(POST-GAME) @Marquette, Tues. Feb. 5, 8pm, FS1 / 570AM

Fantastic win!!!

With a very few exceptions it looks like we are playing better as visitors.
 
MarkRedman wrote: NY Post article on Justin Simon
For you Simon "haters", he is an integral part of our team
His skills complement those of his teammates very well
He was one of the unsung heroes of last night's game


If you ask me, Justin is the best defensive player in the conference,” fellow junior Shamorie Ponds said. “We expected [this] out of him." Clearly his teammates understand his value. Happy to see him back on track offensively too.
 
So much easier waking up the next day for work after a win like that! I stayed up to see us on Sportscenter which was almost midnight...didn't get much sleep but worth it. Simply put, Simon is Howard's nightmare. The only times he was really able to shoot on us were the few times we left him wide open and gave him space. If Howard were 6'6, he would be a lottery pick. Thankfully for us he looks to be 5'8 or 5'9. Plays right into Simon's length.

Must have been a nice relaxing flight home after taking 2/3 on the hardest roadtrip of any team in the conference this year. It will be interesting to see how we respond to this big win. In the past we have sometimes put up several dud performances and lose a game like PC at home we have no business losing. We need to take care of business.
 
Just a really important win for us in terms of post-season and getting back on the right track after a brutal loss at Duke.

I am happy that Keita is starting to add a new element when he's in there, and added depth, and happy that Heron seems to be more comfortable.

Hopefully Trimble will be back soon so that we can have a full complement of players for the stretch.

If not for the few games that were stolen/blown, there would be more of a real separation between the top 3 BE teams and the rest of the pack. As it is, we are now in 3rd place. Let's keep it that way!
 
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I like how Simon and co. deferred to Ponds to close it out. That is what terrifies opposing coaches about us. Close game with the ball in the hands of the best player in the conference...who just happens to be our best FT shooter, ball-handler, scorer, and is capable of going 35+ minutes with just 1 turnover.
 
On the game thread, I unfairly called out Mean Gene, for impulsive game thread posts. I should not have done that. Apologies to Mean Gene.

Unfortunately, many are guilty of it.

My point is posters should be required to go back and read their emotionally charged game posts after a cooling off period. It may give some perspective on how you cone across to others.

I am not telling anyone to treat game threads like I do, and refrain from posting in them, because we would barely complete a one page thread. And that is boring.

But if all you are going to post is something to the effect of "(insert player's name) is worthless, and he costing us the game. This game is over. See you in the NIT," maybe you should not.

Anyway, lecture over.

We are...
 
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Last observation from me on the game...

I thought Keita played well and we needed it. If there is one thing he does as well or better than the average big man starter it’s defendig guards on the switch. He gives up the low % pull-up but gets in a deep stance to challenge the drive—which he can usually defend well and get a good chance at blocking if beaten. That seems to alter the shots of the guards and make them hesitant to do it again. It’d be nice if he starred to rebound better.
 
[quote="kranmars" post=320694]On the game thread, I unfairly called out Mean Gene, for impulsive game thread posts. I should not have done that. Apologies to Mean Gene.

Unfortunately, many are guilty of it.

My point is posters should be required to go back and read their emotionally charged game posts after a cooling off period. It may give some perspective on how you cone across to others.

I am not telling anyone to treat game threads like I do, and refrain from posting in them, because we would barely complete a one page thread. And that is boring.

But if all you are going to post is something to the effect of "(insert player's name) is worthless, and he costing us the game. This game is over. See you in the NIT," maybe you should not.

Anyway, lecture over.

We are...[/quote]

Great post and agree. We are so hard on each other as fans more so than any other team I root for by far, it's a weird dynamic. IMO emotional posts and hot takes are more entertaining than simply stating the obvious e.g. "we are not shooting well" but I need to improve as well. Of course we will be emotional with such wild games down to the last second, but I know we all mean well and we all want nothing more than to see this team succeed. We are brothers that fight but at the end of the day we need to stick together and unite for this program.
 
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I am an Oracle. I predicted that we would build up a nice lead and then hold on for dear life. My problem though is that is what I put in the Duke Pre-game thread, hoping against hope it would happen that way, Boy I was wrong then, but it happened last night.

Oddly, the other thing I facetiously put in the duke Post-game thread was "I blame it on the refs", again, applying that comment to last night's game works, I thought we got the wrong end of too many calls, and it almost cost us the game. One big exception: the Ponds three point call, that saved the game for us, it was going to be a desperation heave, and thank God the refs called it.

Let's beat Providence and Cooley, for a change, I hate losing to those guys. Too many first game BET outs against the Friars over the years.
 
So easy to say in a 1 point win that any play could have made the difference, but looking back now how huge was the end of half sequence of the Keita block and Simon finish? Great to see from 2 guys we needed to see start head back in a positive direction.
 
The trademark of this team has become the fact that they are amazingly inconsistent. Sometimes it happens from game to game and others it happens from half to half and then other times its possession to possession. On Saturday against Duke in parts of the first half they were right there and had the lead. All of a sudden some bad plays and the game devolves into a 2nd half blow-out. Last night the first half was strong and even a good part of the second half was fine. All of a sudden all hell breaks loose. Inconsistency can be said about a good number of our players. Simon played well for the most part last night yet in other games he has struggled. Ponds can be unbelievable and then he can look awful. Then of course he can bounce back and hit the game winning shot.

We can only hope they can find a way to level the ups and downs and become more consistent. SJU has some very "winnable) games against some decent teams. If they want to reach the goal of an NCAA bid now is the time to put it together.
 
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Beating anyone in this conference twice so challenging. Let alone with the second leg at their place, let alone when the opposing coaches are McDermott and Wojo. I thought they maybe had a 50% chance to win one in either Omaha (difficult place to play) or Milwaukee (where Marq hadn't lost all year), and l and would have been 2-0 at under 5%. Bad job by be and incredible job by staff and team to turn this season around in a week.

Seriously, sandwiching @Duke with @Creighton and @Marq might be the toughest 3 game stretch on the entire schedule. Add to it our backs were to the wall after the GTown game, to play 3 in 7 days on the road in those venues and pick up two Ws is amazing.

You don't see very often a 15 point lead turn into 1 around the 5 minute mark, take that punch and stretch it back out to 6, then have Marq come after you again and take a 1 point lead with 36 seconds left for the first time since it was 4-2 less than 2 minutes into the game...and you still win the game. Not to #10 in their building where they haven't lost all year. Taking two punches like that late and getting a W anyway, with two guys playing 40, is just straight up guts.

Have been critical of this staff's in game schema. But keeping a team stead and focused enough to do what they did this last week - after their 2 worst games of the year consecutively in Butler/GTown, having lost 4 of 5, and mixing the worst lost of the season to Duke in the middle - is a skill. You could have lost the team and this season after the GTown game and instead they did exactly the opposite. Maybe that's where having been to the dance at the highest level as players really does come into play, that ability to not get too high or too low, block everyone else out, and get laser focused on the next game.

8 left, 5 at home, no reason not to go 5-3 and leave no doubt about NCAA prospects going into BET at 22-9 / 10-8. A, maybe the, key now is to find consistency. Team has demonstrated it can play with and beat anyone in conference. If they bring 80% or more of what they brought to Marq last night 5-3 should not be much of a problem, they are better than most teams left on schedule but you have to bring it every night. If the Butler/GTown version returns, it could 3-5 without much problem.
 
I know I'm a little late but great win. If you told me we would get so little from three and the Clark would be scoreless I would think we get beaten handily. Fantastic team effort now we need to validate it on Saturday. Cannot follow up two conference road wins with another home loss.
 
[quote="kranmars" post=320694]On the game thread, I unfairly called out Mean Gene, for impulsive game thread posts. I should not have done that. Apologies to Mean Gene.

Unfortunately, many are guilty of it.

My point is posters should be required to go back and read their emotionally charged game posts after a cooling off period. It may give some perspective on how you cone across to others.

I am not telling anyone to treat game threads like I do, and refrain from posting in them, because we would barely complete a one page thread. And that is boring.

But if all you are going to post is something to the effect of "(insert player's name) is worthless, and he costing us the game. This game is over. See you in the NIT," maybe you should not.

Anyway, lecture over.

We are...[/quote]

No apologies needed Kranmars. I'm a street kid from Brooklyn, it takes a lot more than that to insult or upset me. I don't take any of this personal believe me. It's all good brother. We all just want this team to do well and we as fans of this program have suffered for far too long. Especially those of us who are old enough to remember the glory days. I've been a fan since the 1970's This team can be frustrating to watch at times because as MJ Dinkins says, They don't value every possession and are careless with the ball far too much at times. But, they never give up the fight and they are to be commended for that. They fought like hell last night especially on that second to last possession where they got like three offensive rebounds and Simon tipped the last one out to Clark I believe. That's the kind of effort we need out of them for forty minutes instead of them just gliding through games at times. If we can get that from them every game going forward there's no reason we cant go 6-2 in our last eight. Let's hope they take care of business from here on out. We are St. Johns!!!!
 
kranmars wrote: On the game thread, I unfairly called out Mean Gene, for impulsive game thread posts. I should not have done that. Apologies to Mean Gene.

Unfortunately, many are guilty of it.

My point is posters should be required to go back and read their emotionally charged game posts after a cooling off period. It may give some perspective on how you cone across to others.

I am not telling anyone to treat game threads like I do, and refrain from posting in them, because we would barely complete a one page thread. And that is boring.

But if all you are going to post is something to the effect of "(insert player's name) is worthless, and he costing us the game. This game is over. See you in the NIT," maybe you should not.

Anyway, lecture over.

We are...

Great post Kranmars. You are right many of us are guilty of negative posting during games, including yours truly. Point taken and hopefully improvement to follow.
 
I'll start off by saying GREAT resume building win.

-The second half felt like a fantasy football game where you had all your guys going in the 1pm games and built up a big lead and your opponent has all his guys going in the later games, and you're just hoping your lead stands at the end.

-I was reading the Marquette board and some over there think they were robbed lol. They claim Ponds pushed off on the game winning bucket, that his continuation And-1 was BS, and that the foul on Ponds' 3pt shot is "never called". I almost wanted to create an account there and remind them of the Creighton game where they hit the game tying 3 clearly after the buzzer sounded. Karma...

-Out of the remaining games I would definitely hope to get wins at home vs. Providence, Seton Hall, Butler, and Xavier. Villanova at home should be a win too considering how we played them over there, but I you never know. Then we have some real winnable road games @ Depaul, Providence and Xavier. I would say going 6-2 and ending up at 11-7 in conference and 22-8 overall before the Big East Tournament is very attainable. That should have us dancing at a minimum and if we make some noise in the BET could give us a solid seed.

-Justin Simon was awesome last night. As much as people talk about what Ponds did (he's awesome too) we don't win this game without Simon.

-On the other hand the lack of depth is absolutely killing us. Trimble being out didn't help. The players looked absolutely gassed at the end of the game, and it almost cost us.

-On to the next one. Let's get some revenge for last year's home loss to Providence.
 
Impressive how we didn't panic after the Howard 3 that could have totally deflated us. Ponds comes right back and drives beautifully. Ice in his veins. It brought a smile to my face to see Simon having fun again out there and I love his and 1 drummer routine! One thing I'd really like to see cleaned up is taking care of the ball better especially when we get a turnover. Too often it seems we see the ball loose, get excited and knock it back out of bounds or we steal it then don't notice defenders going to poke it lose then we turn it back over. If I'm Mullin, I'm telling them to treat the ball like a treasure. If you force a TO or get to a loose ball, make sure above all else that we have it under control before trying to score with it. I'd rather them slow it down a bit and take a good shot than try for an impossible alley-oop that goes out of bounds or a wild cross court pass or something that goes the other way.
 
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