@Grand Canyon, Tues. Dec. 5, 11:30p, ESPNU 970AM

Half the board was scared we would lose this game and we never trailed after two minutes in playing without Lovett. UCF beat a ranked Alabama team and Nebraska beat a ranked Minnesota team so those wins don't look so bad. We are 8-1 with a very respectable Pomeroy rating of 45 and RPI 0f 31. So Ponds had five turnovers today.......... We may very well lose to Arizona State but if we take care of business against Iona and St. Joe's we would go into the Providence game a very respectable 10-2. The Big East season will determine our fate. The way our conference has played in the pre season I think six teams is very possible. So we know what we have to do and hopefully we can get it done. Call me optimistic but I think we have a lot to look forward to this season. It is past 2AM EST and I just realized that I will have to subscribe to something called Sling to watch the ASU game. Good night all and try to look on the bright side of things.
 
Yeah a win is a win 8-1

Ponds 28pnts, 6boards, 5stls and 4assts, but 5 TOs
Simon had 17 & 11
Ahmed with 7 and 11

we turned them over 21times but with did also 18
GC only outrebounded us by 4 but we gave up 18off rebounds, that's horrible.

Better play much much better Friday or AZ St wins by 15.
Click to expand...

I'll give them a pass on the offensive rebounds. Some of those Grand Canyon shots were missed by really, really wide margins. Sometimes, it didn't matter how well you were banging underneath, because the ball wound up nowhere near there.

I think we missed Marcus towards the end of this game. Last year, he was the one doing a lot of the inbounding in those situations.

I still think it's a good sign that we've won 2 games without playing particularly well (and Oregon St. was marginal too, if you want to throw in a third game). 3 not great performances, at neutral/road sites, against teams that are at least decent, and they wind up being wins? That's something we haven't seen much of around here in recent years. It means we are operating with at least some margin for error. Maybe not a lot, but the last two years, we were operating with none.
Click to expand...

The big difference is we're playing this year, we wasn't in the past, last year we'd probably lose all 3
Were down 9 with 7min to go vs. Oregon St (with no defense to get stops we'd lose.)
46pnt vs UCF (with no defense, do we keep under 46? Nope.
Tonight (No Simon or Clark, freshmen Ponds wasn't this good, No Marcus. 18TO and gave up 18off boards)

Last year we'd be 5-4, so yeah improvement, but we still need alot more.
I think AZ St is hugeeeeeeee if we want in the NCAA tourny, gotta show we can beat ranked teams.
 
Half the board was scared we would lose this game and we never trailed after two minutes in playing without Lovett. UCF beat a ranked Alabama team and Nebraska beat a ranked Minnesota team so those wins don't look so bad. We are 8-1 with a very respectable Pomeroy rating of 45 and RPI 0f 31. So Ponds had five turnovers today.......... We may very well lose to Arizona State but if we take care of business against Iona and St. Joe's we would go into the Providence game a very respectable 10-2. The Big East season will determine our fate. The way our conference has played in the pre season I think six teams is very possible. So we know what we have to do and hopefully we can get it done. Call me optimistic but I think we have a lot to look forward to this season. It is past 2AM EST and I just realized that I will have to subscribe to something called Sling to watch the ASU game. Good night all and try to look on the bright side of things.
Click to expand...

I didn't think we'd win this game tonight, but woke up this morning pleasantly surprised. Definitely feels like we're winning all of the games we would have lost last year. Have to feel good about that. Excited about Friday's game but we really need Marcus back.
 
Clark still finding his game & role here it appears. I value his hard play, never expected him to be a dominant guy on the interior, but feel he can be a key complement to our guard play. It seems when he gets off slowly in a game, he gets frustrated, fouls unnecessarily & takes some ill advised, rushed shots. Hopefully he gets into rythmn of game and settle down going forward. Obviously we need him.
 
Thank goodness for Ponds and the way GCU played :)

What an addition Simon is. Just a hooper. Dynamic, efficient, hard-nosed, smart player. Like Ponds he just makes a ton of plays throughout the game. Going to be a real luxury to be able to put him on the best 1-3 on the opposing team in Big East play. Recognize many of those will be steps up from Braun, but Simon absolutely locked him up last night and that seemed to go a long way towards slowing GCU offense.

Have been a big advocate for Ahmed, still appreciate how he brings it defensively and on backboards, but his approach and decision-making on offense are starting to border on disruptive. Last year thought we needed his make things happen mentality more, but this year with Simon/Clark and a year improved from Ponds/Lovett that doesn't seem to be as much of a fit. Shots often seem out of flow of offense and like he sometimes pre-determines he's going to shoot before he even gets ball and sees what's there and what's not.

We need Ahmed bigtime, and very much to his credit when I go to his game log the numbers are better than I expect them to be, just like last year. Almost like you can pencil him in for 15 and 7 even though it sometimes seems like less. That said, need him to be more cohesive and efficient part of the offense, think it will be challenging to realize closer to our max potential with him playing as he has in a number of these games. Coaching staff has to take some ownership here as well.

As a team need to step on opposition when opportunity presents better. Seemed to get lead out to 9-10 a few times, and the didn't just not execute but had really bad, careless possessions.

Obviously team misses Lovett in many ways but glaring how much we need him in addition to Ponds/Simon to handle the rock, in general and especially down the stretch. Doubt the last 4 minutes is as much of an adventure last night with him out there.

It's a W though and as others have noted this is at least the second that felt like it would have been a loss in recent years. Those types of games can add up in both directions, nice to have them doing so favorably this year. Little bit of a house money spot against ASU, then have a chance to get to 9-10 OOC wins v. Iona and St. Joe's. Team has done the job to be in position without any hiccups thus far which is an excellent effort.
 
I was up to 2a.m. watching this game and although I am concerned about our level of play at least we won the game. Just some observations.
-Ponds can score in bunches. However, he needs to slow down a bit. He was "loose" with the rock on a few occasions especially when he tried to go behind the back with three defenders round him.
-Bashir is good for an early 3 pointer. Then he tends to force shots. I almost fell off the sofa when he received a pass out of bounds along the right corner. No reason for careless play. What was he doing standing out of bounds?
- We need an inbounds play. We committed FOUR turnovers under our own basket late in the game. In fact we were five counted once as well. This was embarrassing.
-I am worried about Tariq Owens. I thought he was a pleasant surprise last year. He has been invisible unless he is missing FTs, missing shots or fumbling the ball. Hopefully, he can regain some confidence and find his game.

This is not intended to be negative but if GCU had some shooters we could have been in trouble last night. Clearly this team has talent (with shortcomings) and gives effort but the game situation and management must improve. Better and stronger teams are ahead.
 
Let's call a spade a spade - we were very fortunate to win last night. I think GCU probably just played a bad game, but man they were awful - airballs, missed free throws, missed layups, turnovers galore and at points seemed like they had trouble running without tripping over themselves. All that said, we aren't going to play well every game and winning when you play poorly is a major sign of growth. I will also take an ugly win over a pretty loss seven days a week and twice on Sundays.
 
Sloppy game at the end. Have to take care of the ball more. Ponds was great but he started getting a little sloppy at the end too. Bashir has to reel it in, he's killing us offensively. Trimble got a lot of minutes and showed himself well on defense which was good to see. Simon was terrific. Biggest thing is we won and never really let the crowd be a factor. Jumped out early and aside from the end of both halves, didn't give them any hope.
 
I didn't see the game because it was past my bedtime but I'd like to offer my impressions anyway. In the first place, this is a game St John's should win because I've never heard of Grand Canyon State University. I've heard of the Grand Canyon obviously, and universities, just not in tandem. So despite the fact that the game was on the west coast at midnight EST, that St John's was missing their second best player and that Dan Majerle dyed his face the color of a concord grape to match the t shirts the 10K screaming fans were wearing I consider this a gimme. And also a must win: because this is just the sort of game St John's needs to win if they're going to win eight national championships in a row like UCLA. Because there's no way Wooden looses to these guys. I know that some of youse might think that sort of thinking premature after the team having won 25 games over two years, but that's a loosers mentality and just the sort of mentality that's made St John's irrebellant for 20 years. We needed this game if we are to be a top seed in March. And we were lucky to get it considering the many bad shots, plays turnovers and foul we made. Coming up next is Arizona State. I've never seen them play but if we play like we played last night there's no way we win unless Arizona State plays the way GCSU played, then we'll win. Whereas if we play like GCSU played and AS plays the way we played then they'll win. So probably it's too close to call. In any event I consider the game winnable, but not a must win or a gimme, but if we're going to make some noise in March it's important to play well because the committee looks hard at out of conference preseason December road games when making their selections.
 
I didn't see the game because it was past my bedtime but I'd like to offer my impressions anyway. In the first place, this is a game St John's should win because I've never heard of Grand Canyon State University. I've heard of the Grand Canyon obviously, and universities, just not in tandem. So despite the fact that the game was on the west coast at midnight EST, that St John's was missing their second best player and that Dan Majerle dyed his face the color of a concord grape to match the t shirts the 10K screaming fans were wearing I consider this a gimme. And also a must win: because this is just the sort of game St John's needs to win if they're going to win eight national championships in a row like UCLA. Because there's no way Wooden looses to these guys. I know that some of youse might think that sort of thinking premature after the team having won 25 games over two years, but that's a loosers mentality and just the sort of mentality that's made St John's irrebellant for 20 years. We needed this game if we are to be a top seed in March. And we were lucky to get it considering the many bad shots, plays turnovers and foul we made. Coming up next is Arizona State. I've never seen them play but if we play like we played last night there's no way we win unless Arizona State plays the way GCSU played, then we'll win. Whereas if we play like GCSU played and AS plays the way we played then they'll win. So probably it's too close to call. In any event I consider the game winnable, but not a must win or a gimme, but if we're going to make some noise in March it's important to play well because the committee looks hard at out of conference preseason December road games when making their selections.
Click to expand...
It appears you make your most cogent and salient observations and points when you don't watch the game. Keep up the good work and look forward to your BE Briefs or will we have to suffice with your within post and miss the masturbatory gratuitous picture you usually include in your briefs?
 
Let's call a spade a spade - we were very fortunate to win last night. I think GCU probably just played a bad game, but man they were awful - airballs, missed free throws, missed layups, turnovers galore and at points seemed like they had trouble running without tripping over themselves. All that said, we aren't going to play well every game and winning when you play poorly is a major sign of growth. I will also take an ugly win over a pretty loss seven days a week and twice on Sundays.
Click to expand...

If you're going to call a spade a spade, you have to consider that basketball has both offense and defense. St John's and GCU both have highly rated defenses. Put these two together and a game could get ugly looking. Defense affects offense. That's how it works. Against a good defense, teams miss shots, turn the ball over and get discombobulated. Against a defense that forces turnovers, players can get rattled. This carries over for example at the free throw line. So yeah we were fortunate that their middle linebacker missed like 8 free throws. But defense gets some credit too on both sides. In the end they had no one that could defend Ponds or Simon. Ponds had his way and when they started hammering Ponds, Mullin gave the ball to Simon.

When our offensive efficiency is consistent we will look like a legitimate top 25 team. We've seen flashes of this in most games with good ball movement leading to good shots but it has been very inconsistent for most of the games. I'd say we're at about 25% overall for the season on getting the ball up the court moving the ball well and taking a good shot. I've only seen Nova twice but they look like they are more around 80% by contrast with a similar defensive style.

 
They said GCU had 1,000 students five years ago and now has 19,000. They are building up their infrastructure and in five more years they will have 30,000.
 
They said GCU had 1,000 students five years ago and now has 19,000. They are building up their infrastructure and in five more years they will have 30,000.
Click to expand...

Antelopes breed like rabbits.
 
If Trimble gains confidence, and starts making threes, which is supposed to be his specialty, that would be a tremendous boost. What bothered me last night, is this penchant for this team to let up pressure when they build a bit of a lead. Don't just beat them, pulverize them! In this next game, we need five guys scoring in double figures, at a minimum.
 
Based on feedback I received preseason from a friend who attended several practices, Simon is living up to his assessment; great athlete, solid defender, rebounds & makes plays. He is obviously not a great shooter & is really a wing. I agreed early on with so em posters about the latter, but must say he is clearly a difference maker this season.

Always felt Ponds was best player on team & LoVett a close second. However, Simon complements them well & as noted can make a plays when you need it, be it a steal, rebound or finding guys. That trio would be even more effective passing the ball inside, but our bigs are not blessed with good hands, to be kind.

All in all, great start & if we can get some scoring, rebounding & less fouls from Clark, we can surprise a lot of teams & be on the bubble.
 
Simon has been an absolute godsend. Extremely smart and aware, always in right place, rebounds, steals, lock down D and so far he is shooting just fine (6 of 7 from 3). He's our second best player IMO and you could argue our most important (though Ponds has been terrific in his own right).
 
Simon has been an absolute godsend. Extremely smart and aware, always in right place, rebounds, steals, lock down D and so far he is shooting just fine (6 of 7 from 3). He's our second best player IMO and you could argue our most important (though Ponds has been terrific in his own right).
Click to expand...

Obviously a fine players but he turns the ball over way too much and at critical times. Nearly lost the UCF game with a turnover at half court and had three bad in bounds passes down the stretch last night.
 
Simon has been tremendous. Outstanding effort, smart player, tremendous defense, rebounding, gets turnovers, ball movement, etc.

The area I'd like to see him improve with is taking care of the ball on the offensive end.

At times, he is a little careless with the ball. Part of that is likely do to the fact that he is playing a bit out of his natural, comfortable position (wing - as mentioned above) and therefore, touching the ball and facilitating the offense more than is potentially ideal.

I'd just like to see him cut down on the turnovers a bit offensively, and then really keep doing what he is doing. Tremendous acquisition by matt and team.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top