Just the Facts, Ma'am: Fordham started off strong, but VCU came back in the fourth, and Fordham's late miscues sealed a 61-58 win for the Rams from Richmond. Mooriah Rowser led all scorers with 17 points for VCU, with Isis Thorpe adding 15 and Keira Robinson collecting a 12-point/10-rebound double-double. Anna Kelly led the Rams of Rose Hill with 16 points off the bench; Fordham also got 12 points each from Danielle Burns and G'mrice Davis, with Davis adding 13 rebounds.
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Hello from the Bronx! This time, I come to Fordham in maroon and white, to watch as the Rams lock horns with VCU.
The bus ride took forever and three days- we left at 11 and arrived just in time for the (enthusiastic but inconsistent) anthem. Three hours on the road is not fun times.
At halftime, Fordham is up 32-24 on VCU. G'mrice Davis is all over the boards, and Fordham's been solid from beyond the arc- which is good, because their lay-ups have been really inconsistent.
Does Fordham not get the good conditioner or something? It's petty, but both Hannah Missry and Lauren Holden are suffering from really frizzy hair, as is Coach Gaitley. (This has the effect of making Lauren look like Hannah's Mini-Me.)
I know Rose Hill is small, but it always amazes me how many people Fordham manages to get in. I don't know if they just have a better network, or it's really that much smaller, or what.
It's Superhero Day, so there are lots of people with masks and capes, including the life-size cutouts of Hannah Missry and the Danielles.
Superhero Day is a very bad choice of days to come up short, to miss makeable shots, and to fail to secure critical rebounds. We were not superheroes today. We were mooks.
I have come to the conclusion that teams that go deep into their bench and play pretty much everyone on the roster are the most difficult teams to write about. I want to give every player their space to shine, but there are so many players. VCU doesn't quite play Havoc with their opponents, but they like to wear them down.
I rather liked Ashlee Mitchell, who came in and made an impact on defense almost immediately. She never let up on loose balls. Ashley Pegram had a shot that G'mrice Davis utterly erased from existence and memory, but was otherwise one of the better bench players. Bria Gibson gave the Rams size in the middle and held down the fort on the offensive glass. Sandra Skinner committed a couple of rapid-fire fouls in a row, and got duly mocked for it. I had been led to expect more out of Jailyn Maddox than she provided in this game, but that might be a side effect of VCU's system.
Keira Robinson kind of sneaked up on us; I looked at the stat board at the end of the game, and realized she had managed to garner herself a double-double. The plays weren't fancy, but she was in the right place at the right time. She was clutch. GG Goodhope had opportunities to shut the door and didn't qute grab them. Mooriah Rowser carried the load for VCU in the third quarter, getting off her own personal run with silky long jumpers and adroit use of her length.
Isis Thorpe, whose name started to sound more and more like "ee-sis" than any Egyptian goddess I've ever heard of as the game went on, played bigger than her height. She hit pretty hard on defense, but also showed some stroke in the second half from beyond the arc. Curteeona Brelove was quiet until the very end of the game, but wasn't afraid to throw her weight around down low on defense. She had more trouble finishing at the rim than she should have, but that's the pot calling the kettle black in this game.
VCU has extremely bland jerseys- hardly any trim on them at all. The cut makes them look like practice jerseys; in fact, I would say that Seton Hall's practice jerseys are more creatively designed. The gradiant effect on the shorts is kind of cool, though.
Fordham has got to do a better job of converting at the rim. Too many chances- six, seven chances- were blown short or wild, and any one of those would have changed the complexion of the game. Even better clock management would have helped, though clock management at Fordham is somewhat related to strangling the clock until it begs for mercy.
Tiffany Suarez came in for a slight change of pace, managed to commit a stupid turnover, and hit a couple of free throws. I wasn't impressed. I feel like something might have been wrong with Mary Goulding's sneakers, because she slid and hit the floor three times in rapid succession, on different enough parts of the floor that I don't think it was just a matter of the floor being wet. I like her, but she still needs a bit of polishing. Asnate Fomina took a rough fall that left her clutching her left elbow in pain. She came back in later and canned a three, so it must have just been her funny bone, but we were freaked out. Anna Kelly was a revelation, though she needs to work on her fundamentals at the basket. She seemed to have an easier time finishing the hard shots than the simple shots- the left-handed baby hook/under-handed fling thing she did had no right to be going in like that when she missed two fast break lay-ups.
Anna took most of the minutes from the nominal starter, Kate Kreslina, who seemed a bit stiff and awkward out there. Going with Anna and Lauren Holden gave us a very small backcourt, but a more effective one. I love Lauren's sass on the floor. She's become even more confident and self-possessed out there- sometimes to a fault, as she has a habit of calling her own number and proceeding to launch a shot that's either short or wide, or both. Hannah Missry got hot from three in the second quarter, and I thought we might have a chance to break open the game there, but she has defensive lapses, and those threes were her only offensive contribution to the game. She's one-dimensional. You learn to live with that.
Danielle Burns is not exactly consistent from that left corner and left elbow, but she does love it, and it's fun when the shot goes in. I think I'm being a little hard on her, because she had a solid game, but her judgment is not the best, and I expect rather better from seniors. G'mrice Davis owned the boards, especially early on, but her inability to consistently finish at the rim killed us down the stretch. She had great position and great opportunities, but the misses were killer.
I don't know why we bother counting the shot clock down at Fordham. They're going to use as much of it as humanly possible on every possession; they know it's getting low. Drives me nuts, this lack of urgency that's endemic to this style of offense.
The offensive foul calls were frequent in the early part of the game, but seemed to slow up near the end. Both coaches were upset at various times.
I think I need to get to more Fordham games. I don't know their cheers as well as I should, and I don't think they do intricate ones like LIU does, so it shouldn't be that hard to pick them up.
We should have had this game. We had plenty of opportunities to take it back. VCU left the door open with missed free throw after missed free throw, and we responded by walking through that door, tripping on the threshold, and falling on our collective keister.
Sunday, January 22, 2017
January 21st, 2017: VCU at Fordham
Sunday, March 22, 2009
March 21st, 2009: VCU at Rutgers (NCAA tournament)
Rutgers Scarlet Knights 57, VCU Rams 51
The Rams throw down, Epiphanny Prince takes over, and there's a whole lot of ugly going on.
*ding ding ding* Let the fight begin!
Rutgers is a hard-fighting, tough defensive team that isn't afraid to get physical. So is VCU. Anyone who didn't think this was going to be a rough game for either team clearly hadn't done their homework.
So what was it with the crazy #23s today? While I do like Jessica Taylor's ram's-horns hairdo, I thought she was going to attempt to kill someone by the end of the game. Maybe we can have her and Crites duke it out at halftime of the Rutgers-Auburn game for everyone's entertainment. Hollingsworth stepped it up in the second half for VCU, taking advantage of some of Vaughn's mental lapses. If Radislava Bacharova had been able to hit the broad side of a barn, I think VCU would have pulled the upset, but with Ray and Zurich taking turns in her face, she wasn't getting a lot of good shots, and most of the ones she did get didn't fall. Such is life. Waller couldn't hit a free throw to save her life, and she was really starting to get chippy by the end of the game. Lane did a good job controlling the Rams' offense. Rorie spent a lot of time in foul trouble, forcing VCU to go to their bench. (For that matter, Hollingsworth and her replacement Courtney Hurt [a very well-named young lady if ever I saw one] also spent a lot of time in foul trouble. It's a tribute to Cunningham's juggling ability that neither of them fouled out, though Rorie, whose trouble started this parenthetical aside, did.) A very physical team, a very physical game. Not much came easy for either team. Lot of elbows thrown, lot of hard screens, lot of bumps, lot of falls.
No, here's a slightly better illustration of how physical and hard it was: by the end of the game, Myia McCurdy was wearing #30 and Brittany Ray was wearing #40 because their real jerseys were bloodstained. (I thought Ray coming out in Linda Miles's #40 was a declaration of war, to be honest- "Okay, fine, you wanna hit? Well, guess what? We have people who can do that professionally. Bring it on.") But blood, sweat, and fistfights aside, this was Epiphanny Prince's game. When it got close, she pretty well decided that she wasn't letting this upset happen on her floor, and she turned on the jets. I keep forgetting, or maybe today was just exceptional, just how quick her hands are- she got a lot of her rebounds by stealing them away from bigger players, and then there were the straight-up steals on defense. Vaughn played all right, although I'm not enthusiastic about her constant forays out of the post on defense- she doesn't quite have the foot speed to make the cut back inside to get back on her assignment when the ball goes back inside. And if I start on the free throw shooting, I'm gonna barf all over the computer, and this computer's been through more than enough crap. Ray and Zurich had the busy tasks of stopping Hollingsworth's sidekicks, so any offense from them was a nice little bonus. Rushdan looks recovered (though there was one heart-stopping moment when she landed awkwardly and her braced knee bent oddly- she was fine, though), even if she couldn't quite keep control of the ball. McCurdy's giant, strappy knee brace makes her look like she's being assimilated by the Borg, starting at the bottom and moving up. It's actually kinda scary. Speed got some good minutes, and though she did make a questionable decision or two, she didn't play too badly, and with the RU freshmen, I'll take what I can get. (Baby steps. Baby steps. Not everybody can be Da'Shena Stevens. ;)) I'm terribly afraid I'm going to spend the next four years mixing up Lee and Pope unless one of them gets into high rotation. Junaid just didn't have her head in the game.
The refereeing in this game was loose and very inconsistent. I think the elbow-throwing/trash-talking incident that led to the two techs at the end could have been avoided if some of the other extracurriculars had been called beforehand. It seems like the refs are letting them play- at least that's the impression I got from the two games I saw- but there's letting them play and then there's letting them brawl. If that's the officiating style for the tournament, then I like Rutgers's chances against Auburn on Monday, because I don't think Auburn can bang that long unless Carrier stays miraculously out of foul trouble.
Shame on the fans behind the home bench for not showing up until the second game. That swath of seats that stayed empty throughout the first game, visible with every sweep of the camera, could not in any way have looked good.
Auburn versus Rutgers is going to be a very interesting game, and I look forward to seeing it. The strategy should be very, *very* exciting, but I'm a dork like that.
Sunday, February 22, 2009
February 22nd, 2009: VCU at Hofstra
Virginia Commonwealth Rams 55, Hofstra Pride 43
The Pride and promise of Hofstra. They're just not quite there yet.
Signs you have moved up the food chain in the conference hierarchy: the arena you're visiting has luxury boxes. I'm not actually making this up. I almost want to be, but I'm not. I feel like a broken record, but Hofstra has one of the nicest arenas I've been in all season- it's like we saved the best for last or something, which is really promising for the NCAA tournament. It's a bit tricky to get to if you don't know exactly what turns to make, but once you figure them out, you'll be fine.
The Pride motif is widespread among the athletic facilities- and there are a lot of them, all top-notch for a CAA team, probably higher in quality than the conference average. The arena's tricky to navigate in, but when you realize that the turnstiles you go through are taken away so that you can go out to the vestibule and pick up your Pride souvenirs or your Pride programs. Said program is a bit pricey, but it's well worth it- very informative and refreshingly free of typos.
Continuing on the squee angle, the anthem was performed very beautifully by a Hofstra junior. Rachel, try out for American Idol- if they won't have you, it's because you're too damn good for them.
As it happened, we hit a Pink Zone game- if I'd known, I'd have worn a more appropriate Liberty tee, either the Arthur Ashe pink one or the one with the permanently affixed pink ribbon. I felt so out of place. Both teams had very awesome t-shirts, VCU rocked the pink socks, both teams rocked the pink laces, Hofstra had a raffle: it was a very well-done Pink Zone. Thumbs up!
VCU plays a very tough, very scrappy defense that drove Hofstra absolutely nuts. The press singlehandedly put VCU in the driver's seat. I'd love to see VCU side-by-side with Notre Dame and see how much of that defense is derived from Cunningham's days at Notre Dame and how much is her own devising. After reading up on Quanitra Hollingsworth and her entrance to the 1000/1000 club recently, I wanted to see how she would perform. She's an interesting player- really bad shooting game today, but that's as much due to Fuller as it is anything else. Very aggressive, though, and good height, though a bit wiry. Someone ought to take a flyer on her in training camp. Radoslava Bachvarova picked up the scoring slack for the Rams, and helped them take control in the early part of the second half. Jennifer Lane also stepped it up in the second half. There's something I like about her manner, though that may just be because she reminds me of a slightly stockier Leilani Mitchell. Even though she's a freshman, she didn't seem rattled when her team was down double digits on the first shot of the second half. Kita Waller had a nice steal and did a lot of work on the boards. Cunningham plays a tight rotation, and I'm of the opinion that Courtney Hurt is very well surnamed.
Sloppy, sloppy, sloppy play from Hofstra. A lot of passes went awry, a lot of their errors were unforced or were player-control fouls. Niki Williams- who reminded me of Sue Bird at the outset because of the look of her- let the game slip out of her control. Very bad ballhandling, and questionable decision-making. Joelle Connelly started off hot, and maybe she was trying to help defend Hollingsworth and Bachvarova, but she just disappeared after the first quarter of the game. Fortunately for Hofstra, Jess Fuller started happening and just kept happening until she started getting hit with fouls in the second half (which, more on that later). Natty Fripp was playing some kind of bipolar- one minute she was cringing in the middle of a scrum for a rebound, the next she'd dive into the tall trees and go for the driving lay-up. One minute she'd hustle, the next she was almost running away from the ball. I don't get it. Aamira Terry didn't really show up until the second half, when she started putting up some highlight reel shots- but that's all she was trying for, not the simple shots. Sam Brigham gave them some good minutes, and really gave them a shot in the arm when they were trying to extend their lead in the first half and the early part of the second, but she had absolutely no idea how to go to the ball. Seriously, at least two passes zipped past her and out of bounds.
And yet the Pride kept themselves in the game, or at least they tried to. The refereeing was extremely uneven, in terms of what they called, who they called it on, and when they called what. It's true that Hofstra had to play much less disciplined defense than VCU did, since VCU was the stronger team, but some of the calls against them, and some of the calls not made against the Rams, were borderline, to say the least.
Once Hofstra gets a better team- and I know that's a lot to ask for, with the Virginia schools dominating the conference- I'd be more than happy to hike back out to the Island and enjoy their lovely facilities again- but until then, I think I'll give Hofstra a pass.