chronicbucks
Member
I'd have to disagree, I don't mind that shot. If he hit's it, were up 3, and D is in the zone, This team lives and dies by Dee, case in point Marquette.
Harrison is climbing the ladder
- Thread starter ghostzapper
- Start date
I'd have to disagree, I don't mind that shot. If he hit's it, were up 3, and D is in the zone, This team lives and dies by Dee, case in point Marquette.
beast of the east
Active member
Looking at this list, to some extent shows how scoring points in basketball is not an absolute accomplishment. In baseball you'd never hear a guy say, I could have hit 50 homeruns, but I sacrificed for the team. It would be almost totally baseless unless he was a #2 hitter in the old days where the guy in the 2 hole would take pitches so a leadoff runner could steal a base, then hit to the right side to get him to third.
In basketball however, those who saw Mullin play watched a completely unselfish guy who gave the ball up so willingly, it was near perfection in basketball. Had he wanted to score 25 a game at SJU, he could have, but it would have been the antithesis of letting the game come to him.
It's also situational. Ask Billy Schaeffer why he averaged 24 points per game his senior season, and he will tell you that Mel Davis went out for the season and Coach asked how he could replace those points, so Schaeffer raises his hand when he tells the story.
It still confuses me at how much criticism Dlo receives.
Do any of you have severe amnesia and forget what happened when he got suspended?
He's our best player, and loves being on St. John's more than anybody.
He wants to win more than anyone else does, and I say we leave him the hell alone.
Do any of you have severe amnesia and forget what happened when he got suspended?
He's our best player, and loves being on St. John's more than anybody.
He wants to win more than anyone else does, and I say we leave him the hell alone.
tom in salem
Well-known member
Next year will be his opportunity for the dance.
That's a bigger shame.
Without that kid they don't have a chance. They were like a muzzled pitbull in a dog fight when he was suspended...it was frustrating. I don't know how the hell they beat St. Joe's, but in retrospect that may have been the worst thing that could have happened because it gave the staff a false sense of security with PG and Dom returning to those roles.
Almost everyone on these sites was calling for less shots and 15-16 ppg from Harrison. He's a streaky shooter...he'll be up and down. We can't get to high or low on him because of that. He is the most important player on the team.
beast of the east
Active member
We will never agree on the things we disagree about, and I don't understand how you intelligent fans can't. Yes, I agree he is the most important player on this team. No, I could not care about his tattoos. I haven't seen a single incident of behavior this year that could be even remotely called egregious, but I have seen plenty of smiles, supporting words to teammates. He gives up his body. He doesn't complain when he gets hammered. I think his potential is much larger than his biggest advocates think. I root for him as hard as anyone, even with his late game failures.
BUT - his overall shooting percentage is way too low for someone scoring so many points, costing his team in very close games. Some of it is focus, and some of it is shot selection. But you can't tell me we wouldn't be winning more if his shooting % was closer to 50%. Basketball is just math. All things being equal - rebounds, fouls, turnovers, blocks - the team that shoots better wins. When your best scorer has one of the lowest shooting % among the top scorers in D1, unless the rest of the team is picking up the slack, your record isn't going to be very good.
For those who repeatedly make the argument of how the team did after he was suspended, I'd remind you to look at his Big East stats from last season - they were abysmal. If you want to make the argument for last season that Harrison shooting around 30% from the field is better than either PG or a hobbled Branch (not the same after knee injury), I'd agree - but that wouldn't make Harrison's season a good one - just that his presence was needed on a roster not very deep.
I think that stroke is a little too broad. No doubt, we'd be a better/more efficient team if he shot a better %. You could say that about any player, especially the one's who shoot the most.
But we'd also be a lesser team if Harrison wasn't giving us the actual scoring production he's giving us. I'd rather have a guy capable of getting you 18 a game at 40% than a capable of shooting 52% but can't get his shot consistently.
While higher %s from volume scorers is preferred, it's not a requirement. Harrison is getting 18.1 on 39.6/36.4/85.2. Last year Russ Smith got 18.7 on 41.4/32.8/80.4 and they won a National Championship. This year Bryce Cotton is getting 20.8 on 41.0/32.8/83.5 and is getting national attention for what he and his team are doing.
The amount of true #1 type players who can score at a high level while also doing so with efficient percentages is limited. There are only so many of them out there. Every other player has varying degrees of warts, and while this is one of Harrison's most prominent, it's relatively minor, especially in the context of some of the deficiencies this team has. They aren't ideal percentages, but they aren't holding us back in any significant way either.
nonsense. Jordan, Sampson even Greene caught fire in a game earlier this year and carried us to a win. Harrison reminds me of John Starks. He can catch fire and hit from anywhere and he can go 0-10. That's because he takes a lot of bad shots. This team is best if they're moving and sharing the ball. We don't need DLo or any one player to carry us.
D'Angelo comes up small in big games.
Vs Cuse 6/19 FG, 1/5 from 3
Vs Xavier 7/20 FG, 4/5 from 3
Vs Georgetown 1/12 FG, 0/5 from 3
Vs Villanova 4/13 FG, 1/3 from 3
Vs Providence 4/15, 1/5 from 3
As they say, ball don't lie.
He puts up his best and most consistent numbers against the worst competition.
Like him as a player but he is what he is. An inefficient SG volume scorer. His contributions are not that of a Russ Smith and Bryce Cotton.
westchesterjoe
Active member
I think everyone knows DLO is a very important player to this team. That's pretty universal.
But, he does take a lot of shots and can have some dreadful games, 1-13, 6-19 , etc. I think the team would be better and more players contributing to the scoring if he didn't take as many shots as he does. Many of them ill advised at crucial times.
Smith, on L'ville is no doubt a talent but, is a runaway fright train with his shot selection and, it costs the Cardinals since he can lose games for you ,. Last year the Cards had Siva to rely upon, when Russ started to destruct.
Cotton, is getting attention because he's like Hardy was for us, a SG forced to be the PG too.. Harrison is a SG.. He would not do well as a PG, even under no other alternatives. Proof being, Lavin would give the ball to Greene, not to DLO
Cotton has taken his team to contending for a NCAA bid so far. With less talent than we have. Next to Mcd, he's probably the 2nd best player this year in the BE.
Harrison hasn't proven yet that his individual talents can raise a team's performance to a contending level. And, in BIG Games, he's so far, not raised his game for a team win.
Cotton outplayed him in the head to head, so did G'town's Smith -Rivera.
CARMELO Anthony scores a lot of points but, in the NBA his teams don't win titles. HARRISON, has the chance to make his mark in SJU BB history books but, winning ultimately is the criteria great players lead their teams too.
You are absolutely right about that, but it's a different conversation. There is no disputing that D'Angelo has not been good in the clutch.
What I was pointing out is that I think too much gets made of D'Angelo's aggregate percentages. 36% from 3 and 40% overall isn't great, but it's really not terrible either. We are talking about 3-5 shots made out of 100 from having above-average percentages from an off-guard.
The positive trade-off is that we have a guy who can put the ball in the basket at a high level. If you can't have the perfect player (scores + efficiently, of which there are not that many), you'd rather have the scoring than the efficiency. It doesn't grow on trees, even with the efficiency wart. That's all I was saying.
I wasn't comparing D'Angelo to Smith or Cotton in total. Just pointing out that you can win with a lead guard who has good but not great percentages. D'Angelo's aggregate shooting has not been a critical issue this year, his play in the last 5 minutes of certain games has. But even that wouldn't register as anywhere close to the most substantial problems on this team, we'd be far worse off without this kid this year, now matter how we qualify it.
Oh, I'm not denying that. Like I said, I like the kid and we can't win without him.
But the aggregate %s that you talk about should be referenced in context simply because he rarely, if ever, shoots over 40% against the best competition and in the biggest games.
Props to those teams for taking him out of his game.
But his shot selection has to be questioned.
tom in salem
Well-known member
To be fair, count the creighton game.
VISITORS: St. John's 12-9, 2-6
TOT-FG 3-PT REBOUNDS
## Player Name FG-FGA FG-FGA FT-FTA OF DE TOT PF TP A TO BLK S MIN
14 Sampson, JaKarr..... f 4-10 0-0 2-3 2 4 6 4 10 0 1 1 1 29
33 Sanchez, Orlando.... f 1-4 0-1 0-0 1 5 6 2 2 0 1 1 1 18
00 Branch, Jamal....... g 1-5 0-1 1-2 1 2 3 1 3 1 2 0 2 23
11 Harrison, D'Angelo.. g 5-11 1-3 4-4 0 2 2 1 15 1 0 0 3 30
23 Jordan, Rysheed..... g 4-9 0-1 3-6 0 0 0 3 11 2 3 0 3 29
01 Greene IV, Phil..... 2-6 0-3 0-0 1 1 2 1 4 1 0 0 0 19
03 Achiuwa, God'sgift.. 0-1 0-0 0-0 1 1 2 0 0 0 0 0 0 6
10 Hooper, Max......... 1-2 0-1 0-0 0 0 0 1 2 0 0 0 0 11
12 Obekpa, Chris....... 5-6 0-0 1-1 1 4 5 1 11 1 2 1 1 23
15 Pointer, Sir'Dominic 1-2 0-0 0-0 0 1 1 2 2 3 1 1 0 12
TEAM................
Totals.............. 24-56 1-10 11-16 7 20 27 16 60 9 10 4 11 200
At the end of the day, it is about winning; it is the ONLY stat. Were SJU winning consistently, Harrison would not get all the negative press he gets on the site. Is the fact that we are not winning consistently his fault? No, not at all; but he is part of a group of players who individually and collectively have underachieved and so he is going to get his share of criticism - that's just the way it works. IMO, real good college player; over-rated by many here; under-rated by just as many.
beast of the east
Active member
Russ Smith is an anomaly I believe, and I'm not sure you needed the ball in his hands with the game on the line. You make a good argument though, but the main difference between Smith's team and Harrison's that if Smith is the best player that HIS TEAM WINS, and if Harrison is ours, we could see 4 years from him without a sniff of the NCAAs. That speaks volumes.
A really great baseball book to read is Joe DiMaggio - a Hero's Life. I had always been dismissive of DiMaggio to the extend that you can of an all time great player because his Yankee teams were so stacked. however, what the book makes clear is that DiMaggio took it as his PERSONAL responsibility to deliver a World championships, and some of his heroics in the World Series were the kind that won't show up in a boxscore, or in the Series summary, but nearly always included coming up big when it mattered. there is a great phot in the book for example of how the graceful and smooth DiMaggio was headed towards the plate when the ball was going to arrive a moment sooner. He DOVE OVER the catcher's shoulder who was bracing for a collision, and in an acrobatic move never seen in that era (or rarely in any), landed and swiped the plate with an outstretched arm.
The point is, great players find a way for delivering wins for their team, not in the body of a line score, but also coming up big when it matters. You can argue that being one of the three worst shooter in the top 50 NCAA scorers is good enough. I would counter that looking at our record, it clearly is not.
TO BE CLEAR though, I'd want Harrison on my team getting minutes on any SJU squad I've ever seen.
Even DiMaggio is/was not above criticism. I know/knew many old timers who would say DiMaggio would not go hard after a ball he couldn't catch gracefully; that image was everything to him. I have an uncle who HATED Mantle but will swear the ball he got hurt on in right center was DiMaggio's but Joe pulled up on it. My point is not to criticize JD because I have no idea but to point out that criticism comes along with the territory of being an athlete out in front of the public.