Around the Big East 19/20

[quote="Mike Zaun" post=374904]Big difference between mathematically possible and likely. Based on what we've seen with several Big East teams blowing us out of the water (G'Town and Nova) and our only wins coming against DePaul, I have no idea how anyone can feel confidence about tourney chances. It's mathematically possible to hit the lotto too, but it's silly to make it seem like you can really win the jackpot when you know the odds are ridiculous. I was very hopeful about tourney chances after OOC, but once again we've completely fallen flat on our face in conference play and this has been the norm for a while now. Call it lack of talent or whatever, but it's obviously not happening. Every year we have a miracle scenario to still end the season doing well after a big hole is dug. Have we ever dug out of one? I haven't been around for it if we have.[/quote]

What in the world are you talking about? Winning the lottery odds and winning remaining home games that you would be favored in aren't even remotely close to the same thing.... that's the worst example ever. I would encourage you to research how the NET system works Because right now your examples sound "silly." Also, I always find it funny how people who have no idea what they are talking about seem to always know more than professionals that get paid to do it for a living. If you have any issue with what Mike DeCourcy said, you're welcome to tweet him and debate him on his knowledge of how NET works compared to yours, I'd love to see that conversation.
 
Seton Hall - Villanova next Saturday might be the best conference game of the year. Both teams carry the longest winning streaks in the Big East.
 
One curious thing I notice is that many of us will admit that we need a major talent infusion. I agree. But, then many seem to be thrilled with the recruiting so far. If this were any competitive major conference team, our recruiting would be toward the very bottom I would think. We need a huge talent upgrade, but we are ok with low 3 stars and some 2 stars? Yes, we all know stars aren't always everything but every team in the Big East gets 4 stars like it's nothing. And they don't need JUCO or transfers really...they get HS recruits. If we can't do those things then we will be battling DePaul on the bottom most years.
 
[quote="BrookJersey Redmen" post=374916]I know a lot of Villanova people who were at the game and they told me the place was quiet, biggest cheer was for our dance team. They were pretty happy with their team's play, said that my team couldn't shoot. I had an engagement and couldn't make the game, and glad about that, we were flat as hell.[/quote]

Well, we certainly had very little to cheer about. Except for the dance team.

What I was surprised about was how quiet the Nova fans were. I mean they cheered when their guys scored and when they went ahead, but even sitting among many Nova fans, never once did I hear the "Let's Go Nova" chant.
 
[quote="AlexSTJ" post=374912]Seton Hall - Villanova next Saturday might be the best conference game of the year. Both teams carry the longest winning streaks in the Big East.[/quote]

As much as I don't like our guys playing on Super Bowl Sunday, it does mean I get to watch this game. This should be a classic.
 
[quote="Making Plays" post=374911][quote="Mike Zaun" post=374904]Big difference between mathematically possible and likely. Based on what we've seen with several Big East teams blowing us out of the water (G'Town and Nova) and our only wins coming against DePaul, I have no idea how anyone can feel confidence about tourney chances. It's mathematically possible to hit the lotto too, but it's silly to make it seem like you can really win the jackpot when you know the odds are ridiculous. I was very hopeful about tourney chances after OOC, but once again we've completely fallen flat on our face in conference play and this has been the norm for a while now. Call it lack of talent or whatever, but it's obviously not happening. Every year we have a miracle scenario to still end the season doing well after a big hole is dug. Have we ever dug out of one? I haven't been around for it if we have.[/quote]

What in the world are you talking about? Winning the lottery odds and winning remaining home games that you would be favored in aren't even remotely close to the same thing.... that's the worst example ever. I would encourage you to research how the NET system works Because right now your examples sound "silly." Also, I always find it funny how people who have no idea what they are talking about seem to always know more than professionals that get paid to do it for a living. If you have any issue with what Mike DeCourcy said, you're welcome to tweet him and debate him on his knowledge of how NET works compared to yours, I'd love to see that conversation.[/quote]

To piggyback, Making Plays, DeCourcy never once said St. John's will make the dance. He only said we have a chance if (keyword being "if") we win the rest of our home games. Based on numbers and metrics, DeCourcy has a legitimate point. DeCourcy does this for a living, as mentioned by Making Plays, so I'll take it he's seriously done his homework on the possible scenario.

Now, can or will we do are two different things (frankly, I don't think we'll competently defend our home court the rest of the way). But if we were to do so, then we'll be in the mix for a bid. By the way, inserting recruiting (again) in this topic doesn't compute. Debate on logic or facts, and not a bunch of illogical or off-topic material.
 
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Mike Zaun wrote: One curious thing I notice is that many of us will admit that we need a major talent infusion. I agree. But, then many seem to be thrilled with the recruiting so far. If this were any competitive major conference team, our recruiting would be toward the very bottom I would think. We need a huge talent upgrade, but we are ok with low 3 stars and some 2 stars? Yes, we all know stars aren't always everything but every team in the Big East gets 4 stars like it's nothing. And they don't need JUCO or transfers really...they get HS recruits. If we can't do those things then we will be battling DePaul on the bottom most years.

Mike, there is absolutely nothing contradictory with believing we need a talent infusion and being satisfied with the 2020 recruiting class to date. While it is true that schools like Duke, UNC & Kentucky pretty much recruit nothing but 4 and 5 star kids right out of HS that is not the only way to be successful. Baylor & Gonzaga, who have had the top 2 ranked teams in the country the last few weeks, did not have top 10 recruiting classes in either 2018 or 2019. In fact Baylor wasn't in the top 25 either of those years.

Baylor currently plays 6 guys major minutes. Those 6 are made up of a four star (#97) HS recruit, an unranked transfer from UNC Asheville, an unranked transfer from a DIV 2 or 3 school, a four star (#59) HS recruit, a JUCO transfer and a four star (#83) recruit.
That is exactly the type of recruiting that CMA employed successfully at Arkansas and which I believe can absolutely work for him at SJU. As others on this site more familiar with his Arkansas teams have pointed out, CMA and two of his assistants have strong ties to the JUCO world and will continue to work them for us. We are never going to have the luxury of recruiting nothing but 4 and 5 star kids out of HS I don't care who our coach is.
By the way SJU back in the days when it had good teams had some very good success recruiting JUCOs. Marcus Hatten, Bootsy Thornton and Walter Berry come to mind and there were several others.
The other thing to keep in mind is that CMA needs to recruit guys who fit his system. Only 3 of the current players were his recruits (Champagnie, Dunn & Anderson). Next year's team is likely to have 7 or 8 guys he recruited.
So I will wait to judge the 2020 class until (i) the class is complete and (ii) we've gotten to see them play a few games. I agree we need another shooter in the class and probably another big but have no reason to think that isn't apparent to the staff.
Just don't see the point in overreacting to every win or loss when we are pretty much on track to finish where most thought we would - somewhere between 15-17 wins.
 
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[quote="Mike Zaun" post=374917]One curious thing I notice is that many of us will admit that we need a major talent infusion. I agree. But, then many seem to be thrilled with the recruiting so far. If this were any competitive major conference team, our recruiting would be toward the very bottom I would think. We need a huge talent upgrade, but we are ok with low 3 stars and some 2 stars? Yes, we all know stars aren't always everything but every team in the Big East gets 4 stars like it's nothing. And they don't need JUCO or transfers really...they get HS recruits. If we can't do those things then we will be battling DePaul on the bottom most years.[/quote]

Why don't you give the staff at least a year before you start whining about the recruiting? We all knew this was going to be a process, and was going to take some time! What did you honestly expect, that CMA was going to be hired in April, and would have all these 4 and 5 star recruits signed by the fall? If so, you sadly need to re-evaluate what your expectations were/are for this program.
 
Maybe it was a quote by Anderson, not sure, but recently someone posted a quote by a HC that basically said recruiting based on number of stars is the worst possible way to recruit. You need to recruit based on what you see and what they can develop into based on program style, culture etc.

It stuck with me and so I see it as a good starting point but not the bestvor only measure .
 
[quote="Eric Williamson" post=374924][quote="Mike Zaun" post=374917]One curious thing I notice is that many of us will admit that we need a major talent infusion. I agree. But, then many seem to be thrilled with the recruiting so far. If this were any competitive major conference team, our recruiting would be toward the very bottom I would think. We need a huge talent upgrade, but we are ok with low 3 stars and some 2 stars? Yes, we all know stars aren't always everything but every team in the Big East gets 4 stars like it's nothing. And they don't need JUCO or transfers really...they get HS recruits. If we can't do those things then we will be battling DePaul on the bottom most years.[/quote]

Why don't you give the staff at least a year before you start whining about the recruiting? We all knew this was going to be a process, and was going to take some time! What did you honestly expect, that CMA was going to be hired in April, and would have all these 4 and 5 star recruits signed by the fall? If so, you sadly need to re-evaluate what your expectations were/are for this program.[/quote]

Not "whining" if it's objectively true. Hardaway got recruits right away and so did Letaio he just got what, 2 more 4 stars? And that's at DePaul the only team that is worse than us the last 5 years. There was nothing special about PC when Cooley first came. He got his 4 stars consistently. They used to be worse than us too. I get that the real class we can reasonably judge CMA by is probably 2021, but there have been more coaches than you think who have brought in talent immediately. Even Lavin did. He proved you can get 4-5 star guys here even as bad a coach as he was. My main argument is that CMA will only succeed here if he starts recruiting talent similar to the top half of the Big East e.g. 4 stars regularly and good transfers to patch. If he keeps recruiting undersized players who cannot shoot a lick and we have the same problem never having real bigs, then it will be more of the same. I'll be much more excited if Cole's 3 pt shooting translates at least to 37% in college, Posh can effectively slash and finish better than Dunn, and if Wusu can give us some real scoring. But again look who else recruited Wusu...schools like Bryant. He's not even ranked nationally at all on Rivals.
 
[quote="NCJohnnie" post=374922]Mike Zaun wrote: One curious thing I notice is that many of us will admit that we need a major talent infusion. I agree. But, then many seem to be thrilled with the recruiting so far. If this were any competitive major conference team, our recruiting would be toward the very bottom I would think. We need a huge talent upgrade, but we are ok with low 3 stars and some 2 stars? Yes, we all know stars aren't always everything but every team in the Big East gets 4 stars like it's nothing. And they don't need JUCO or transfers really...they get HS recruits. If we can't do those things then we will be battling DePaul on the bottom most years.

Mike, there is absolutely nothing contradictory with believing we need a talent infusion and being satisfied with the 2020 recruiting class to date. While it is true that schools like Duke, UNC & Kentucky pretty much recruit nothing but 4 and 5 star kids right out of HS that is not the only way to be successful. Baylor & Gonzaga, who have had the top 2 ranked teams in the country the last few weeks, did not have top 10 recruiting classes in either 2018 or 2019. In fact Baylor wasn't in the top 25 either of those years.

Baylor currently plays 6 guys major minutes. Those 6 are made up of a four star (#97) HS recruit, an unranked transfer from UNC Asheville, an unranked transfer from a DIV 2 or 3 school, a four star (#59) HS recruit, a JUCO .[/quote]

Gonzaga played two Transfers major minutes last night. You also made a good point about SJU having success with transfers before. Bottom line is SJU has to find guys that are going to develop mixed in with some immediate impact transfers. Its been done before, we have to hope our staff can scout and close on the right guys
 
Tony in Fairfield: the lack of noise from the Nova fans might have to do with it being a "weeknight", and the older alum who got to see a 6:30 PM start time, the two guys I know who went graduated nova in 1959, haha, very proud of their school as they should be. Real gentlemen too!
 
[quote="Mike Zaun" post=374917]One curious thing I notice is that many of us will admit that we need a major talent infusion. I agree. But, then many seem to be thrilled with the recruiting so far. If this were any competitive major conference team, our recruiting would be toward the very bottom I would think. We need a huge talent upgrade, but we are ok with low 3 stars and some 2 stars? Yes, we all know stars aren't always everything but every team in the Big East gets 4 stars like it's nothing. And they don't need JUCO or transfers really...they get HS recruits. If we can't do those things then we will be battling DePaul on the bottom most years.[/quote] Rinse, repeat.
 
Xavier up 31-13, 6 minutes left in first half at SH

Mike Zaun in 5,4,3, ...
 
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Sounds like Hall still asleep for that 11 a.m. start. Out rebounded by Xavier 28-9 in first half.
 
[quote="NCJohnnie" post=375052]Sounds like Hall still asleep for that 11 a.m. start. Out rebounded by Xavier 28-9 in first half.[/quote]

Looks like the offense is still struggling to adjust to Mamu's return.

This is why, even with the double round robin, when you play teams is very important. Whether they win today or they lose today, I expect them to get that right, before long.
 
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[quote="NCJohnnie" post=375052]Sounds like Hall still asleep for that 11 a.m. start. Out rebounded by Xavier 28-9 in first half.[/quote]

They seem to have a tendency to start slow. Powell is all about prime time.
 
Also watching Creighton dismantle Nova.

Anyone thinking is a walk over better reconsider.
 
Not Halls' day. They made a run to cut it to 8 and then had two shots in a row go halfway down and come out. Back to 12 point lead for Xavier but Hall playing better this half.
 
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