(NCAA-WEST/Providence) #10 Arkansas, Sat., Mar. 22, 2:40p, CBS

This game was the one we feared. Pooping the bed shooting on a night where our team came up against a team that was as physical and athletic as them. I'm beyond devastated that this season is over and that I can't watch SJU basketball for another eight months. So many things could have been different today, but really nothing you can do when four of your starting five shoot 18% from the field and your leader on the court only logs 16 minutes.

Great season that could have lasted a lot longer. I hope we get back RJ and Zuby along with a solid combination of the bench. I'm so on the fence with Simi because he just seems like such a good kid with a ton of talent, but he generally finds ways to eliminate himself from the game. As much as I hate to say it, it might be best for him to find another situation.

RJ had such an amazing season and grew so much this year. I hope he will be back next year and use this game as motivation for next year when he is wearing our colors in the tournament again. Zuby was a pleasure to watch, and I can't wait to see what another year of maturation does to his game; perhaps he'll get himself a Soriano style 18-foot jump shot to make him more lethal.

Kadary and Aaron were amazing and will be so hard to replace. Kadary the guy that could and did make the big plays at the big times and Aaron a constant warrior who never left anything on the floor. I wish we could have seen what Smith was truly capable of, but he never got back to 100%.

I'm going to retire to my whole in the basement now and drink my sorrows away. Thanks for a truly magical season.
 
SJUWillRockNYC said:
All game he would charge like a bull and an Arky player would just grab the ball, he never passes, maybe Rick got sick of seeing that.
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I was speaking of Richmond's absence. RJ tends to get out of control, but he does a lot of good things as well. I was hoping after such a poor first half that he would "show up" in the final half. He probably played worse as his defense was terrible as well.
 
Three point shooting was terrible but that was nothing new. What failed us was the two point shooting which normally bailed us out but that was also terrible. For some reason RJ went back to last years forcing his body into unmskable shots. I thought he was passed that
All season we heard that poor shooting would bring us down and finally they were right.
 
This is just one of those games where nothing went right. Missed layups, free throws, foul trouble, etc…. Even Zuby whose effort and scoring was GREAT today, missed a point blank layup to tie the game. Stuff happens. That’s basketball.
 
Just still can’t believe just like that it’s over loved watching this team really thought this run was gonna go further. Very happy with all they accomplished this year but this loss really stings I teared up at the end was not ready for this run to end.
 
Knight said:
Prey was very good today. I’m a bit pissed about some of Rick’s use of personnel today.
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Rick threw in the towel too effen early imo. I think that not following his game plan really pissed him off down the stretch but it also hurt his decision making.
 
We failed ourselves. We played one of our worst games of the year offensively, which I thought was way behind us. Should’ve won the game even if we shot badly. It is what it is. We lose to any of the remaining 7/10 teams playing like that.

Still an unforgettable year
 
Two things had to happen IMO for SJU to lose today and both did. They had to shoot poorly and they did.
But Arkansas had to negate that suffocating, dominating defense and they did, by not passing and rotating the ball but by dribbling and exchanging the ball pretty much the whole game at the key until
they got an isolated, two man game for the high pick or eventually got an angle and beat any and every one of the SJU guards off the dribble.
SJU’s defense never came close to making them uncomfortable. Arkansas shot pretty much as poorly as SJU did from 3, 2-19 to 2-22 but they shot 25-44 from 2. SJU won when shooting poorly before but won it on defense. Could not do that today.
 
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