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Long Island Blackbirds    

Game #9-199: Long Island Blackbirds vs. Seton Hall Pirates December 22, 2012 8:00 pm Brooklyn, NY BBState Stats/Recap

BROOKLYN, N.Y. - I figured that the finale of the Brooklyn Hoops Holiday Invitational would draw the biggest crowd Saturday night: LIU Brooklyn was literally a block away and Seton Hall is considered a New York-metro team, playing just a few miles away in New Jersey.

That would be incorrect, unfortunately.

Back in the cheap seats, I had an entire section to myself, my theory is that because I bought the ticket before the first game, the people that were sitting around me weren't quite as crazy as me and didn't feel like like sitting through three entire games on the Saturday before Christmas.

It's another Catch-22 for me in Our Game. I'm much more comfortable when I have some room to spread out, put my legs on the row in front of me, and my belongings on the seat next to me. But if I have room to do that, what's the atmosphere in the building like? As you might guess, dead.

Dead enough that the one Seton Hall fan in a suit in the seats below me could entertain half the crowd with his constant chatter that began quite vulgar. At the first media time out, though, one of the Barclays Center army came over and politely told him to stop, and to his credit, he did.

The vulgarity at least. Not the noise.

Alas, in a silent arena, especially after a long day, sometimes even annoying noise can be better than nothing at all (although Simon and Garfunkel might disagree).

The Seton Hall supporter didn't have a whole lot to be positive about in the early stages, as the Blackbirds - who had won five of six and whom I witnessed thrash Manhattan last week - came out flying. Jamal Olasewere beat the Pirates down the floor at will, and when he was subbed out for a rest, E.J. Reed did the same, point guard Jason Brickman finding him ahead of the pack for an #omgdunx that put LIU up 19-11 seven minutes in.

They would get outscored 52-14 in the next 16 minutes.

If you think that sounds bad, it was that hideous to watch. Yes, the Pirates hit a lot of #superhoops, but almost every last one of them seemed uncontested, Brian Oliver had a pair late in the first half, and when it wasn't getting open shots from the outside, it was going to the basket at will.

It was 48-29 Seton Hall at the half, and I learned one final thing at the Barclays Center. If you want to be cool, you have to wear this stuff:



But you most certainly can't knock the hustle, and - even though his name is still on it - Jay-Z sold most of his share in Rocawear for $214 million in 2007, giving him one less problem to worry about (any other Jay-Z puns from the group). It was interesting that the Rocawear store (like the Nets team store) had an entrance both inside the arena and on the street outside. That's some quality designing for $1 billion.

It was LIU Brooklyn's third game without last season's NEC Player of the Year Julian Boyd, and now their second loss after the Manhattan victory (the Blackbirds lost to Saint Peter's in mid-week). It was another case of the stats not telling the entire story: Olasewere with 27 points and nine rebounds, which sounds impressive, but he had 12 in the first few minutes, and got several of the rest long after the game was decided late in the second half.

In between, Olasewere - who is a tremendous finisher in the lane and very strong - seemed to try to compensate for the loss of Boyd by trying to do everything on his own, and got frustrated on a couple of occasions, picking up silly fouls, including one that looked suspiciously like a flagrant foul that wasn't called.

It's another one of our Chicken and Egg basketball dilemmas. Olasewere got no help on the stat sheet, especially from Brandon Thompson, who had seven #superhoops against Manhattan the week before but didn't even record a field goal Saturday. In fact, he only had four attempts. Should they (Olasewere included) have passed him the ball more, or should he have gotten himself open more? Or both?



Either way, the second half was painful for almost everyone involved, as we moved slowly toward the inevitable in a virtually empty arena. I did find one interesting thing to keep an eye on: point guards Brickman (LIU) and Tom Maayan (Seton Hall) combined to play 56 minutes in the contest and took a total of one shot. One perk of the massive scoreboard is that the totals hung for everyone to see as the game progressed.

I noticed several times when Maayan and Brickman had chances to pull the trigger and didn't, even though the game was well out of hand and the tempo was fairly qucik. So another basketball strategic dilemma for you: does the point guard need to be an offensive threat? I tend to lean toward yes, but I had started the day watching Michael Carter-Williams take 17 shots for Syracuse and that didn't go so well.

All that was left for LIU was the embarrassment of the Seton Hall walk-ons scoring and when Maayan stole the ball and found New Haven's own Freddie Wilson, Wilson waited to hand it to walk-on Connor Laverty, who laid it in and might have gotten the biggest ovation of the night from the people that remained.

On the surface, the loss won't have any long-lasting effects for LIU Brooklyn, which starts the clean slate of conference play next week. But we shall see, this one was ugly.

I was thankful for one part of the blowout, the end of the game went remarkably fast, and I was able to get back to Grand Central Station to catch the next train back to New Haven, saving me an hour.

Have to take small victories when you find them sometimes, I guess.

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