(POST GAME) (HofF@Mohegan Sun) Arizona St., Sat. Nov. 23, 2:30p, ESPN3, 570 WMCA

I got called for being negative in the game thread. ? Haha. That’s a real hoot. Have you read game threads at all. I’ve a helluva lot more positive than most.

By the way. Some of us have personal lives and people we have to take care of. Sorry if when I see something slipping away I choose to go out and get things done. Next time I’ll be sure to check with you superfan Eric.
 
Meanwhile Depaul beat BC to go 6-0, but PC getting pasted by Penn down 17 at halftime. I believe we'll bounce back tomorrow; whether we do or not will tell us a lot.
I thought Roberts might struggle a bit today, he was facing a pretty experienced athletic big in Lake. A learning experience.
 
[quote="Knight" post=364577]Williams played 9 minutes.[/quote]

Thanks. I do remember seeing him out there now.
 
Amazing the comments on this board some times. My two cents...Heron is not garbage, he’s just struggling. I believe he’ll bounce back, and I agree that we can’t win if he plays like this. And no, Auburn didn’t need Heron to leave so they could make the final four. Ridiculous.

When you call someone a piece of crap fan, that is a personal attack. Every day. Not sure why that’s so hard to understand.

In the 2nd half, we didn’t move the ball on offense (see next to no assists), we had lazy TO’s, did some chucking, our only big man was in foul trouble, and our two best players did nothing. Not sure any team overcomes that. The good news is that there will be better days. On to tomorrow.
 
Zach, in a nutshell

St. John's committed 12 turnovers in second half, allowed 60 percent shooting and made just nine shots from the field. #sjub

Figgy w three shots second half was also a killer
 
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[quote="Paultzman" post=364582]Zach, in a nutshell

St. John's committed 12 turnovers in second half, allowed 60 percent shooting and made just nine shots from the field. #sjub

Figgy w three shots second half was also a killer[/quote]

Second half defensive issues were where we could have fixed things. We don’t have offensive firepower. We need 100% defensive concentration and effort for a full 40 minutes and we will be in games.
 
[quote="Jnaw17" post=364581]Amazing the comments on this board some times. My two cents...Heron is not garbage, he’s just struggling. I believe he’ll bounce back, and I agree that we can’t win if he plays like this. And no, Auburn didn’t need Heron to leave so they could make the final four. Ridiculous.

When you call someone a piece of crap fan, that is a personal attack. Every day. Not sure why that’s so hard to understand.

In the 2nd half, we didn’t move the ball on offense (see next to no assists), we had lazy TO’s, did some chucking, our only big man was in foul trouble, and our two best players did nothing. Not sure any team overcomes that. The good news is that there will be better days. On to tomorrow.[/quote]

He disappeared alot last year, in our 2 biggest games this year (vs. Vermont & today) what did he do? He isn't a star player, star players don't just completely disappear in games, they might not have great games in every game, but they also just don't completely disappear.
What he is, is a good player.
A star player to be me is more like LJ.

Right now I'd say Champ is the second best player on the team, i know I'm crazy but i dont gotta say a thing. Just look at their game logs, they speak for themselves.
 
I've been positive but this was a gut punch. 2nd half was one of the worst halves of basketball I've seen us play in years (and that's saying ALOT) We lost for exactly the reasons everyone said we'd be bad in the pre-season.

-Who steps up when LJ & Heron are playing poorly?
-Will we have good enough PG play?
-Will we have enough size inside if Steere can't play?

The answers in this game were:

-Nobody (Perhaps a little push back from our extremely pleasant surprise Champagnie)
-Definitely not.
-Nope.
 
[quote="QueensBall" post=364585]I've been positive but this was a gut punch. 2nd half was one of the worst halves of basketball I've seen us play in years (and that's saying ALOT) We lost for exactly the reasons everyone said we'd be bad in the pre-season.

-Who steps up when LJ & Heron are playing poorly?
-Will we have good enough PG play?
-Will we have enough size inside if Steere can't play?

The answers in this game were:

-Nobody (Perhaps a little push back from our extremely pleasant surprise Champagnie)
-Definitely not.
-Nope.[/quote]

Did you watch us vs. Providence in either game last year? Can’t play much worse than we did in those games.
 
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[quote="Tom H O'Toole" post=364584][quote="Jnaw17" post=364581]Amazing the comments on this board some times. My two cents...Heron is not garbage, he’s just struggling. I believe he’ll bounce back, and I agree that we can’t win if he plays like this. And no, Auburn didn’t need Heron to leave so they could make the final four. Ridiculous.

When you call someone a piece of crap fan, that is a personal attack. Every day. Not sure why that’s so hard to understand.

In the 2nd half, we didn’t move the ball on offense (see next to no assists), we had lazy TO’s, did some chucking, our only big man was in foul trouble, and our two best players did nothing. Not sure any team overcomes that. The good news is that there will be better days. On to tomorrow.[/quote]

He disappeared alot last year, in our 2 biggest games this year (vs. Vermont & today) what did he do? He isn't a star player, star players don't just completely disappear in games, they might not have great games in every game, but they also just don't completely disappear.
What he is, is a good player.
A star player to be me is more like LJ.

Right now I'd say Champ is the second best player on the team, i know I'm crazy but i dont gotta say a thing. Just look at their game logs, they speak for themselves.[/quote]

You pick out 2 games from last year because the rest of the season doesn’t fit your argument. He averaged 14+ ppg on 44% shooting. Seems like he showed up and maybe should have been given the chance to shoot more.

Can’t argue with his play in 3 of the last 4 games...he hasn’t been good, but history says he’ll be much better as season rolls along. And we all know Julian is playing well, but your personal campaigning for him as you knock other players is a bit exhausting.
 
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[quote="QueensBall" post=364585]I've been positive but this was a gut punch. 2nd half was one of the worst halves of basketball I've seen us play in years (and that's saying ALOT) We lost for exactly the reasons everyone said we'd be bad in the pre-season.

-Who steps up when LJ & Heron are playing poorly?
-Will we have good enough PG play?
-Will we have enough size inside if Steere can't play?

The answers in this game were:

-Nobody (Perhaps a little push back from our extremely pleasant surprise Champagnie)
-Definitely not.
-Nope.[/quote]

All of that is lack of talent. An extremely
Inexperienced team unraveled the second half today. It’s going to happen at times. Need to keep improving and obviously grab more talent over time. We simply don’t have the horses.
 
Heron had a rough game but not the sole reason why the game was lost. Unless a viable 3rd option surfaces the conference basement awaits. More turnovers than assists by both point guards was the biggest red flag among many other deficiencies.

Need to bounce back tomorrow.
 
[quote="QueensBall" post=364585]I've been positive but this was a gut punch. 2nd half was one of the worst halves of basketball I've seen us play in years (and that's saying ALOT) We lost for exactly the reasons everyone said we'd be bad in the pre-season.

-Who steps up when LJ & Heron are playing poorly?
-Will we have good enough PG play?
-Will we have enough size inside if Steere can't play?

The answers in this game were:

-Nobody (Perhaps a little push back from our extremely pleasant surprise Champagnie)
-Definitely not.
-Nope.[/quote]

Teams will key on LJ and Heron all year and dare other guys to beat them. It’s not that hard to get in to Heron’s head and take him out of his game...all aspects of his game. It’s not as easy with LJ. Both are nice basketball players, but neither are studs who can always count on to take over a game when we need them. Unfortunately, after those 2 we have a bunch of decent role players who, if they’re having a good game, may drop 10-15 on an opponent. No one else is going to carry our team on nights when one of those 2 guys don’t. Heron is who he is, very up and down. I don’t see that changing this year, especially considering how teams can focus on him. Still think we can surprise some people, but we need to temper expectations.
 
[quote="Monte" post=364590][quote="QueensBall" post=364585]I've been positive but this was a gut punch. 2nd half was one of the worst halves of basketball I've seen us play in years (and that's saying ALOT) We lost for exactly the reasons everyone said we'd be bad in the pre-season.

-Who steps up when LJ & Heron are playing poorly?
-Will we have good enough PG play?
-Will we have enough size inside if Steere can't play?

The answers in this game were:

-Nobody (Perhaps a little push back from our extremely pleasant surprise Champagnie)
-Definitely not.
-Nope.[/quote]

Teams will key on LJ and Heron all year and dare other guys to beat them. It’s not that hard to get in to Heron’s head and take him out of his game...all aspects of his game. It’s not as easy with LJ. Both are nice basketball players, but neither are studs who can always count on to take over a game when we need them. Unfortunately, after those 2 we have a bunch of decent role players who, if they’re having a good game, may drop 10-15 on an opponent. No one else is going to carry our team on nights when one of those 2 guys don’t. Heron is who he is, very up and down. I don’t see that changing this year, especially considering how teams can focus on him. Still think we can surprise some people, but we need to temper expectations.[/quote]

Well said. This year will be the start of an overhaul, and developing our young guys. I agree with Moose here in terms of recruiting in that we do t really need another big guy desperately. We could use another wing scorer/best player available if we have another ship. This team needs more talent, and I like a lot of the young talent we have but not all will be starting-minutes type guys in the future.
 
[quote="MCNPA" post=364588][quote="QueensBall" post=364585]I've been positive but this was a gut punch. 2nd half was one of the worst halves of basketball I've seen us play in years (and that's saying ALOT) We lost for exactly the reasons everyone said we'd be bad in the pre-season.

-Who steps up when LJ & Heron are playing poorly?
-Will we have good enough PG play?
-Will we have enough size inside if Steere can't play?

The answers in this game were:

-Nobody (Perhaps a little push back from our extremely pleasant surprise Champagnie)
-Definitely not.
-Nope.[/quote]

All of that is lack of talent. An extremely
Inexperienced team unraveled the second half today. It’s going to happen at times. Need to keep improving and obviously grab more talent over time. We simply don’t have the horses.[/quote]

So when we play well and win it’s because the staff did a great job getting the kids prepared to play well, but when we loose it’s because of lack of talent? We won the first half and lost the 2nd half. We didn't play over our heads in the first half, and we were still up 9. We took a punch and came right back at them. That tells me we were not overmatched talent wise. We should not have had our wheels blown off in the 2nd half. You can argue that AS is more talented then us, but they are not significantly more talented then us. This loss falls on the kids and the staff, not on lack of talent.
 
I for one am not neg about heron when I pointed out that he had 2 bad games and we would need him to play better today in order to win just my o but I see him as an average BE player and he has not done anything so far to change that o it’s early so he has time to have some big games if he stays just average it will be a long season
Could this be mikes 1st losing season?
I haven’t decided yet if I am in favor of 40 min of hell thing to do this we need better athletes across the roster
Still looking ahead to the season We were pick last for a reason so we really need to do a lot to move up in the confr so far our position picked before season seems to be right all we can do is hope the team gets better rout for them Our Tim will come but it is not going to be the first yr with a new coach
 
[quote="Jnaw17" post=364587][quote="Tom H O'Toole" post=364584][quote="Jnaw17" post=364581]Amazing the comments on this board some times. My two cents...Heron is not garbage, he’s just struggling. I believe he’ll bounce back, and I agree that we can’t win if he plays like this. And no, Auburn didn’t need Heron to leave so they could make the final four. Ridiculous.

When you call someone a piece of crap fan, that is a personal attack. Every day. Not sure why that’s so hard to understand.

In the 2nd half, we didn’t move the ball on offense (see next to no assists), we had lazy TO’s, did some chucking, our only big man was in foul trouble, and our two best players did nothing. Not sure any team overcomes that. The good news is that there will be better days. On to tomorrow.[/quote]

He disappeared alot last year, in our 2 biggest games this year (vs. Vermont & today) what did he do? He isn't a star player, star players don't just completely disappear in games, they might not have great games in every game, but they also just don't completely disappear.
What he is, is a good player.
A star player to be me is more like LJ.

Right now I'd say Champ is the second best player on the team, i know I'm crazy but i dont gotta say a thing. Just look at their game logs, they speak for themselves.[/quote]

You pick out 2 games from last year because the rest of the season doesn’t fit your argument. He averaged 14+ ppg on 44% shooting. Seems like he showed up and maybe should have been given the chance to shoot more.

Can’t argue with his play in 3 of the last 4 games...he hasn’t been good, but history says he’ll be much better as season rolls along. And we all know Julian is playing well, but your personal campaigning for him as you knock other players is a bit exhausting.[/quote]

Lol i dont have to say anything.
Just look at the game logs says he's the 2nd best player on the team.
 
Watched game on delay. Game turned around on three completely unforced TO's in second half that allowed ASU to get back six points with no effort from a 9-point lead that SJU spent 30 minutes building. Rutherford gets pocket picked dribbling in front of his defender, then Dunn does same thing then Heron's passto a missing man goes backcourt and OOB. Boom most of lead gone, energy and confidence gone and from there it was straight to a 4 point deficit which grew for the rest of the game. I really believe that without those mindless giveaway we could have continued to trade punches with them and either held the lead or at least been in a tight game down to the end. We just can't give a good team 6 no effort points in a back and forth battle and have it come out well. Our pg's do way too much dribbling with no objective with a defender in their face given that neither of them has a truly great handle. They need to bring the ball up and when their defender closes, give it up and start the ball moving. Those pointless turnovers are killers. The traveling call that negated Heron's spin move bucket was also a killer. It looked like just what he needed to get his confidence back and maybe get on a bit of a roll and boom, it was taken away, Instead ASU's point guard found his confidence, scored 11 in a row and carried them right past us. I was also surprised Coach did not call a timeout during the 11-0 stretch that turned the game around.
 
[quote="Monte" post=364592][quote="MCNPA" post=364588][quote="QueensBall" post=364585]I've been positive but this was a gut punch. 2nd half was one of the worst halves of basketball I've seen us play in years (and that's saying ALOT) We lost for exactly the reasons everyone said we'd be bad in the pre-season.

-Who steps up when LJ & Heron are playing poorly?
-Will we have good enough PG play?
-Will we have enough size inside if Steere can't play?

The answers in this game were:

-Nobody (Perhaps a little push back from our extremely pleasant surprise Champagnie)
-Definitely not.
-Nope.[/quote]

All of that is lack of talent. An extremely
Inexperienced team unraveled the second half today. It’s going to happen at times. Need to keep improving and obviously grab more talent over time. We simply don’t have the horses.[/quote]

So when we play well and win it’s because the staff did a great job getting the kids prepared to play well, but when we loose it’s because of lack of talent? We won the first half and lost the 2nd half. We didn't play over our heads in the first half, and we were still up 9. We took a punch and came right back at them. That tells me we were not overmatched talent wise. We should not have had our wheels blown off in the 2nd half. You can argue that AS is more talented then us, but they are not significantly more talented then us. This loss falls on the kids and the staff, not on lack of talent.[/quote]

We came out strong and played strong in the first half, but we also had a huge drought. We don’t have the same talent level. There a gap there. We lucked out because they started cold as well.

Second half we had a ton of breakdowns. I still don’t think our coaching was much different. Our kids wore down and the guys that were executing in the first half, didn’t quite as well in the second.

They had guys like Remy Martin, White, amongst others who have experience and were top 70 kids. They’ve gone to ncaa’s last few seasons.

There is a significant talent gap right now. The second half certainly came down to lack of execution on our players parts. No doubt about it. That said, we have majority of our team who has nary stepped on the court against an upper conference D1 team. Earlington, Roberts, Caraher, Williams, Champagnie are all total noobs. Rutherford and Dunn while competent aren’t in Remy Martin’s stratosphere. We have a juco in LJ and one highly ranked kid in Heron and trying to get it all done with them.

I think we have some talent here but what we do have is very young and inexperienced and there’s a big gap after the first few players. Even our best 2 aren’t take-over type players. I think you’re underestimating the talent gap.

Will will challenge teams if we can overcome that by keeping effort up for 40 minutes per game and being smarter instead of breaking down like we did.
 
Overreactions are always popular after a loss. Yes, we lost 3 starters from last year's NCAA team, but don't buy the premise that we are all that talent challenged. LJ & Heron are clearly top 10 BE talent; Champagnie & Roberts, regardless of how highly ranked, are also clearly quite talented and Dunn, despite having a bad game today, is a BE starting level talent. Steere is reportedly a power conference level significant contributor. Heron, Dunn & Roberts all had differing levels of off games today. I'd guess coach might say it was also not one of his best games. It happens; a learning experience. I expect us to bounce back tomorrow and will be surprised if that is not the case. Don't think it's a stretch to expect this team to go 9-4 or 10-3 non conference and 6-12 or 7-11 in BE. NIT is a realistic goal imho.
 
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