(NCAA-WEST/Providence) #10 Arkansas, Sat., Mar. 22, 2:40p, CBS

We are all disappointed . Each in our own way . It’s natural for a fan base to be so .

A few comments , which are my thoughts and opinions .

First , Arkansas is not a super juggernaut of a team . Our anointing them as such doesn’t wash . They were a 8-10 team in the SEC and were carried into the Tournament by the ridiculous number of Schools that the Committee selected .

Same as they do in Football .

Kansas had them beat on Thursday but , lost the game , rather than Arkansas winning it.

Self has Kansas go to a Zone , late in the Game and the Hogs couldn’t handle it. The Jay hawks didn’t lose the game on Defense . They lost it on offense in the last 3 minutes . When Mayo started turning the ball over and missing shots that shouldn’t have been taken . Dickenson was awful too .

Similarly ,I thought Cal completely outcoached Pitino all game . Cal let his big men play with 2,3 and 4 fouls .
Rick did not ! Richmond sat 22 minutes in the 1st half and Wilcher nearly as much .
We have had our best success all year with KR controlling the offense , distributing , Scoring , Rebounding . Smith is ok but , not KR and he played too many minutes yesterday and had nothing left with the game on the line and us down 2 late . He missed critical foul shots , threw the Ball to the Arkansas player in sloppy way .

He’s not the distributor that Richmond is and when we were close at 62-60 I think , we threw away our chances when it looked like the Hoga were ready to fold .

Again , after Luis made his 2 free throws , Pitino pulled him , when we were only down 2 ?

It was a terrible mistake by Pitino and no matter what the inside reason was , it probably cost us this game .
RJ still had the ability to score or get fouled or dish to Zuby and that can’t happen , if he’s on the bench . Notice he didn’t join the huddle in the last timeout .

As much as the team played poorly , Pitino Coached poorly as well . Cal beat him strategically all game .

We all agree that Pitino is a great Coach, brought us our best season in 40 years but , he’s not infallible and yesterday he showed it .

Benching your All American Player , down 2 points in the last few minutes doesn’t make sense . No matter the reason .

And , Rick resorted to Nasty in his post game by refusing to answer directly why Luis wasn’t in there ? Saying he played 30 minutes and was 3 for 17 was a deflection and not a answer .

Even worse than last year , when he told the Media the team was poorly constructed , lacked lateral quickness and wasn’t Athletic . That was nasty then and the Luis situation was nasty yesterday .

Rich coached.as poorly yesterday as our Team played but , still had a chance to win until the KR foul our and the RJ benching .
I didn’t hear Rick say he was as responsible as the Players for the defeat .

Next year ? Pitino is already on record that he wasn’t recruiting ANY Freshman players .

That is nonsensical . Some of these McD All Americans are making great contributions to their teams and not, even trying to bring them to St John’s is perplexing .

I don’t know what our Team will look like next season and at this point , none of us know for sure , either .

We hope Zuby is back but , everyone else is still unknown ?

Sniping at other posters isn’t a good look . But , for so many of us , late in life , we thought this was a team that would go further than losing in 1st weekend . So ,understand that our individual feelings , opinions , etc are mostly disappointment .

That is one thing we all share after yesterday . Disappointment . It’s a human emotion .,
 
Correction … KR did not sit 22 minutes in first half , he did sit 22 minutes in the entire game.

My bad . Sorry .

And , whatever it was , it was too long . Regardless of fouls , etc
 
Bread and butter has been wearing teams down in the second half. Tough to do that when there's a whistle every 30 seconds, plus countless reviews, elongated timeouts.

How they didn't go to Zuby, EVERY SINGLE POSSESSION, when their bigs are in foul trouble, boggles the mind. May have opened things up for someone else. RJ, the whole year seemed to get going by hitting a 3, didn't get his normal allotment.

The switching on defense came back to bite them. Zuby guarding a guard 30 feet from the basket, who didn't seem to be a 3 point threat, opened up the lane without a rim protector.

Kick to the gut defending this team all year, saying they were as good as anybody, then watching them lose to an SEC mid.

Nothing builds a program more than playing on national TV in March, blown opportunity in so many ways.
 
SLYFOXX1968 said:
Correction … KR did not sit 22 minutes in first half , he did sit 22 minutes in the entire game.

My bad . Sorry .

And , whatever it was , it was too long . Regardless of fouls , etc
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It was 64 minutes of real time, I believe.

Rick has something against a zone defense, which is what you should play to protect key guys who are foul trouble.

Now, our switching ability made us an elite man-to-man team this year, but I'd always be throwing in some zone, anyway. It gives the opposition a different look, and prepares you for a time when you need to go off-script. I'd feel the same way if we were primarily a zone team, that we should mix in man D occasionally. As much as I dislike Jarvis, he's the only coach we've had that seemed to have understood that concept (my on-court issue with him was on the other side of the ball, and throw in the off-court garbage too, particularly Grady Reynolds).

Kansas almost never played zone this year, and Arkansas still struggled with it. Might have been worth a shot yesterday, though I admit, that's hindsight (somewhat, since I generally believe you should be mixing it up).
 
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SJU61982 said:
It was 64 minutes of real time, I believe.

Rick has something against a zone defense, which is what you should play to protect key guys who are foul trouble.

Now, our switching ability made us an elite man-to-man team this year, but I'd always be throwing in some zone, anyway. It gives the opposition a different look, and prepares you for a time when you need to go off-script. I'd feel the same way if we were primarily a zone team, that we should mix in man D occasionally. As much as I dislike Jarvis, he's the only coach we've had that seemed to have understood that concept (my on-court issue with him was on the other side of the ball, and throw in the off-court garbage too, particularly Grady Reynolds).

Kansas almost never played zone this year, and Arkansas still struggled with it. Might have been worth a shot yesterday, though I admit.l, that's hindsight (somewhat, since I generally believe you should be mixing it up).
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That’s a excellent point and , one in which Pit
 
SLYFOXX1968 said:
That’s a excellent point and , one in which Pit
Click to expand...


Pitino never considered . Even after scouting the Kansas game .

Coaching is about exploiting weakness in a opponent .

Clearly , the Hogs showed they couldn’t handle a Zone but , we never tried it . Even for a possession or 2.

And , playing a Zone for a spell might have saved Richmond from fouling out at such a critical time .

When we were within 2 points and Arkansas was floundering.

But , our Coach never used it .

Same thing with his 2 foul rule in pulling a player in the first half . Even Lappas said” you have to let your 5 th yrar Star player stay in the game .”

Lastly , by Pitno saying “ I’m nkt going to disrespect my Player ,” when asked about Luis not playing in last 4 odd minutes , when the game was lost.
By saying that , he WAS disrespecting RJ .
 
SLYFOXX1968 said:
We are all disappointed . Each in our own way . It’s natural for a fan base to be so .

A few comments , which are my thoughts and opinions .

First , Arkansas is not a super juggernaut of a team . Our anointing them as such doesn’t wash . They were a 8-10 team in the SEC and were carried into the Tournament by the ridiculous number of Schools that the Committee selected .

Same as they do in Football .

Kansas had them beat on Thursday but , lost the game , rather than Arkansas winning it.

Self has Kansas go to a Zone , late in the Game and the Hogs couldn’t handle it. The Jay hawks didn’t lose the game on Defense . They lost it on offense in the last 3 minutes . When Mayo started turning the ball over and missing shots that shouldn’t have been taken . Dickenson was awful too .

Similarly ,I thought Cal completely outcoached Pitino all game . Cal let his big men play with 2,3 and 4 fouls .
Rick did not ! Richmond sat 22 minutes in the 1st half and Wilcher nearly as much .
We have had our best success all year with KR controlling the offense , distributing , Scoring , Rebounding . Smith is ok but , not KR and he played too many minutes yesterday and had nothing left with the game on the line and us down 2 late . He missed critical foul shots , threw the Ball to the Arkansas player in sloppy way .

He’s not the distributor that Richmond is and when we were close at 62-60 I think , we threw away our chances when it looked like the Hoga were ready to fold .

Again , after Luis made his 2 free throws , Pitino pulled him , when we were only down 2 ?

It was a terrible mistake by Pitino and no matter what the inside reason was , it probably cost us this game .
RJ still had the ability to score or get fouled or dish to Zuby and that can’t happen , if he’s on the bench . Notice he didn’t join the huddle in the last timeout .

As much as the team played poorly , Pitino Coached poorly as well . Cal beat him strategically all game .

We all agree that Pitino is a great Coach, brought us our best season in 40 years but , he’s not infallible and yesterday he showed it .

Benching your All American Player , down 2 points in the last few minutes doesn’t make sense . No matter the reason .

And , Rick resorted to Nasty in his post game by refusing to answer directly why Luis wasn’t in there ? Saying he played 30 minutes and was 3 for 17 was a deflection and not a answer .

Even worse than last year , when he told the Media the team was poorly constructed , lacked lateral quickness and wasn’t Athletic . That was nasty then and the Luis situation was nasty yesterday .

Rich coached.as poorly yesterday as our Team played but , still had a chance to win until the KR foul our and the RJ benching .
I didn’t hear Rick say he was as responsible as the Players for the defeat .

Next year ? Pitino is already on record that he wasn’t recruiting ANY Freshman players .

That is nonsensical . Some of these McD All Americans are making great contributions to their teams and not, even trying to bring them to St John’s is perplexing .

I don’t know what our Team will look like next season and at this point , none of us know for sure , either .

We hope Zuby is back but , everyone else is still unknown ?

Sniping at other posters isn’t a good look . But , for so many of us , late in life , we thought this was a team that would go further than losing in 1st weekend . So ,understand that our individual feelings , opinions , etc are mostly disappointment .

That is one thing we all share after yesterday . Disappointment . It’s a human emotion .,
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Pitino was upset with Luis but he should have let him play in last 5 minutes. Taking him out down 2 v points was a mistake. You sink or swim with the big east player of the year. I thought it also demoralized the rest of the team. BIG MISTAKE
 
Upon some reflection:

St. John's won the Big East regular season and tournament in a year where it ended as the only ranked team in the league.

Barring upset, the league will not have a single Sweet 16 team this year.

We lost out-of-conference games to Baylor and Georgia who made the field on the margins. We did beat New Mexico. I'm probably missing someone but overall I don't know that we beat another tournament team of note that wasn't in the Big East. Or any team that was ranked at the end of the season. Could be wrong on that though.

The point is - maybe at the end of the day SJU just wasn't a great team. Played great defense, no question about that. But the majority of the offense was RJ Luis who unsurprisingly struggled in a game where he was faced with an opponent with similar athletic ability. If he goes pro he will have the same problem.

Despite that if we hit a few layups or a few free throws we still could have beaten Arkansas. Credit a great effort by Zuby and credit Pitino for getting the most out of an offensively challenged bunch and coming down on the right side of the fine edge between victory and defeat so often this year.

It was a very rewarding year, and the best one we've had in a long time.

We get 15 minutes to mope and then it's on to next season!
 
lawmanfan said:
Upon some reflection:

St. John's won the Big East regular season and tournament in a year where it ended as the only ranked team in the league.

Barring upset, the league will not have a single Sweet 16 team this year.

We lost out-of-conference games to Baylor and Georgia who made the field on the margins. We did beat New Mexico. I'm probably missing someone but overall I don't know that we beat another tournament team of note that wasn't in the Big East. Or any team that was ranked at the end of the season. Could be wrong on that though.

The point is - maybe at the end of the day SJU just wasn't a great team. Played great defense, no question about that. But the majority of the offense was RJ Luis who unsurprisingly struggled in a game where he was faced with an opponent with similar athletic ability. If he goes pro he will have the same problem.

Despite that if we hit a few layups or a few free throws we still could have beaten Arkansas. Credit a great effort by Zuby and credit Pitino for getting the most out of an offensively challenged bunch and coming down on the right side of the fine edge between victory and defeat so often this year.

It was a very rewarding year, and the best one we've had in a long time.

We get 15 minutes to mope and then it's on to next season!
Click to expand...
Nice! And best of all, you summed up your thoughts under 5,000 words. 😉
 
SLYFOXX1968 said:
Pitino never considered . Even after scouting the Kansas game .

Coaching is about exploiting weakness in a opponent .

Clearly , the Hogs showed they couldn’t handle a Zone but , we never tried it . Even for a possession or 2.

And , playing a Zone for a spell might have saved Richmond from fouling out at such a critical time .

When we were within 2 points and Arkansas was floundering.

But , our Coach never used it .

Same thing with his 2 foul rule in pulling a player in the first half . Even Lappas said” you have to let your 5 th yrar Star player stay in the game .”

Lastly , by Pitno saying “ I’m nkt going to disrespect my Player ,” when asked about Luis not playing in last 4 odd minutes , when the game was lost.
By saying that , he WAS disrespecting RJ .
Click to expand...
Ref calls were bad for both teams, but I think it impacted us more with KR than it did with their bigs - they have 3 bigs and least skilled one is the guy that fouled out. Not trying the zone seems insane after what happened in the Kansas game, and Calipari had no answers for it. We had multiple reasons to try it. I can't imagine Arkansas winning their next game, it's a flawed team that we would beat on just about any other day.
 
blackpeter24 said:
I love these posters, who have never coached a meaningful game in their lives, critiquing and criticizing our HOF Coach.
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It is what fan boards do. The opposite may be worse, simply never questioning in game stuff. I think trolls aside, posters all realize the genius of Pitino. Sometimes frustration arises more based on fierce desire to win after so many mediocre years than coaching decisions.

I love most of the back and forth and enjoy opinions of guys like LMF, Mug, NC J, Moose, Mase & many others who always provide critical, well grounded food for thought.
 
McClancy88 said:
Bread and butter has been wearing teams down in the second half. Tough to do that when there's a whistle every 30 seconds, plus countless reviews, elongated timeouts.

How they didn't go to Zuby, EVERY SINGLE POSSESSION, when their bigs are in foul trouble, boggles the mind. May have opened things up for someone else. RJ, the whole year seemed to get going by hitting a 3, didn't get his normal allotment.

The switching on defense came back to bite them. Zuby guarding a guard 30 feet from the basket, who didn't seem to be a 3 point threat, opened up the lane without a rim protector.

Kick to the gut defending this team all year, saying they were as good as anybody, then watching them lose to an SEC mid.

Nothing builds a program more than playing on national TV in March, blown opportunity in so many ways.
Click to expand...
The one time that they did after coming out of a time out late in the game, everyone in the arena knew tha Devon was going to pass to Zubie and it was stolen.
 
stjohnschris said:
Ref calls were bad for both teams, but I think it impacted us more with KR than it did with their bigs - they have 3 bigs and least skilled one is the guy that fouled out. Not trying the zone seems insane after what happened in the Kansas game, and Calipari had no answers for it. We had multiple reasons to try it. I can't imagine Arkansas winning their next game, it's a flawed team that we would beat on just about any other day.
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Your comments about not using the Zone have merit , as many posters have said already .

True , Pitno is a HOF Coach but , so is Calipari . Who I think outcoached Rick by a big margin .

Rick must have missed the Kansas game when the Jay Hawks switched to a Zone and Arkansas turned into a CYO Biddy team .
Kansas lost , when they had the game won by Mayo thinking he was LeBron and Dickenson turning into the useless player he was , formost of the last 2 years .

The snowballs tossed at the BE as being a poor and uncompetitive conference are weak . UCONN won the last 2 NCAA Championships and Nova won 2 more in the last 10 years .

I think we , all of us , miss the fact the BE has been disrespected the last 2 years notably .
3 invites last year was a complete disgrace for us and the Hall.
The SEC ? 14 bids ?
Vandy , Texas , A& M, Miss State, Missouri , Georgia , etc have all lost already .
True , the BE has lost 4 teams and UCONN is against Florida today . So we might be out of any Sweet 16 participation this year .
 
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