St John's v Rutgers

Went to St Johns v Rutgers at Carnesecca Arena last night with Remi, Samara, Amara, Aaron and GraceAnne. Missed the tip by just a minute or two as the girls were coming straight from JV practice. Thanks to Megan Duffy St Johns Assistant Coach for the tickets! Very, very exciting back and forth game that went right down to the wire!



It was really cool seeing Khadijah Rushdan run the point for Rutgers, 16 points. She is just an amazing competitor and very, very impressive, tough, hard-nosed player. You could see her determination to will the win on every possession down the stretch. Had a couple of amazing drives to the hoop during an incredible late rally making moves through the entire St Johns defense hitting tough, tough layups and drawing fouls. April Sykes was fun to watch inside as well. Kept wondering how Red Storm guards were able to get to the rim. Rutgers is an extremely physical team.

Nadirah McKenith had another amazing game and was definitely the key to this victory. Rutgers is ranked #7 in the country and relies on their ability to cause turnovers with their full court press. Didn't work against the Red Storm mostly because of Nadirah's speed and ability to handle the ball. St Johns had only 9 turnovers while creating 21. That and she scored 15 including 5 free throws in the final minute. Gena McPherson led the Red Storm with 17. Shennikia Smith had 14 as well and made a couple of great hustle plays.

Play of the game, Nadirah making a slashing move from left to right across the lane to beat two girls, draws the foul and, while in mid-air, shoots the ball over her head with back to the basket for the and one. Crowd loved it!

Was pretty funny watching C Vivian Stringer, in desperation, try to disrupt Nadirah at the line towards the end too. Very classy. Thought coaches only did that in CYO ball. In a two point game all is fair I guess.