DePaul (UBS), Tue., Feb. 6, 6:30p, FS-1

Pitino needs to recruit guys who hate losing as much as he does.

Sorry I really hate to do this everyone, but this was part of my argument for keeping P*sh. Watched that guy cry after both of our last two BET losses. Hard to find kids these days that care about the name on the front of the jersey as much as the one on the back.

But thankfully we got a kid who went 7-25 at VMI to make cameo appearances every once in awhile. Culture saved 🙄
So what should Pitino have done when Alexander nixed working out: say “okay, let me know when you can make it, we really need you”. Did you see Alexander’s body language on the court last year? His obvious disinterest and lack of attentiveness in huddles, not to mention the associated public disrespect out there for everyone to see? And don’t get me wrong, he was certainly not alone in that behavior. And I am sure there was collateral damage to some of the players jettisoned, some guilt by association, if you will.
But let me add, when I was in my late teens/early twenties I did far worse things than have poor body language or be disrespectful to a person of authority, FAR worse. So I am describing actions at a point in time, not remotely attempting to define a person I never met.
But do you guys think the decision to turn over the WHOLE roster was done on a whim over a beer by an administrator as experienced as Father Stanley, not to mention that he seems have genuine basketball acumen. The fact is the program was broken, and rightly or wrongly, the decision was made to essentially flip the whole thing. Was it the right decision, I have absolutely no idea and won’t speculate.
However I will end with this, Alexander was certainly entitled to go to AC with his girlfriend in the off-season, no question; but under the circumstances, you make that decision, you live with the consequences. Which, as far as I can tell he has done like a mature adult and I feel he has translated the move into probably his best season since his freshman year. Respect from me for both of those things.
 
Yes and fortunately they won those games. Those games were also way more important (not saying difficult) than they should be, but that’s the system. DePaul there is no choice - but I wouldn’t schedule these games. There is only downside.
Good thing the loss to the Pace Setters was only a Exhibition game .
Otherwise , we would be struggling to offset that loss .
 
Nothing in life is guaranteed except death and taxes.

Ask Georgetown about when they came to the Garden to play St. John's in February of 2004. We had a roster filled with walk-ons due to the Pittsburgh scandal suspensions and had lost every single Big East conference game that season. Georgetown's record that season, coming into that game, was 13-8 and 4-6 in conference (sounds kind of familiar). Yet St. John's prevailed on that day 65 to 58.

Despite Joe Namath's magic, I don't believe in guarantees. Anything is possible (remember we were beaten by D2 Pace this past November the day before they beat the borough's other elite basketball power Queens College in double overtime).

That is why we play the games!
I said, "Yep" as tongue in cheek because a handful are now questioning whether we'll beat (or lose) to DePaul and Georgetown.

Listen, is it a guarantee we'll beat either of those teams? No. But I'm extremely confident we'll sweep both teams.
 
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So what should Pitino have done when Alexander nixed working out: say “okay, let me know when you can make it, we really need you”. Did you see Alexander’s body language on the court last year? His obvious disinterest and lack of attentiveness in huddles, not to mention the associated public disrespect out there for everyone to see? And don’t get me wrong, he was certainly not alone in that behavior. And I am sure there was collateral damage to some of the players jettisoned, some guilt by association, if you will.
But let me add, when I was in my late teens/early twenties I did far worse things than have poor body language or be disrespectful to a person of authority, FAR worse. So I am describing actions at a point in time, not remotely attempting to define a person I never met.
But do you guys think the decision to turn over the WHOLE roster was done on a whim over a beer by an administrator as experienced as Father Stanley, not to mention that he seems have genuine basketball acumen. The fact is the program was broken, and rightly or wrongly, the decision was made to essentially flip the whole thing. Was it the right decision, I have absolutely no idea and won’t speculate.
However I will end with this, Alexander was certainly entitled to go to AC with his girlfriend in the off-season, no question; but under the circumstances, you make that decision, you live with the consequences. Which, as far as I can tell he has done like a mature adult and I feel he has translated the move into probably his best season since his freshman year. Respect from me for both of those things.
We’ve had this discussion before so there’s no really no purpose in rehashing this.

but I’ll just add, If it was as broken as you say then why are Soriano and Drissa still here? Is posh having bad body language during a tough season means for him to be not worthy of coming back? Soriano has been moody his entire tenure here, why’d he get the nod to come back?

The AC trip is what it is. It always gets thrown in my face but my question is… did joel Soriano have to “work out” for pitino before he was named captain of the team? I doubt it. He got the call and the nod immediately cause pitino knew he was valuable as a star center for this team. My point is I wish a couple other guys got that same call.

If the answer is that father Shanley claimed that everyone had character issues OTHER than Joel and Drissa, then I’d love to have a conversation with shanley about that. Maybe one day

Oh well water under the bridge and I’ll try to make this my last posh related post
 
Villanova just beat Providence by 18. It leaves us in a three way tie in conference with these two teams at 5 and 6 and a game behind Butler and Xavier who are both at 6 and 5. Above them is Seton Hall and Creighton at 7 and 4.

However, All six of these teams have already played either 2 or 3 of their 4 games against Georgetown and DePaul and we are the only team among these seven to have already played UConn twice.

Bottom line here is that with all four of our games against DePaul and Georgetown left on our schedule and no more left against UConn we hold a scheduling advantage over our Big East competitors. We still have an opportunity to move up as high as third place in the conference. We just need to take care of business against the bottom feeders, hold serve at home and grab another road win or even two from either Providence, Marquette or Butler.



 
Villanova just beat Providence by 18. It leaves us in a three way tie in conference with these two teams at 5 and 6 and a game behind Butler and Xavier who are both at 6 and 5. Above them is Seton Hall and Creighton at 7 and 4.

However, All six of these teams have already played either 2 or 3 of their 4 games against Georgetown and DePaul and we are the only team among these seven to have already played UConn twice.

Bottom line here is that with all four of our games against DePaul and Georgetown left on our schedule and no more left against UConn we hold a scheduling advantage over our Big East competitors. We still have an opportunity to move up as high as third place in the conference. We just need to take care of business against the bottom feeders, hold serve at home and grab another road win or even two from either Providence, Marquette or Butler.



We do have a scheduling advantage but let’s just hope we are not like the Mets when they would lose crucial games late in the season to the Marlins when they sucked.
 
We’ve had this discussion before so there’s no really no purpose in rehashing this.

but I’ll just add, If it was as broken as you say then why are Soriano and Drissa still here? Is posh having bad body language during a tough season means for him to be not worthy of coming back? Soriano has been moody his entire tenure here, why’d he get the nod to come back?

The AC trip is what it is. It always gets thrown in my face but my question is… did joel Soriano have to “work out” for pitino before he was named captain of the team? I doubt it. He got the call and the nod immediately cause pitino knew he was valuable as a star center for this team. My point is I wish a couple other guys got that same call.

If the answer is that father Shanley claimed that everyone had character issues OTHER than Joel and Drissa, then I’d love to have a conversation with shanley about that. Maybe one day

Oh well water under the bridge and I’ll try to make this my last posh related post
Ok, my last comment, I am pretty sure Pitino made the character comments regarding Soriano and Traore in his first press conference although the source he referenced was not Father Shanley. And as one who has had to “announce” very vaguely similar type personnel decisions to a group, albeit privately within my company, after decisions were finalized there was conversation within the “inner core” of people involved as to how to exactly word those announcements, how to answer questions that would invariably be asked, whether at the announcement or afterwards. It is inconceivable to me that something similar did not occur at St. John’s.
As for working Soriano out vis a vis Alexander, or bad body language vs. moody, you are grasping at straws; people in the “real world” are not and cannot be treated, judged or perceived “equally”. That is for movies. As I alluded to in my previous e-mail, I am sure the personnel decisions regarding last years roster were made after much discussion, back and forth, consternation, weighing this option, that option, etc. etc., followed by even more discussion.
And with absolutely no inside knowledge AT ALL, I would think this is where the collateral damage to some of the players was deemed necessary. Unfortunate, for sure, but that’s the way the real world works. This wasn’t choosing sides in a playground.
So decisions were finalized, for whatever the final reasons and rationale were. Alexander was asked to work out and decided not to. Storr was evidently offered some NIL $ to stay and decided to go elsewhere. Both seemed to have made the right decisions for them.
It’s been an interesting back and forth but as you commented, maybe beaten to death. Time to move on.
 
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