(BET) (POST GAME) Villanova, Thur., Mar. 10, 7p, FS-1

Smart adjustments by Nova. Daniels made us pay for leaving him open.  We had defensive lapses on switching on shooters. Credit Nova and Jay.  on our side, most of us would have take.n up 1 with a minute to go and shot taken by our best player to put nova away. Just didn’t work out. That’s just us this year. Credit to smith and wheeler at the end that kept us in it. 

again the press at the end was worthless. Got them great looks
 
Champagnie played 68 minutes in the 2 BET games.  He was gassed late in the game.
 
Knight post=463226 said:
Champagnie played 68 minutes in the 2 BET games.  He was gassed late in the game.
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This is where not playing in one of those November 3 games in 3 days tournaments hurts. Other teams at least have some idea of what to expect when playing 120 minutes of basketball in 72 hours. This team doesn't.
 
So close...................

A few things at end of game:
1- Champy hits that 3 game, game over
2- I would have done an offense/defense substitution on Novas last posession and had Nywie in there over Champy.
3- Smith shot the last shot with over 2 seconds left on the clock.  He had 2 more dribbles before he needed to shoot.

Gut wrenching loss.
 
Yeah, Smith shot that last one a bit early, but it would have taken a miracle anyway.  My issue for that was, why was Wusu in the game instead if Coburn?  For defense?
 
Dave LoRe post=463181 said:
No need to pile on the obvious.  But about 5-7 net points, maybe a bit more, were lost tonite due to the press.  Once the press is broken it leaves 2 Johnnies spent and useless in the backcourt, so now it's 4 on 3 Villanova.  Anybody who has run the 11 man drill in hoops practice knows now the offense has the advantage.  The nova player with the ball drives, and the weak side Johnnie collapses into the paint to defend the hoop, leaving his guy wide open on weak side perimeter.  Disciplined nova guy knows this and kicks out to that guy for wide open three.  Happened at least three times, perhaps four.  That is literally ballgame.  The press is dramatically great and gives short term momentum when guy like Gillespie gets trapped and loses ball as happened tonite. But over 40 minutes vs. a top tier team, it is a net loss. 
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Thought we should have eased off, if not abandoned it, when they started to get wide open 3s. Thought we should have changed things up a bit during their run and went zone a bit. Also, big believer that when a team is on a run don’t fuel it by taking jump shots. Some possessions the goal should be exclusively layup or foul.

That said, kids played a terrific game and left it all out on the court. Emotional ending for Posh who is a born leader and killer. Love that kid. He got a raw deal on a few of the foul calls - but showed big ones continuing to defend aggressively despite 4 fouls.

The atmosphere at MSG was great and the crowd was in our corner.
 
This is one of the most heartbreaking losses I've seen.  St. John's played well enough to win this game against a team a lot of people have going to the final four, it was a few key plays that shifted all the momentum and ultimately end up costing them the game.

When I seen Julian crying, I couldn't even watch the post game, it was too sad, I feel horrible for him, he came back for another year and gave it his absolute all, but he just always came up short in closing games.  Julian is a great player, but he just doesn't have that clutch gene, he's a guy that can score, but he's not really an alpha guy, and that's not a knock on him, there's a small few that have that gene in them at the high major level.   If Julian is the 2nd best player on a team you got a pretty good team, I think too much was asked of him to be a leader and closer and that's not his personality. 

I think announcer said it best, Julian is the best player, but Posh is the MVP of this team.  The whole entire game changed when Posh went to the bench, the offense and defense just looks completely different when he's on the floor.  They went on a 14-2 run just for him being on the bench like 4 minutes.  
 
 
I think this is one game where it really is okay to be upset at the refs. I can’t tell other fans not to feel wronged this time. Not blame them entirely.  I do realize that tough calls are part of the game & that a couple of calls shouldn’t be enough to erase a 17 pt 2nd half lead. However the calls on Posh completely changed the entire game. The comeback literally happened with him on the bench because of those calls. Sure we still could have (and should have) won but the refs were a major factor in the outcome. That’s undeniable.

Also I don’t understand how Pinzon isn’t out there when the offense looks completely inept, Smith has turned the ball over 3 times in under 3 minutes and the lead is down to 6. I thought Anderson could have put Posh in a couple minutes earlier but I mostly agree with his management of him. If he’d played him with 4 fouls and Posh fouled out with 6 minutes left don’t even try to tell me we wouldn’t be killing him for leaving the guy in. The offense was DEAD. I don’t care that the kid is a freshman, we score points and get shots, putbacks & fast break buckets when Pinzon is given the ball. I know he’s not a star player yet but he’s very much the only creator aside from Posh. We weren’t scoring. Put him in.

And yeah this was such a rough season for Champagnie. Great player, fantastic kid whose career I will closely follow but that airball…man. We literally got a wide open shot to most likely ice the game and it’s in the hands of the guy we want taking the shot and it just doesn’t work out. I hope that comes across as just a sad observation of what we just watched rather than an unfair, mean critique of a college athlete. I agree that for all of his wonderful qualities, closing & showing up in big games were not his thing. Great representative for the program. One of the best reps maybe. Unfortunate ending to his college career.

Hopefully we’re not hit too hard by the transfer bug this time around. I actually think there’s sneaky potential if certain, key guys return. Who’s ready to get hurt again?



 
 
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Just got back from the game…drowned my sorrow with some nova fans who were more than complimentary about our efforts at the bar by sec 101…

as many mistakes as the team made to give away the game…. What was even more sad? Our fuckin “fans”…. When Nova got within single digits- it sounded like home game for them. When they took he lead- forget about it… might as well been playing at the Pavilion.

Should we have won? Absolutely. Did our fans show up? Absolutely Not.
 
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All of the ref stuff, fine but looking at box score Posh finished with 4 fouls, not 5.

Anderson too conservative
 
QueensBall post=463243 said:
And yeah this was such a rough season for Champagnie. Great player, fantastic kid whose career I will closely follow but that airball…man. We literally got a wide open shot to most likely ice the game and it’s in the hands of the guy we want taking the shot and he just choked. I hope that comes across as just a sad observation of what we just watched rather than an unfair, mean critique of a college athlete. I agree that for all of his wonderful qualities, closing & showing up in big games were not his thing. Great representative for the program. One of the best reps maybe. Unfortunate ending to his college career.


 
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I think it's a fair observation, I'm a big fan of Julian and think he'll be a contributor in the NBA, he has the size and shooting ability to be a good role player, but there's been too many games this year where he didn't show up offensively or just didn't make plays to close the game when the team put the ball in his hands.

It's March and your season is on the line, you can't airball a wide open 3 to win the game, you gotta step up and shoot that with confidence and make it.  Then to make it worse he fouled on the game winning free throws, he has to know the situation. If he doesn't get the rebound, just put both hands straight up in the air if you see the guy shooting, there's no reason to lean your arm down on that shot, the angle the Villanova player was shooting from was a tough angle, it was almost no way he was going to make that shot.  Reminded me of Paul Scruggs on Xavier last night just having a brain fart and fouling and giving up the game.  You gotta know the situation at all times.

 
 
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Heartbreaking loss....kids played hard.

I didn't have a problem with Julian taking the three on our last possession while up one.  However, I do much prefer taking the ball to the hoop in that situation.  Nova was going to get the ball back and (because they are Nova) there was very little chance they weren't going to draw a foul in that situation.  We needed to add points there....should have taken the ball to the basket.

 
 
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I looked around during the last 10 minutes of that game and MSG was packed!  However, I was disappointed in our fan base.  It seemed to be a weak showing.  
 
Side Dish:

Nova's dance team is boring.  ....at least we're better at something.

Half time show (Red Panda) was unbelievable.  How does she do it?
 
Granted, it was a disappoiinting -- and very frustrating -- season, as evidenced by tonight's loss. But our players -- despite some individual shortcomings -- gave it everything they had, and left it all on the floor, right up until the final horn. And so, to all the players: a heartfelt "thank you." 
 
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Agree, but that seems to be what we did all season. Could most always never win a big game.Say what you want up 17 
blame has to go on coaching.perhaps we should have reversed and sat on the ball. Who knows ,buy it just seemed there was no way we should have lost. I said many times this yr Champ was not a player who could take a team on his back to victory. Anyone can miss a shot but the great ones make it when it counts. I wish Champ good luck but what a turn around if he hits that shoot and ices the game .,scouts would have been impressed and his draft status would have risen
 
Painful loss but honestly wasn't as bad for me as some prior (such as Pitt). Those losses made it so we needed to win 4 games in 4 days, and I highly doubt we would've beaten UConn and then PC or Creighton. Those were teams we were 0-6 against, and also they'd all be playing one fewer game than us. The Big East was a lot weaker last year for Georgetown.

We had our chances, not just last night but at least a dozen times this season. We failed nearly every time. It sucks, but that's the reality of the situation.

Make the NIT, finish a couple big games, keep most of the team together, and don't schedule scared next year. 
 
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usguard post=463282 said:
Agree, but that seems to be what we did all season. Could most always never win a big game.Say what you want up 17 
blame has to go on coaching.perhaps we should have reversed and sat on the ball. Who knows ,buy it just seemed there was no way we should have lost. I said many times this yr Champ was not a player who could take a team on his back to victory. Anyone can miss a shot but the great ones make it when it counts. I wish Champ good luck but what a turn around if he hits that shoot and ices the game .,scouts would have been impressed and his draft status would have risen

 
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Do you really think that NBA scouts raise or lower draft evaluations based on one shot? Seriously?
 
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