Murray St Official Game Thread

[SJUalum98]

Blaming refs is silly? Did you watch the game? It honestly looked fixed at some points. D'Lo was hit in the face, shoved, and almost knocked to the ground RIGHT in front of the ref! No call. So it came down to 5 points...the last 2 minutes of the 1st half are what lost us this game. The refs let them run wild, then they found a cheat code hitting every 3. What a BS game. I really hope the media points out how terrible the refs were because they just cost a big game. It's infuriating because you know they know they got away with a ton. Every out of bounds play, a 3 followed. It was to the point where they might as well close their eyes, chuck it up, and have it go in as a swish. Now we get killed by a Baylor team and we are suddenly 2-2. Not only should we have won this one, but now we will pay double by drawing an even harder opponent. I'm jealous of all the other major teams playing cupcakes while we play legitimate NCAA teams that can make deep runs. Every loss in OOC play means more pressure to win a lot in the Big East and that's near impossible.

Right; our unforced, cheap turnovers, lack of team offense and inability to identify and match up with shooters, not to mention trotting back on D too many times had nothing to do with the loss; it was the refs. Calls, good and bad are part of the game and our poor play lost the game, period.

We played poorly for sure to end the game - but being angry at the refs for a game called completely unfairly is perfectly fine. Should have we won the game despite the refs? Sure. Can we be angry as heck at the refs? Sure.

I really don't think the game was called completely unfairly. There were bad calls but there are in any game. We lost because of our poor play, plain and simple. I also think Lavin had a very poor game after two good ones.

I agree about Lavin's rotation. Amir was dead tired. I don't think get got subbed out once.

You can't run players like that 3 out of 4 days.

Either give Felix some more burn out there or play Phil with 2 fouls. But don't run guys into the ground and then wonder why we get beat down the court.

You finally have som depth. Use it to give guys a blow.

 

[Jnaw17]

I guess this is a preview of what to expect this year

No, it's not. This is the third game for a very young team. They will learn and get better.

Not to take anything away from Murray State, but it's going to be very hard to continue to draw recruits to St. John's when you can't win these games.

The team had a chance to win tonight and play for the tournament championship. Instead, they now have to play Baylor for 3rd place. And let's be honest ... Baylor is not going to lose twice in the Charleston Classic.

Are you serious? Watch Baylor lose twice this weekend....it will happen. This game will have nothing to do with recruiting. We will learn how to finish games because of losses like this. We should have won, but didn't play well enough to finish. However, what we saw down the stretch is fixable. Covering the three point shooters, valuing the ball, passing the ball for the open shot. The glimpse we got tonight is of how good this team can be. Third game together and they had tournament tested Murray State on the ropes. We should have won, but didn't. We'll be fine. Go Johnnies!!!

 

[LINY89]

We dominated this game Joe??

What phase of the game did we dominate in the second half?
They didn't turn the ball over as much, they shot better, they played better Defense than us in the second half, and we rebounded about the same.

They played better in the second half than we did.
And yes, I too was thinking wtf isn't Marco in the game down 3 with a minute left.


We need to shoot better, pass the ball more, turn it over less, and play better defense if we want to win.
We did none of that better than them in 2nd half.

We shot better 44% vs 41%. What nailed our coffin were the 3's. If there's one positive it's that we shut Canaan down and forced MSU to use all their players to win. It's very frustrating early on facing 3 very, very good teams in Detroit, Murray St, and Baylor. I still wish this was a later tournament when we have all of our players and more time playing together. After we get blown out in the Baylor game (just being realistic), we need to beat the crap out of 95% of our cupcakes. I always thought Murray State was vastly overrated and this was our game to bring them back down to earth. We did...we just didn't win. Tough to take.

 

[Jnaw17]

This just sucks. Now we get Baylor. Why did we pick this kind of tournament so early on with such a young team? It seems to be hurting us more than helping us. While SH, Cincy, Nova, etc. rack up wins over cupcakes, here we are playing March Madness games in November. I'm curious for your thoughts on this.

Losses in November mean very little.
Also, big games early in the season provide motivation to keep your team focused in Summer and Fall practices.
If you open up against 10 straight cupcakes nobody has any bulletin board material, or opponents coaches can use to scare their teams into practicing harder. "Do you think your ready for Baylor in 3 weeks?" etc.

Yes, and last I checked SOS matters too. Assuming Murray State makes the tournament again, playing them helps us. Cupcakes don't.

 

[SJUalum98]

@STJ_Basketball: Lav: "It was a punch-counterpunch game, where we threw a punch and they threw a punch. They ended up landing the haymaker." #stjbb

That's a cop out. Murray State did the same thing they did all game. Park in the corners and hit 3s. We did not adjust to that.

I just saw a stat that D'Angleo had a game high 9 rebounds.

Is he supposed to do everything on the court? Tell me this is part of his extended punishment.

 

[SJU61982]

The seeds of greatness are there. If you don't see that, you're as blind as the refs were tonight.

However, we still have a long way to go. Not having a true point guard hurt us big time down the stretch. Hopefully, Branch can rectify that, but not bringing in a top-flight PG has been Lavin's one big failing so far (amongst the many, many things he has done well).

Hope Pointer's injury is not serious.

Marco returning will make the outside shooting better, but it will still not be a real strength of this team. Will need to bust zones a little better by going inside.

On top of that, the guys as a whole just need a bit more seasoning. Today was a dissapointment, but there is no questioning the brightness of our future, IMO. Both short term, and long term, I think we are in good shape.

 

[LINY89]

We led for 80% of the game and even DOMINATED a lot of the time. Then it was refs to the rescue and the magic 3 ball. I don't think I'll live past 40 if I watch many more of these types of games.

yep it was. lol

Are you honestly going to blame me for something else I didn't do? Let's not even start...pretty sure there is more than 1 angry SJ fan. Do you ever watch those conversation sections? Every single game in every single sport there's 500 people like that trolling.

 

[bk8664]

@STJ_Basketball: Lav: "It was a punch-counterpunch game, where we threw a punch and they threw a punch. They ended up landing the haymaker." #stjbb

That's a cop out. Murray State did the same thing they did all game. Park in the corners and hit 3s. We did not adjust to that.

I just saw a stat that D'Angleo had a game high 9 rebounds.

Is he supposed to do everything on the court? Tell me this is part of his extended punishment.

Good call. Coaches did not adjust on the corner plays.

 

[austour]

16 turnovers???? Can't win with that. 5 three attempts in the last minute; ; we might have won if we could hit one.
Biggest laugh was RedStorm Johnny posts on ESPN's thread "Conversation 367" during the game. He made every fan of StJ sound like a moron and a low life at that with his dozens of taunting posts. The MS fans are still rubbing in the salt now as he continues to foolishly claim that the refs won it an dthat we "won" 80% of the game!.Someone get a gun. I am a little bit embarassed; Good game Murray State.u have some really good long range shooters when it counts. .

Mr K, I'm a little bit embarassed you would read an ESPN "conversation" thread. Just kidding, but that's like listening to the 1am-4am guy on Sports Talk radio, just say no!

 

[RM86]

Quick look at box score, Dom 4 min,Marco 7 Felix 7.

Fouls SJU 14 MSU 15

Free Throws SJU 20 MSU 12

3pt SJU 2-14 MSU 10-30

 

[SJUalum98]

Too many perimeter shots for Obekpa and Jakarr (I don't care if they can hit them) with such a small MS lineup out there.

I hope when they get back to NY, they can figure something else out on offense besides running a weave until the shot clock gets down to 10 seconds and then going one-on-one playing hero ball.

That's not going to work every possession for an entire game and for an entire tournament.

 

[Jnaw17]

The seeds of greatness are there. If you don't see that, you're as blind as the refs were tonight.

However, we still have a long way to go. Not having a true point guard hurt us big time down the stretch. Hopefully, Branch can rectify that, but not bringing in a top-flight PG has been Lavin's one big failing so far (amongst the many, many things he has done well).

Hope Pointer's injury is not serious.

Marco returning will make the outside shooting better, but it will still not be a real strength of this team. Will need to bust zones a little better by going inside.

On top of that, the guys as a whole just need a bit more seasoning. Today was a dissapointment, but there is no questioning the brightness of our future, IMO. Both short term, and long term, I think we are in good shape.

Branch was ranked #65 coming out of HS, so a top flight pg is he. I agree with your other points.

 

[bk8664]

Logen: "I really don't think the game was called completely unfairly."

Now that is possible. I definitely was very myopically focused on the game - with my pro SJU lenses on... However, I'm not sure I can stomach re-watching to really see how fairly the game was called; I might get cranky re-watching our less than stellar execution in the 2nd half.

It would have been nice to have Sanchez to keep up on the interior play. I felt the game slipped even further along into the abyss when Obekpa picked up his late foul and our interior defense really seemed slip away, which just opened up things even more on the outside.

 

[Jnaw17]

Logen: "I really don't think the game was called completely unfairly."

Now that is possible. I definitely was very myopically focused on the game - with my pro SJU lenses on... However, I'm not sure I can stomach re-watching to really see how fairly the game was called; I might get cranky re-watching our less than stellar execution in the 2nd half.

It would have been nice to have Sanchez to keep up on the interior play. I felt the game slipped even further along into the abyss when Obekpa picked up his late foul and our interior defense really seemed slip away, which just opened up things even more on the outside.

Although we should have won the game despite the refs, just think back to the two charge calls early in the game (on Sampson and Greene), and think about the big guy for Murray State barreling over our guys under the basket three times in the second half. None of those calls went our way. All should have gone our way. The refs were bad.

 

[SJUalum98]

I'd slam my computer watching a replay of that game.

That kid on Murray State flopped at halfcourt. Flopped under the basket. Flopped from skinny Amir.

But when Amir went down, the refs swallowed their whistles. That bothered me.

If Sanchez gets cleared, there are no excuses from Lavin. I don't want any talk about counter punching when you have a full bench.

I'm sure he and everyone on that bench were surprised what Felix did out there when given the chance. And to think, he wanted to redshirt him.

 

[LINY89]

Another bright spot: Obekpa had 6 blocks.

 

[bk8664]

Logen: "I really don't think the game was called completely unfairly."

Now that is possible. I definitely was very myopically focused on the game - with my pro SJU lenses on... However, I'm not sure I can stomach re-watching to really see how fairly the game was called; I might get cranky re-watching our less than stellar execution in the 2nd half.

It would have been nice to have Sanchez to keep up on the interior play. I felt the game slipped even further along into the abyss when Obekpa picked up his late foul and our interior defense really seemed slip away, which just opened up things even more on the outside.

Although we should have won the game despite the refs, just think back to the two charge calls early in the game (on Sampson and Greene), and think about the big guy for Murray State barreling over our guys under the basket three times in the second half. None of those calls went our way. All should have gone our way. The refs were bad.

I'm just trying to simmer my internal rage; please don't take me back to remind myself of the specific mental images of the game. :evil:

 

[austour]

Quick look at box score, Dom 4 min,Marco 7 Felix 7.

Fouls SJU 14 MSU 15

Free Throws SJU 20 MSU 12

3pt SJU 2-14 MSU 10-30

First, if Dom is injured as someone else in the thread said, and he did get up grimacing and grabbing his hip at one point and didn't play much after that, that explains the minutes.

The other stats are as you would think they'd be since STJ was more in the lane getting FT's off fouls and MSU was known as a 3 pt barrage type team who usually shoots better.

The key stat was:

TO STJ 14 MSU 8

If you're going to out TO the other team you better dominate the boards to get possessions equal. STJ only outrebounded MSU by 1, that's 5 extra possessions for MSU and in a close game like this that matters a lot. I always look at your rebounds + others TOs vs others rebounds + your TOs as a major indicator of which way the game is going. Works most of the time unless there's incredible shooting disparities. All game this was tilting in MSU's favor, even when they couldn't shoot for nothing at the beginning of the game.

Refs were awful and did hurt the team badly mostly in the 1st half but they were up 8 in the second and then lost their composure. I think Branch will help this team a lot if he's able to run the offense 20-25 minutes per game.

Still it was a very good effort for 33 minutes by a very young team playing a very experienced team with the best PG in the country. Lesson learned hopefully and improve and progress.

 

[LINY89]

If I had to watch that game again my laptop would probably be in 10,000 little pieces. I know I'm being negative and in a grumpy mood here, but if this team really is made of anything, go out there after Baylor and win all the cupcake games and enter Big East play 11-2. I really can't take many more disappointing seasons from my favorite teams. If we beat Baylor by some miracle, that more than makes up for the Murray State game. But if we lose as we should, we better go on a big streak or we are toast for March.

 

[upstate redman]

Did the refs stink? Sure. But we had this game and blew it, plain and simple. Would have been a huge win for us, and would have been nice to play for the championship. However, another big task on Sunday. Not expected to win, but after 4 games, our boys will be battle tested against 4 solid teams, 3 of which have a very good shot to make the tourney. Tough loss but lets move on. It is the 3rd game, and we will eventually get Branch, and hopefully Sanchez, and you can even argue Marco since he wasn't really ready to play today. We are very athletic, and once we correct some miscues on D, very good defensively. We just need to score in transition right now. Once we get more repetitions and get a true PG we will be fine in the half court.

Guys, we have a very good team, and a good program. Lets not stay down too long. This will be a very fun and exciting season, and unlike last year, I do not expect many games we are outclassed, and I think we will eventually start to close games.