Breaking it down.

R

redfan99d

Member
Let's break down where we are at........
1. Chris Mullin, his staff and the players have been together for 2 months. Basically 13 players who have never played together and a coaching who is probably trying to figure this out.
2. WE HAVE NO POINT GUARD! No floor leadership. Rico is a combo guard. Who would ideally play off the ball.
3. We are a way too soft. Lack physicality. That will come. Yawke,
Rico and Sima look like stick men out there. (Also Ellison and Sima).
4. Injuries- Missing Ellison and Williams has hurt. I'm sure it hasn't helped in practice.
5. Lets face it Johnson is clueless out there. More of liability especially on defense.... Has he grabbed a rebound this year?
6. I like Jones I think he will be a nice contributer the next 2 years. He could be a Charles Oakley style player, but he's soft. Ron M. Is a nice player but thats it. Felix is a great Athlete but can't throw it in the Ocean unless it's a dribble drive..........
This is a 3-4 year rebuild IMO...... We will have few games like the Rutgers game and a quite a few like tonight.
In a nutshell ...... WE NEED BETTER PLAYERS. They will come. Chris and his staff will get it done over TIME.
 
Good points Patrick. However, I disagree that this is a 3 to 4 year rebuild. There are no impact players on this team this year and that will change next year. Most dramatic will be our depth at the 1 and 2 guard positions. As you indicated we have no ball handlers this year but with Lovett and Ponds we will compete with any team next year. Both also play great defense which is Mussini 's greatest defect. Musso will come off the bench next year as a spot up 3 point specialist at the 2 . The 2/3 spot will be claimed by Bashir who is better than any player we have this year. Sima and Yakwe will get stronger and be different players but IF Slice can sell Thon Maker the possibility of being the starting 4, look out! Adding the German kid will add depth and height and our recruiting will be as good as any team in the conference.
Therefore, don't base your projection on the team's future success based on the current roster. Four of the five starters we currently have would not start on any other Big East team. They basically play no defense and are extremely limited offensively. Their value would have been coming off the bench. That all changes next year.
 
The Staff had a month to put together a team that would not tie them down for future commitments. We lost 96% of the minutes played from last year, They would have been better off going to the Y and get a pickup team together.

GO 2nd Year Freshmen!
 
Agree with you for the most part........ Although if all the Dominos fall in place we could contend next here with any big east team (maybe a NCAA bid) But that's always a big IF. I try to keep my expectations realistic . Giving the staff 3 years or a full recruiting cycle. I trust you cause it sounds like Bashir, Maker and the German are a done deal?
 
Nothing is ever a done deal my man!

You can never get a read on where we are with the recruits in the show because a main criteria for making it up there is to never talk about what the forum topic is. I would check Zagsblog on the SNY website for the best recruiting info!
 
Agree with you for the most part........ Although if all the Dominos fall in place we could contend next here with any big east team (maybe a NCAA bid) But that's always a big IF. I try to keep my expectations realistic . Giving the staff 3 years or a full recruiting cycle. I trust you cause it sounds like Bashir, Maker and the German are a done deal?
Click to expand...

Most pundits are very optimistic about Freudenberg and Bashir. Thon is a long shot.
I have no doubt next year's roster will be composed of much more talent to the point where the newcomers will replace this year's starters. There will be depth to press which is sorely lacking this year.
Some of the ladies on the St. John's fan forums, especially Johnny Jungle, are expressing disgust with last night's loss to Fordham at Rose Hill. Well there will be bigger losses to come so they better start looking a little closer at our roster before passing judgment. Mussini, Sima, Ellison and Yakwe are pure freshmen. The most talented frosh, Marcus Lovett, is not playing. The rest of the team is a patchwork of former walking wounded in the likes of Mouvlika, Johnson and Williams and the last three players off the bench from last year. Any team, as evidenced by our blowout loss to a D2 team, can beat us this year with our dearth of talent. We were dogs to Fordham last night for obvious reasons.
That said, had Lovett, Williams and Ellison played, the game would have been a toss up IMO. Most importantly, pay no attention to most comments on this site save for Paultzman and for a realistic summary of any of our games, just read Fun's post game commentaries on Big East Boards. That's it in a nutshell. Go Redmen!
 
Let's break down where we are at........
1. Chris Mullin, his staff and the players have been together for 2 months. Basically 13 players who have never played together and a coaching who is probably trying to figure this out.
2. WE HAVE NO POINT GUARD! No floor leadership. Rico is a combo guard. Who would ideally play off the ball.
3. We are a way too soft. Lack physicality. That will come. Yawke,
Rico and Sima look like stick men out there. (Also Ellison and Sima).
4. Injuries- Missing Ellison and Williams has hurt. I'm sure it hasn't helped in practice.
5. Lets face it Johnson is clueless out there. More of liability especially on defense.... Has he grabbed a rebound this year?
6. I like Jones I think he will be a nice contributer the next 2 years. He could be a Charles Oakley style player, but he's soft. Ron M. Is a nice player but thats it. Felix is a great Athlete but can't throw it in the Ocean unless it's a dribble drive..........
This is a 3-4 year rebuild IMO...... We will have few games like the Rutgers game and a quite a few like tonight.
In a nutshell ...... WE NEED BETTER PLAYERS. They will come. Chris and his staff will get it done over TIME.
Click to expand...

I agree with some of points...

Yes, Mullin and Co have only been together a few months, but there have been some things that have been troubling. They have failed to make any adjustments to defend the 3pt shot. Our 3pt defense is terrible, and that is not due to lack of talent or players.....that is due to laziness and inability to make changes.

Who exactly do you want to be the floor leader? We are either freshman or upperclassmen that don't play all that much (except for Jones and Felix). The best option would be Jones, but he just doesn't come off as the vocal leader type.


To me, the biggest struggle so far has been trying to mix the Lavin recruits with the new players. Lavin typically recruited athletes and attempted to turn them into basketball players, but that also meant that they were very fundamentally flawed. Mullin, on the other hand, is trying to get players that are more basketball players rather than freak athletes. Trying to mesh those two styles of players is going to take some time.

Look at Felix. He is not a basketball player....he is just a very athletic individual, which is good if you want to play street ball. However, when you throw him into an organized offense, he is relatively inefficient. The majority of his points come from driving one on one and throwing up a shot that he hopes goes in.

I give it 3yrs to turn this around. This year is just the 'get your feet wet' season that was thrown together at the last minute. I view next year as truly Mullins first year on the job. The year after that is when I expect to start seeing positive results. Mullin will have all of his own players, will have had a few years to recruit, and also will have a few years coaching experience.
 
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