Perspective Part 2

P

panther2

Well-known member
After yesterday's win, we are two  thirds of the way through our season with an 11-7 record and 5-6 in the Big East. To say that this season has been challenging, would be an understatement. From the lack of full scale summer workouts to pre season conditioning, everything has been turned upside down.

Let's take a realistic look at things. We have five players in our rotation, Alexander, Wusu, Cole, Moore, and McGriff who haad never played a D1 game previously. In the best of times, it is difficult to work five new players into your system aand this definitely is not the best of times. With the exception of Dunn, our returning players Josh, Greg, Marcellus, and Julian really had 1 year of "playing" experience. The out of conference schedule was reduced giving the staff less time to put all of the pieces together.

Yes, there have been some down moments this season. We basically let one player on Seton Hall's team beat us by himself. The first Georgetown and Marquette games were winnable. However, we have won 5 0f our last 6 games with road wins at Marquette and UCONN.

In regards to Coach Anderson, last year he lost Heron during the season and a lot on here predicted doom. However, he was able to insert Greg Williams into that spot and he performed very wel while the team got better as the season progressed. This year, Greg, our 2nd leading scorer, goes down with a back injury. Wusu and Cole are there to take up the slack. Ours is not a team of Superstars, but it is a "Team", that is playing well right now.

In regards to recruiting, last year the staff landed Julian, the leading scorer in the Big East. This year they landed Alexander, Wusu, Cole, and Moore. I doubt if any team in the Big East is getting as much production from first year D1 players as St Johns. Looking at a previous post by Amaseinyourface, is there another Big East team getting the production from their freshman that we are. Everyone, myself included, wants top 50 recruits but we have to remember, this is not the 80's or 90's where most players stayed in college for four years. Now, top players all ask, how can your program help me get to the next level.

Recruiting from scratch which is basically what Coach Anderson had to do, is about building a foundation. A top 50 recruit, and those around him, have to be able to look at the program and see a team and players that they want to play with, and a staff that has helped their players get better. In Julian, Posh, and Wusu Coach Anderson has a foundation.

Coach Anderson can now go after a top 50 class of 2022 big man and state, if you come to St Johns, the pieces are in place for you to showcase your talent. This doesn't happen overnight, it is a process. For anything to be successful, a solid foundation is needed. Coach Anderson and staff have our foundation in place.

As for next year, aside from Dunn and Toro, all of our rotation players should return.

Now it is time to enjoy the rest of the season beginning with Nova on Wednesday evening.
 
Great post as always Panther. As you point out, all of our 8 or 9 rotation players other than Rasheem will likely be back next year and 4 of this year's 5 recruits will likely be key pieces going forward. Not too shabby.  
 
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The season changed when coach put Roberts in the starting lineup.  There have been 2 st johns teams this year.  The crappy team pre roberts and the confident team postr roberts.

Who would have thought josh Roberts was the key?
 
Coach Anderson has demonstrated that he is a very good coach blending talent this year.

it is nice to look forward to a St. John's game expecting a win
 
Spot on Panther!  I'd like to add that it was only about two weeks between the first game of the season and the first conference game.  Typically you have about 7 weeks or so between your first game and the start of conference play.  That is not a lot of time to integrate a lot of new pieces into the puzzle and develop chemistry.

We are ahead of where I thought we would be and there still is quite a bit of room for further growth.  Consistency is the next step and we have started to build that foundation.
 
We also have to be realistic in that our next 9 games are not going to be easy at all.   Playing Nova twice, who appears to be the class of the league by a wide margin, Xavier (who has beaten us 12 times in a row), Seton Hall and UCONN (their revenge game), we will learn a lot about this team.   

All we can say with certainty is our guys have grown a lot over the last 5 games and will be a tough out for any opponent.    We will know a lot more over the next 4 games (Nova, Providence, Butler, Xavier)   At first glance 2-2 would be great. 
 
I will add one note to Panthers great post. Prior to this season for a few years the opposition was able to say, stay within five or seven points of SJU at the five minute mark and they will blow it. Some of those SJU teams had talented scorers like LJ and Heron but in crunch time again and again SJU would blow the lead.
While this team is younger than those prior teams the opposition can no longer count on SJU taking ill advised shots at the end of games and they have players who are not afraid to take that shot or create a play.the 
 
Enright" post=416126 said:
I will add one note to Panthers great post. Prior to this season for a few years the opposition was able to say, stay within five or seven points of SJU at the five minute mark and they will blow it. Some of those SJU teams had talented scorers like LJ and Heron but in crunch time again and again SJU would blow the lead.
While this team is younger than those prior teams the opposition can no longer count on SJU taking ill advised shots at the end of games and they have players who are not afraid to take that shot or create a play.the 
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Somewhat true, however, we are only a few games removed from the debacle at the end of the first Marquette game.  But I agree, we look to be getting better at end of game execution.
 
Delaware" post=416135 said:
Enright" post=416126 said:
I will add one note to Panthers great post. Prior to this season for a few years the opposition was able to say, stay within five or seven points of SJU at the five minute mark and they will blow it. Some of those SJU teams had talented scorers like LJ and Heron but in crunch time again and again SJU would blow the lead.
While this team is younger than those prior teams the opposition can no longer count on SJU taking ill advised shots at the end of games and they have players who are not afraid to take that shot or create a play.the 
Click to expand...
Somewhat true, however, we are only a few games removed from the debacle at the end of the first Marquette game.  But I agree, we look to be getting better at end of game execution.

There is so much parity in the Big East this year, as has been mentioned before. You got Nova, then Creighton, then the rest of the conference. Oftentimes the difference between being a middle of the pack team, and a bottom of the pack team, is how you finish these kinds of games. Right now, we are playing like a solid middle of the pack team. Not expecting a win on Wedneday, just looking to stay competitive. But ya never know. 
 
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panther2" post=416071 said:
After yesterday's win, we are two  thirds of the way through our season with an 11-7 record and 5-6 in the Big East. To say that this season has been challenging, would be an understatement. From the lack of full scale summer workouts to pre season conditioning, everything has been turned upside down.

Let's take a realistic look at things. We have five players in our rotation, Alexander, Wusu, Cole, Moore, and McGriff who haad never played a D1 game previously. In the best of times, it is difficult to work five new players into your system aand this definitely is not the best of times. With the exception of Dunn, our returning players Josh, Greg, Marcellus, and Julian really had 1 year of "playing" experience. The out of conference schedule was reduced giving the staff less time to put all of the pieces together.

Yes, there have been some down moments this season. We basically let one player on Seton Hall's team beat us by himself. The first Georgetown and Marquette games were winnable. However, we have won 5 0f our last 6 games with road wins at Marquette and UCONN.

In regards to Coach Anderson, last year he lost Heron during the season and a lot on here predicted doom. However, he was able to insert Greg Williams into that spot and he performed very wel while the team got better as the season progressed. This year, Greg, our 2nd leading scorer, goes down with a back injury. Wusu and Cole are there to take up the slack. Ours is not a team of Superstars, but it is a "Team", that is playing well right now.

In regards to recruiting, last year the staff landed Julian, the leading scorer in the Big East. This year they landed Alexander, Wusu, Cole, and Moore. I doubt if any team in the Big East is getting as much production from first year D1 players as St Johns. Looking at a previous post by Amaseinyourface, is there another Big East team getting the production from their freshman that we are. Everyone, myself included, wants top 50 recruits but we have to remember, this is not the 80's or 90's where most players stayed in college for four years. Now, top players all ask, how can your program help me get to the next level.

Recruiting from scratch which is basically what Coach Anderson had to do, is about building a foundation. A top 50 recruit, and those around him, have to be able to look at the program and see a team and players that they want to play with, and a staff that has helped their players get better. In Julian, Posh, and Wusu Coach Anderson has a foundation.

Coach Anderson can now go after a top 50 class of 2022 big man and state, if you come to St Johns, the pieces are in place for you to showcase your talent. This doesn't happen overnight, it is a process. For anything to be successful, a solid foundation is needed. Coach Anderson and staff have our foundation in place.

As for next year, aside from Dunn and Toro, all of our rotation players should return.

Now it is time to enjoy the rest of the season beginning with Nova on Wednesday evening.

My Dear Panther 2
The overwhelming amount of "thank yous" indicate what a fine, insightful and persuasive post who shared with us! You "verbalized" what many of us have felt:

-believing in Mike Anderson and the slow and steady progress he and his staff have been making.
-Alexander, Wusu, Pinzon and Traore are the talented local kids we hoped for.
-He has begun to build up our infra-structure of recruiting. 
-together with our new President, Athletic Director and Head Coach - we are off in a successful direction!
-And the ultimate blessing/silver lining of decades of mediocrity is the genuine fun and satisfaction we will have as the Red Storm establishes itself as a place to be!
-We are relevant and are becoming even more so with each passing season.
-we are a New York team and should be one of the best! that's who we are: winners in sports and in life; that's why the losing crap of the past decades has hurt so much; it goes against our innermost human grain.

Blessings and thank you Panther2 AND to  all those who make St. Johns sports possible!

 
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Once again, Nova has played only 6 games when some teams have played 12-13.  They'll be caught yet and have a ton of games still to play.  Let's be the team that catches them.
 
I think there is so much that goes into how to view this season and the improved play of the team. First and foremost the collective staff have again proven that there is a reason why Mke Anderson has had such a good track record in his years as a head coach. He gets players and coaches to buy in and work hard. There is growth and improvement over the course of a season and insight into how to make that happen. Without specifically criticizing past coaches, this has not always happened here at St. John's. In the past there have been many seasons where expectations were high at the beginning but as the season wore on positive results diminished and hopes were dashed.

Many things have improved during our past six games but I specifically want to highlight three point defense here. Over our last six games. we  have given up 33 made threes (an average of 5.5 per game). Over our first dozen games we gave up 109 made threes (an average of 9.1 per game). The adjustments by the staff and the players to effectively defend the three point line have been outstanding. They have done this while remarkably also improving the interior defense. The effort and performance of the players can't be minamilized here. They are bringing it every game now and this should be celebrated.

The bottom line for me is that with Mike Anderson at the helm there is good reason for optimism that we will continue to grow and improve as a Program. 
 
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