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

Was quite disappointed last night so didn't bother logging in when we got home and just read through the numerous comments.  My takeaway is one I said earlier---Posh Is God!  
We missed Posh in many ways last night.  #1--Mathis does not play 28 minutes; he averaged 19/game versus Butler and Hoyas, but Posh's 32 had to be shared.  #2--Dylan's 36 minutes were too many but for Posh factor.  His assists are more on the outside-he couldn't get ball down low to Soriano, something Posh was doing lately.
Team was also hurt by the Gtown game that was a makeup from earlier causing them to play 4 games in a week with a 2-city road trip to DC and Indy.
 
lawmanfan post=456668 said:
Proud Alumn post=456664 said:
Our offense is the furthest thing from a just go one-on-one and make a play approach.


 

Agree that I overstated it a bit but I disagree that it's the "furthest thing."  We aren't exactly running the Bobby Knight Indiana offense - far from it.

 


That may be true but this team moves the ball pretty well.  They lead the Big East going away in assists per game and assist to turnover ratio.  Only Marquette is even close in either stat.  Quite a few of those 87 missed layups last night also came from what would have been assists.  So yeay, they're not running some complicated hi/lo post offense but they are showing greater understanding of many offensive principles than I recall from the past couple coaches who both leaned much more heavily towards the NBA/Cal style one on one drive and dish style of play.  I'm not going to index the Assists per game with pace of play but I will say that having abou5 50% or more assists per game than all but 5 of the other teams in the conference is pretty good.  This team just can't shoot from 3-25 ft.  LOL
 
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The team works the ball , shares the ball and doesn’t take forced shots. They just can’t put the ball thru the hoop and that has been a problem forever
 
They played hard last night and never quit.  I don't put too much into the comeback late as Villanova was REALLY careless.  And Raftery made a good point that Nova has a habit of doing that.  

But this season has been a failure so far. There is no way to overstate that.  The expectations come with the job and you can't have it both ways.  You can't give kudos to the staff when they go above expectations and not when they fail to live up to them.  

Asking to beat Nova yesterday without Posh was probably too much, but keep in mind even though Gillispie and Moore played for Nova neither did very much in terms of damage.

Also SJU got to play Providence without Reeves (at PC) and SHU without Aiken (at home) and they lost both games.  SJU has had the opportunity to benefit from other teams misfortunes and have simply not gotten it done.

Bottom line if they go 3 years, with no major NCAA investigation or sanctions, and can't make the NCAA's in one of those years then that is not a good job.  Is it a fireable offense, no not necessarily,  But that is not a good job.

And the biggest issue to me is not competence in coaching it is talent and the ability to procur it.  They are not recruiting and tapping the portal at a level that is commensurate with being a top level BE program.  That on the staff.
 
mm52 post=456574 said:
 
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.
Mathis’ defense is good - not great. As a point of reference, Justin Simon was a great defender who routinely shut down elite scorers. His defense entitled him to a pass on the rare occasion that he took a bad shot.

Mathis should be exclusively hunting garbage points. He cannot shoot from the outside and cannot score on drives. Under no circumstances should he ever be taking more than 5-6 shots per game, let alone 15. What was particularly egregious was him taking a 3 when he knew CMA was replacing him after having taken an impossible shot down low. CMA is usually pretty composed on sideline. He was pissed and let Mathis know it. Frankly, I was surprised he re-entered the game.
 
Beast of the East post=456603 said:
Fred Solomon post=456599 said:
Also,refs no doubt let Nova get away with lots of fouls. We never get a break against most opponents re foul calls. Not sure why. Also, except for last two games , our foul shooting has been abysmal. No excuse for that.So if you agree with my analysis about Nova fundamentals better than ours and our abysmal foul shooting, you can see a clear strategic coaching path that we are missing out on from our staff.We should NOT ever take shots without pump fakes and when creating inside position use our bodies more and misdirection fakes before committing to a shot. Passing needs to consistently have more purpose, not only occasionally. This all equals up to discipline by players, practiced and enforced by coaches!
Their guys ALL push off to create space on jump shots and definitely driving to the hoop.   
And never once called. Yet, when Champagnie drove baseline, offensive foul called. It was ridiculous. Was at game and haven’t watched replay as yet, but hard to believe that neither of Dixon’s hard fouls was not a flagrant (especially the 2nd one).
 
Bottom line is that the only guy that showed up on the offensive side of the court last night was Wheeler.  The rest of the team shot 22%!  You will never win a game when the entire team with 1 exception shoots 22%.  The fact that we were in it at the end is a miracle.  I had such excitement for this team..then the season started.  SMH
 
Section3 post=456689 said:
mm52 post=456574 said:
 
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.
Mathis’ defense is good - not great. As a point of reference, Justin Simon was a great defender who routinely shut down elite scorers. His defense entitled him to a pass on the rare occasion that he took a bad shot.

Mathis should be exclusively hunting garbage points. He cannot shoot from the outside and cannot score on drives. Under no circumstances should he ever be taking more than 5-6 shots per game, let alone 15.


 
I basically agree with that about Mathis.  I  did write elsewhere that, based on how Wusu and Mathis came out shooting from the start, the coaches were looking for one of them to catch fire to offset the loss of offense from Posh.  Unfortunately, neither shot well, nor did our other guards.
 
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matt105 post=456607 said:
Won the seat upgrade at the Garden last night . Ended up in second row behind basket next to Nova bench Tyrone Grant was in the row in front . Should have kept our regular seats in sect 118 because of view of the floor and loud shirtless Johnny fans in row behind us . When I was at SJU  ( 62-67 ) I would have been one of the shirtless guys along with Birdman bill Davidson . On another subject , it seemed like  the 3 second rule was suspended for Nova last night . Anyone tape the game ? If you did  could you check this out .
3 seconds should have been called at least 5 times.
 
Coaster post=456630 said:
jsk68/73 post=456628 said:
I also noticed that Villanova (when at home) runs the clock continuously when inbounding the ball after a made free throw by the the other team. I think this is done to shorten the game. They get away with it. 

They absolutely did it continuously when SJU played them a week/two ago. One player (Slater, I believe) had a bit of catch with the ref to make sure he checked it. The ref then gave him a talkin' to. But the refs last night would have none of that. They started counting them off almost immediately.

 
They actually received a delay of game warning
 
You guys have to really stop with the officiating stuff.

SJU won at Butler by 3, 75-72.  SJU shots 25 free throws to Butler's 5.  A 20 shot differential in favor of the ROAD team.  In addition SJU made 17 to Butler's 4 a 13 point difference in a game decided by 3 that SJU trailed for a large portion of that game.  I honestly don't remember anyone complaining how SJU got the better side of that whistle?  
 
Beast of the East post=456655 said:
RedStormNC post=456651 said:
Knight post=456646 said:

Saw on Twitter that 1500 tickets were given to NYPD

I don't know if you guys watching at home know. But sju honored the families of the murdered nyc cops during a timeout. A long applause and cheer followed which continued after detective Rivera's widow hoisted the ball high over her head both in honor of her hero husband and to our fans. Great moment and a classy move by our school.
Was a great and heart wrenching moment. Well done honor for one of our hero 1stvresonders, as usual, by SJ.
 
redmanwest post=456547 said:
It's been too long.

Tough game for Champ.  He got banged around good.  But, in the beginning of the game, he had to assert himself.  Rarely does.  Wheeler was unbelievable and hopefully continues to play at a high level.  Posh is the key to the team, but even with him, you can not win with the poor shooting (2, 3 and ft) that this team has.  And, poor shooting did not start this year, it has been many years.  
The dirtiest play in basketball is submarining a player already in the air and dealing with another defender.  The last time I saw it as bad as the play by Moore on Champagnie was an Army player submarining the late Hap Hairston in the NIT 3rd place game in 1964.  It almost cost Happy his  career.  My question is "why was the perpetrator of the dirty play against Julian still ambulatory at the end of the game?"  If you have a big middle linebacker on your roster you run plays for the middle linebacker that make the offense not want to try going near him again.  St. John's is the source for most of that style of keep it clean or else play as most of the coaching trees trace back to Coach Lapchick who was the master.  Sometimes you can't outrun an opponent.  You have to stand and fight.  I have not been as angry watching a game in a very long time.  Perhaps it is Posh who is our enforcer but someone else needed to step up and send a message and I am not talking about a heat of the moment skirmish.  There is a style of hard-nosed basketball that says this far and no further or there is a price to be paid.
 
Even if we get Posh back on Sunday we need Wheeler be on fire again to have a shot against UCONN and probably the rest of our games unless Champs snaps out of his shooting funk,. We have few other scoring options. I felt bad for Coburn. He had a good look, has a nice 3 point shot and it was pretty close. Just not meant to be. If we are just going to bomb shots, I would rather have him do it then Mathis. Losing Pinzon has been a disappointment as well. He was in the Indiana game at the end and would have been a heady player and would have gotten a lot better from playing.
 
fordham96 post=456696 said:
You guys have to really stop with the officiating stuff.

SJU won at Butler by 3, 75-72.  SJU shots 25 free throws to Butler's 5.  A 20 shot differential in favor of the ROAD team.  In addition SJU made 17 to Butler's 4 a 13 point difference in a game decided by 3 that SJU trailed for a large portion of that game.  I honestly don't remember anyone complaining how SJU got the better side of that whistle?  
Not saying that officiating was the cause for the loss but they absolutely got away with a lot more than us across the board - push offs, 3 seconds, et al.

20 missed layups is one of the root causes and is squarely on us - but officiating was, in no way, balanced.
 
fuchsia post=456700 said:
redmanwest post=456547 said:
It's been too long.

Tough game for Champ.  He got banged around good.  But, in the beginning of the game, he had to assert himself.  Rarely does.  Wheeler was unbelievable and hopefully continues to play at a high level.  Posh is the key to the team, but even with him, you can not win with the poor shooting (2, 3 and ft) that this team has.  And, poor shooting did not start this year, it has been many years.  
The dirtiest play in basketball is submarining a player already in the air and dealing with another defender.  The last time I saw it as bad as the play by Moore on Champagnie was an Army player submarining the late Hap Hairston in the NIT 3rd place game in 1964.  It almost cost Happy his  career.  My question is "why was the perpetrator of the dirty play against Julian still ambulatory at the end of the game?"  If you have a big middle linebacker on your roster you run plays for the middle linebacker that make the offense not want to try going near him again.  St. John's is the source for most of that style of keep it clean or else play as most of the coaching trees trace back to Coach Lapchick who was the master.  Sometimes you can't outrun an opponent.  You have to stand and fight.  I have not been as angry watching a game in a very long time.  Perhaps it is Posh who is our enforcer but someone else needed to step up and send a message and I am not talking about a heat of the moment skirmish.  There is a style of hard-nosed basketball that says this far and no further or there is a price to be paid.
Those were intentional hard fouls. Dixon showed no concern for the opponent on either of these plays. Kevin Williams would have hammered Dixon.
 
Let’s hope we meet in a third game in the BET.
 
Everyone has to forget about Champ returning.  He had a big foot out the door last year, and he's not coming back next year, even if his woes continue.  Hope not.

The love everyone shows Pinzon is a bit much.  As a Long Island guy, I would love to see Pinzon have a great career here, but give him a chance to get on the court for a year and let's see what we have.  IMHO it's too early to tell.

Wheeler going to the NBA is a bit of a pipe dream, because on his small sample size and one great game.  Agree he is skilled, but again, he needs to do it for a longer period of time.

The Mathis experiment offensively needs to end immediately.

We had better hope Posh is back here for the next 2 years, or.......
 
 
Andrew post=456703 said:
Even if we get Posh back on Sunday we need Wheeler be on fire again to have a shot against UCONN and probably the rest of our games unless Champs snaps out of his shooting funk,. We have few other scoring options. I felt bad for Coburn. He had a good look, has a nice 3 point shot and it was pretty close. Just not meant to be. If we are just going to bomb shots, I would rather have him do it then Mathis. Losing Pinzon has been a disappointment as well. He was in the Indiana game at the end and would have been a heady player and would have gotten a lot better from playing.

If everybody is healthy — a big if — we don’t need a career  performance from Wheeler  to win.  Heck, we had the game won at their place!
 
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