noise doesn't escape out of the playing area, instead rising to the rafters and coming back down, much like the RAC. They also take advantage of the extra space by having their concession stand between two sets of screens. Signs your game might be held in Pennsylvania: the concessions include funnel cake. In retrospect, we should have taken advantage of the Herr's chips.
The beauty of a rivalry that is pretty much among neighbors is that the traveling team can enjoy some of the advantages of home, and Lehigh played that to the hilt. Despite wearing their, frankly, unattractive and non-menacing road brown and white, they enjoyed the support of a vocal cheering section… and their cheerleaders… and their band, who did a wicked version of "Carry On Wayward Son". For a Patriot League team, they brought a lot of size and used it well. Haly Crites, Melissa Rich, and Courtney Dentler all did incredible work protecting the paint against Lafayette- at least in the first half, and through much of the second. Rich, along with guards Erica Prosser and Tricia Smith, showed a knack for getting to the line, though not always converting. I loved the defensive work of Sullivan on the perimeter, and the outside shooting of Alex Ross was unreal. She showed damn near NBA range, and she's only a sophomore. There's a reason Lehigh's making noise this season, and why they'll probably win the Patriot despite losing this very important conference game. They've got a lot of grit and a good mix of inside and outside games.
Side note of interest: there's kin of Wally Szczerbiak on the Lehigh roster, sophomore forward Wendy Szczerbiak. Either she was the tall, slim, brunette in street clothes with the injured knee… or she was the very large, very blonde forward in the appropriate jersey. I was pretty convinced that the jersey was accurate at the time, but the more I think about it, the more I think that there was absolutely no family resemblance between Wally and #10, whereas the young lady in street clothes bore a slight resemblance to him. 'cuz otherwise, someone got switched at birth, no lie.
On to the Leopards- who get credit for at least having a halfway unique name instead of being one of many Hawks or Bulldogs or Tigers. Some interesting names on that team; Elizabeth Virgin is definitely on the All-WTF Name Team, and the mythology geek in me wonders if she has a sister named Athena. They also have a Lauren Jackson, which is just disconcerting. I mean, I know they're both common names, but that doesn't keep it from being disconcerting. Lafayette's lineup was much more traditionally sized in terms of mid-majors, with twos playing the three, and threes playing the four and even the five. Lafayette's scorecard came with a handy stat breakdown, so I knew to watch senior Vanessa Van De Venter and freshman LaKeisha Wright (who, with one of the injury to one of Lafayette's other guards, had the dubious distinction of being "the black player") as the scoring stars, as both of them were putting up impressive shooting percentages, especially for perimeter players. I found myself liking Van De Venter's stroke, but not so much her hands- her fumbles almost cost Lafayette the game in the late stages, both in the giving and the receiving. Wright stepped her game up in the second half, showing a pretty impressive array of moves getting to the rack. But right around the third possession, the Leopard I found myself watching most intently was ballhawking guard Jessica Spicer, who played dogged defense and hit shots late in the game- a three to swing the momentum back in Lafayette's favor and a layup that helped put it out of reach. Clutch was also Emily Garner, who stepped up big off the bench and had the defining block that put the game in Lafayette's control- and since they weren't getting the production they ought to have been out of the scoreless Cristin Zavocki, they needed her to score.
The crowd was really into it, and I think the presence of the Lehigh fans really helped that- it wasn't a call and response, per se, but the presence of loud, vocal Lehigh fans helped spur the Lafayette fans on to back their team. In short, it was everything a rivalry game could hope for: tightly but fairly contested, loud and passionate fans for both sides, and a satisfying win for the home team.
The only thing better than a tightly, fiercely played rivalry game? A tightly, fiercely played rivalry game with a post-game autograph session. For the sake of completeness, I was disappointed that Van De Venter and Wright had to go handle media stuff in the midst of the session. A very charming bunch of young ladies who seemed genuinely pleased at the size of the crowd- and of course, the win over Lehigh. And I did promise I wouldn't tell, but somehow I doubt there are any Leopards reading these notes: senior forward Val Gomez, near the end of the autograph line, had clearly gotten bored at one point as traffic jammed up near the front, because she had doodled glasses and a Harry Potter scar on a couple of her teammates' images on a spare poster. "I guess I should turn that over," she said when I laughed.
This is what our Grand Tour is about- seeing games we would never have otherwise dreamed of seeing, being in the arena for rivalry games like this, having some of the best seats in the house for everything a rivalry game should be, surrounded by passionate fans and passionate players. This may well be the best game I've seen all season, and I'd like to thank the ladies of the Patriot League for providing it.