(POST GAME) (MSG) Villanova, Tue., Feb. 8 , 8:30p, FS-1

[boo haarvey]

How does the guy who was hot the whole game and carried you not get a touch down three with 20 seconds to go and we have the ball??????

Coburn got a great look.  Not going to get a better opportunity at that point in the game.  


 

Sorry but no.  Coburn air balled and bricked his shots (not as bad as Mathis but still) except the second free throw he hit.  Your hottest player has to get a touch or at the very least looked at.  They had the time to do it.

Comparing Coburn’s shooting to Mathis is nonsense.  As an initial matter, I don’t recall Coburn shooting an air ball, I believe that was Smith.  But I’ll concede he did miss all of his threes today, but so what.  He’s one of the team’s two best shooters and he was wide open with 12 seconds left.  The shot nearly went down.  Playing the odds, that’s about the best look you can get in that scenario.  As hot as Wheeler was, I’d much prefer that shot to Wheeler shooting a contested three.  If Coburn passed up that shot, this Board would have crucified him.

In any event, that last shot was not the reason we lost the game.

 

[SJU85]

We have not had our "big 3" all playing well in any game during BE platy that I can recall.  That would be a great trio, if we could get to that point, but not sure it will happen since it hasn't.  Obviously injuries have been a part of that, but not clomplertely in all instances.

That's all true but to be fair until Wheeler's emergence we didn't have a 3.

Injuries and illness are part of the game. What separates us from Villanova is that their bench players are starters in waiting, except for Pinzon Ours are rotation players that provide value.

Outside of Daniels, who is a very good sixth man and could be considered a starter, Nova does not have a bench.  It is short in terms of numbers and talent.  In 52 minutes, their bench scored 15 points, 7 Rebounds and one Assist.  Daniels accounting for 30 of those minutes, 13 of the points and all of the rebounds and the assist.  Maybe if Antoine could stay healthy but his most recent DNPs have been coach's decisions. 
 

 

[boo haarvey]

This team should clearly not be in discussion for an NCAA bid. For a team that was supposed to be good, they have not beaten a Big East team with an at or above 500 in conference record. Even if we were to make a run, our OOC schedule would do the team in. Last year while tge team finished 4th in conference, they didn’t get a bid due to that OOC schedule. When was the last time a 4th place Big East team didn’t make the Dance, if ever? 

if Cragg is cracked up to be as good as many believe him to be, how does he and Anderson allow this to happen? Then again, I have some real concerns with Cragg giving CMA an extension with a few red flags out there. 


 

Maybe it's because I wasn't around for 'good St John's teams'.  My memory only goes back to Sealy.  So I only had Sealy and the Artest OSU year.  St. John's hasn't been a tournament lock for 30 years.  In my wildest dreams, I thought we'd be a bubble team this year.  What a joy last year was to see Posh play great as a freshman and Champ develop.  But to think we'd return 3 players and be an NCAA lock given our history ... it was fool-hearty.   If we learned anything from the transfer portal our best bet is to go for players that have been coached up in a winning program but are not getting the playing time they want.  Going after mid majors and expecting them to make a job to big east play in year 1 is tough.  And taking players from losing schools with poor coaching (ala Rutgers) maybe something we should avoid. 

And let's be honest once we punted on Lavin we were never going to have the money to get a stud.  Mike Anderson was an amazing result compared to the other names we could have gotten.  Remember here were are options:

Described as pipe dreams:
Moser  - Currently struggling at OU
Hurley - Currently on the hot seat at ASU

Possibilities 
Ryan Odom - Bottom Half of the Mountain West
Tim Cluess (yikes) - I think he's retired from basketball
James Jones - still at Yale.  Still going to finish in the top 3 every year.
Paul Hewitt (yikes) - Last head coach gig in college was 7 years ago.

My personal pick was Shaheen Holloway.  I was ready to sign up for a coach that was younger and could deliver a top 3 in the MAAC that's how far we had fallen.


Mike Anderson was a gift.  So unless we can we know we have the funds to upgrade we'd be insane to go through the process again.

Sorry for ranting and going way off topic.  Maybe too many beverages during the Nova game. /media/kunena/emoticons/blink.png

Not defending Mathis but it’s not accurate to say that he did not play at a winning program or was not well coached.  Rutgers made the tournament last year and would have made it the year before if not for the pandemic.  Pikell had done a wonderful job

 

[beast of the east]

Beast of That's all true but to be fair until Wheeler's emergence we didn't have a 3.

Injuries and illness are part of the game. What separates us from Villanova is that their bench players are starters in waiting, except for Pinzon Ours are rotation players that provide value.

Beast, Nova has basically played a six man rotation for most of the year, with Arccy junior, Longino & Antione getting spot minutes. While it is fair to say Daniels could start for most any Big East team, the others are hardly starters in waiting. In fact Arccy & Antoine are juniors both averaging under 2 points per game. What separates us from this Nova team is not their bench, which is quite thin, it's that they make shots, including foul shots and are very good at getting their bigs good shots.  

 

Fair analysis.  I accept the correction.   Arci is a legacy player, not much more.  He's skilled but would be better with a low mid major than Nova.

 

[paultzman]

Injuries are all part of game making pre season standings predictions  and individual productivity often meaningless. You knew we depended on two returning best guys to play at max, but are very vulnerable when either out. It is a shame that a great kid like Julian has been out ill and plagued by injury issues. Sad to say he did himself no good returning here, but you never know with these things. His loss of reliable stroke is obvious problem, but his guarding on perimiter, a pro scout concern I’m sure, has been atrocious. Who knows what root cause is, but his quickness, lift on shots and rebounds & shooting are definitely way off.

Re transfers, you knew w free pass this year you were vulnerable in any case and under pressure to at least fill the resulting voids with players interested in coming here. In retrospect Wheeler was a plus, but overall the exchange of players was not. Team chemistry often trumps the value of individual pieces. Beat Hurley Sunday to keep the kids” heads up!

 

[SJU85]

How does the guy who was hot the whole game and carried you not get a touch down three with 20 seconds to go and we have the ball??????

Coburn got a great look.  Not going to get a better opportunity at that point in the game.  



 

Sorry but no.  Coburn air balled and bricked his shots (not as bad as Mathis but still) except the second free throw he hit.  Your hottest player has to get a touch or at the very least looked at.  They had the time to do it.

Comparing Coburn’s shooting to Mathis is nonsense.  As an initial matter, I don’t recall Coburn shooting an air ball, I believe that was Smith.  But I’ll concede he did miss all of his threes today, but so what.  He’s one of the team’s two best shooters and he was wide open with 12 seconds left.  The shot nearly went down.  Playing the odds, that’s about the best look you can get in that scenario.  As hot as Wheeler was, I’d much prefer that shot to Wheeler shooting a contested three.  If Coburn passed up that shot, this Board would have crucified him.

In any event, that last shot was not the reason we lost the game.

The comparison between Coburn and Mathis was concerning their performances last night where neither could hit water if they fell out of a boat in the middle of the ocean. Mathis shot 1 for 14 and Coburn 0 for 6 with both missing threes and zero footers and in Mathis' case everything in between. But sure, we want the guy who at that point who was 0 for 5 including (0 for 2 from the three) take the three point shot down three with more than 10 seconds to go on the clock than the guy who had 31 points including (6 of 10 from the three).  You have to at least look in his direction to see if his available, there was enough time to do so.

You don't get points for shots that nearly went down, only for those that do.

 

[beast of the east]

Injuries are all part of game making pre season standings predictions  and individual productivity often meaningless. You knew we depended on two returning best guys to play at max, but are very vulnerable when either out. It is a shame that a great kid like Julian has been out ill and plagued by injury issues. Sad to say he did himself no good returning here, but you never know with these things. His loss of reliable stroke is obvious problem, but his guarding on perimiter, a pro scout concern I’m sure, has been atrocious. Who knows what root cause is, but his quickness, lift on shots and rebounds & shooting are definitely way off.

Re transfers, you knew w free pass this year you were vulnerable in any case and under pressure to at least fill the resulting voids with players interested in coming here. In retrospect Wheeler was a plus, but overall the exchange of players was not. Team chemistry often trumps the value of individual pieces. Beat Hurley Sunday to keep the kids” heads up!

It's a reasonable discussion to say whether Julian should have returned.  Sonny Vaccaro maintains that Felipe Lopez, had he left after his freshman year, would have been a lottery pick.   

I do think Felipe is a totally different consideration.  Nationally renowned and regarded with a best is yet to come expectation.  Julian's brother graded out higher that Julian as a soph, and still went undrafted.   Very strong likelihood that had JC left, he would not have made an NBA roster, at least this season.

Having said that, his unevenness this season has been a nightmare for him.  Every subpar performance drives him further from the NBA draft.

IMO, he'd be far better off to regroup, work on his game all summer, and return for a senior year where he just may play himself back into the draft.    I've never asked about this, so it's purely speculative on my part.  I do believe that 4th and 5th year players are providing backbone for top college programs, and as such, are getting noticed more than playing overseas..  

 

[we are sju]

Soriano does have a skill set. Need to get him some touches down low.
Swap Smith for Mathis

Still can’t believe Wheeler had a DNP-CD this year. Anderson has his favorites and seems to gain and lose trust with other guys nightly.

Did last year with guys and doing it this year.

 

[Demo]

Soriano does have a skill set. Need to get him some touches down low.
Swap Smith for Mathis

Still can’t believe Wheeler had a DNP-CD this year. Anderson has his favorites and seems to gain and lose trust with other guys nightly.

Did last year with guys and doing it this year.

Soriano has a skill set but he doesn't know how to play big/strong. He looks weak out there against competition. Perhaps because he hasn't played at this level? Not sure but he needed this full year under his belt and hopefully he gets it for next year. Going up strong when you 6'11" is a skill set he can develop and turn those easy two foot shots into baskets.

 

[Demo]

Mathis going 1-14 is just pathetic. He hasn't shown me that he deserves starting minutes. 

 

[MainMan]

I agree

 

[MainMan]

I would have preferred a double pump triple-teamed shot from Wheeler over the clean shot from Coburn last night.

This was notJordan passing off to Steve Kerr.

Smithhad no idea what he was doing and just gave it to the guy closest to him.

 

[mm52]

 

Not defending Mathis but it’s not accurate to say that he did not play at a winning program or was not well coached.  Rutgers made the tournament last year and would have made it the year before if not for the pandemic.  Pikell had done a wonderful job

I'll defend Mathis a bit.  He, like everyone, is very inconsistent.  He has had some good games for us and was lauded on this board.  And while he had a horrific shooting game, when he was in at the ending minutes of his game, his defense was spot on and he hit one or two shots which was needed.

bottomline is that Stef never became the secondary ballhandler we needed, and is an achilles heel when Posh is out.

 

[NCJohnnie]

Criticizing the shot Coburn took at the end makes no sense to me. He is a 38% shooter from three, had a great look, the shot looked good and was by no means a brick. I'd take that same play again in a heartbeat. Nova wasn't going to let Wheeler get a good look in that situation. It was all the missed bunnies and assorted bricks we threw up all game that beat us.

 

[SJU Double Alumn]

Can't win when your team misses 17 layups in a game
Should have won this game, even without Posh and a limited Champ
Wheeler was great again - we really need him back next season

I'm not sure what some people here expected. We played one of the best teams in the Big East without Posh and with Champ struggling all year, and we took them to the wire. Let's see if we can get healthy and make a good run to end the year and in the BET.

 

[kranmars]

Wheeler going off reminds me of Rowan Barrett doing the same late in his senior year.

Too little too late.

At the very least SJU should keep tabs on Wheeler when he has kids. We do not want a Rowan Barrett repeat of RJ.

 

[RedStormNC]

Agree...no need to blame loss on Coburn.  Clean shot, close and as NCJ noted we had a 38% chance of it going in.  

This loss should be attributed to 10 other factors.
 

 

[beast of the east]

Criticizing the shot Coburn took at the end makes no sense to me. He is a 38% shooter from three, had a great look, the shot looked good and was by no means a brick. I'd take that same play again in a heartbeat. Nova wasn't going to let Wheeler get a good look in that situation. It was all the missed bunnies and assorted bricks we threw up all game that beat us.

 

Agree 1000%.   You always want to feed the hot hand, so I understand the hindsight view that Wheeler should have had the ball.   Coburn was on the floor because he can knock down threes.   He got a good look.  His shot rimmed the basket and out.   Wheeler likely would have gotten tons of attention,so he would likely have been forced to shoot further from the basket.

Also agree with the obvious view that our guys missed a ton of relatively easy makeable shots.

 

[NCJohnnie]

Aaron Wheeler's updated stats to date:

21 mpg, 9.6 ppg, 4 rbds. 1 block shooting 50% from the field, 41% from three and 69% from the line and those stats are considerably better in Big East play. While I agree that the transfers in have not been better overall than transfers out that is mostly because of the dropoff from Williams & Dunn to Mathis & Smith. Moore had lots of talent but was apparently a head case and wasn't coming back under any circumstances. Wheeler & Soriano are keepers and have the opportunity to be key starters next year along with Posh & Wusu. I look forward to these guys continuing to get better together and giving us some wins between now and year end and hopefully a run in the BET.  Yes, this year has been a disappointment to date but I don't think anyone saw Champ's struggles coming. Absolutely critical that CMA gets a difference maker from the portal, one who can shoot it. 

 

[Redzing1969]

1)Champ decision to come back is on him . He is who he is! He gets exposed wherever he plays be it here or G league or NBA. He needs a lot of defensive improvement and much more offensive consistency. Too many games where he can’t get a shot off. Footspeed needs lots of improvement. You have to Create your own shots in NBA. He’s got huge potential but……