(PRE-GAME) Fairleigh Dickinson, Sat., Nov. 20, 6p, FS-2

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Knight

Knight

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Will be shocked if we don’t win big. FDU starts 2 first year kids from Montréal whom I know only too well. The big man Pierre Olivier is a tad slow and not overly athletic. The pg is very quick, a good shooter and very smart. However Posh should give him fits, I doubt he has ever played against anyone similar to Posh. Two years ago he was deciding between Northeastern and Holy Cross but then COVID came. He went to McGill and was  still practicing with the team this summer. 
 
We will destroy FDU.  They are horrible. It just sucks because we will learn nothing about the team and it wont help us a lick in preparing for Kansas.  St johns screwed the pooch by scheduling all these cupcakes.
 
They were picked 9th in the NEC preseason poll (out of 10).  They've played 2 games, against Seton Hall and Northwestern, and were non-competitive in both.  Another at Drexel was postponed, due to a mechanical issue with the team bus (that might be their wisest strategy tomorrow).

No excuse to not win easily.  Not going to put a point total on it, but let's not sweat this one out, please.
 
I saw a portion of a Farleigh Ridiculous game the other day
They are terrible and, IMO, are between Miss Valley State & St Peter's in ability
Should be another cake walk
Nice to build up our record but doesn't make us more prepared to play good teams
 
They just lost by 36 to Northwestern yesterday. It's going to be an ugly meaningless win on Saturday. Sure guys may get some confidence back...and we'll see Coburn and Wheeler and Soriano have better games. Yet until the Kansas game we are going to get 20-40 pt wins that mean nothing.
 
Duke of Earlington post=443119 said:
We will destroy FDU.  They are horrible. It just sucks because we will learn nothing about the team and it wont help us a lick in preparing for Kansas.  St johns screwed the pooch by scheduling all these cupcakes.

 
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and it's frustrating to see all these other schools participating in tournaments this weekend and next week that would have provided us with opportunities to play better teams.  By example, Xavier will play 5 games against P6 conferences; Butler 6; SH 4; us only 3.
 
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Agree with all the frustration about OOC schedule, but we won't know till later in the season if this is a means to an end(getting the kids to learn the system), or just a case of padding our win total against cupcakes. I'm willing to wait it out and see what happens before passing judgement. 
 
mm52 post=443138 said:
Duke of Earlington post=443119 said:
We will destroy FDU.  They are horrible. It just sucks because we will learn nothing about the team and it wont help us a lick in preparing for Kansas.  St johns screwed the pooch by scheduling all these cupcakes.


 
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and it's frustrating to see all these other schools participating in tournaments this weekend and next week that would have provided us with opportunities to play better teams.  By example, Xavier will play 5 games against P6 conferences; Butler 6; SH 4; us only 3.
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This is why I am saying that we will need to kill it in conference in order to GUARANTEE ourselves an NCAA tournament bid. 11 - 9 in conference even in a strong Big East will not guarantee us anything with such a weak OOC schedule. Maybe 11 - 9 might be ok if we sweep Villanova or something like that. Otherwise we need 12, 13, 14 wins in conference and a top 4 finish plus a couple of BET wins to get in. If we are a bubble team after the BET we will not get it in. The Committee will punish the weak schedulers. The Big East winning the Gavitt Games against the Big 10 definitely helped raise the metrics for the Big East Conference as a whole which definitely helps us but I still think 11 - 9 in conference is a little light considering our weak OOC schedule. But, this is the position that Cragg and Andersen have put the team in. We have nothing to complain about if we wind up 22-11 after the BET and we don’t get in. I don’t think we can be a double digit loss team with our schedule and still get in.
 
Emily Dickinson University will provide no test against St. John's University, except maybe in the literature department.
 
BrookJersey Redmen post=443156 said:
Emily Dickinson University will provide no test against St. John's University, except maybe in the literature department.
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"Maybe"?? /media/kunena/emoticons/wink.png
 
BrookJersey Redmen post=443156 said:
Emily Dickinson University will provide no test against St. John's University, except maybe in the literature department.
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Its embarrassing.  im watching Marquette playing a big time game against West Virginia.  A game that will actually make them a better team.  And we will get nothing out of beating FDU by 30 points tomorrow.
 
mm52 post=443138 said:
Duke of Earlington post=443119 said:
We will destroy FDU.  They are horrible. It just sucks because we will learn nothing about the team and it wont help us a lick in preparing for Kansas.  St johns screwed the pooch by scheduling all these cupcakes.



 
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and it's frustrating to see all these other schools participating in tournaments this weekend and next week that would have provided us with opportunities to play better teams.  By example, Xavier will play 5 games against P6 conferences; Butler 6; SH 4; us only 3.
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The exempt event was where we came up short this year.  Only one major game out of it, which is Pitt.  Now, I know Pitt was supposed to be better when we scheduled it, but this is not one of the premiere events in the country.  If it had been an event with a good reputation, that just happened to have a poor field (like the Legends Classic did in Mullin's last year, though VCU turned out to be pretty good that year), then it would be more acceptable.  Don't expect this to change much, though.  Anderson's history suggests soft non-conference schedules.  I think there are three reasons for this:

1.  To preserve his record of non-losing seasons (which I actually think is the third biggest of these three reasons)

2.  He feels his players need to learn his defense, and gain confidence doing it.

3.  He hates losing so much, that he wants to avoid it as much as he can (I can certainly sympathize with his feelings, if this is true).

So, just get into a better exempt event next year, combined with the 2 conference challenges (assuming we play in both), and we should be fine. But, a killer non-conference?  I don't think it's ever happening under Anderson.

That being said, I will be there cheering on the team tomorrow night.  If we're going to play these guys (and other than MVSU, all of these so-called "soft" teams are at least somewhat local), I'd rather beat them by 30, then be involved in a dogfight with them.  Makes the stress level much lower.
 
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Ranked #330... 27 point favorites... ridiculous for the 4th game of the season. 5th game will be against #335 St. Francis. 6th game against #274 NJIT. 7th game against #2 Kansas. Who came up with the schedule this year (and last year... and most years for that matter)? Kansas meanwhile will face 3 solid opponents in their tournament before playing us.

This is both cowardly and idiotic scheduling and it can't happen again, especially when we have high expectations. The Big East may just bail us out this year by playing at an ABSURD level against quality competition, but it's so frustrating how this program continues making the same dumb mistake over and over again. We only lost 1 OOC game last year, came in 4th place in the Big East, and STILL didn't make the Tournament. That's because our OOC NET and lack of Q1 wins killed us. This is just basic stuff that every other Big East program has figured out.

That said, I'm very happy with how the season has gone thus far with the Big East. It's been fantastic watching the league excel this week. I'm also happy with how we played against Indiana (despite the loss). Ultimately I think we'll be fine and should make the Tournament, but it's unacceptable that we aren't giving the team every opportunity to prove themselves.

As for this game, one area we can improve upon last year is winning by 10+ points (to maximize NET). Last year we played a lot of OOC nail biters against mediocre competition and that killed our NET. Had we not squeaked by half of our OOC opponents I think we would've made the Tournament.
 
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When u play crap teams u pick up crap habits.  Playing FDU today will make us a worse basketball team regardless of the outcome.

And we will be less prepared for Kansas because of these next 3 games.
 
Duke of Earlington post=443213 said:
When u play crap teams u pick up crap habits.  Playing FDU today will make us a worse basketball team regardless of the outcome.

And we will be less prepared for Kansas because of these next 3 games.
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That’s a real simplistic way of looking at it. And I’ve been against the schedule this whole time. Still, a lot of things for us to work on and you can only do so much in practice. Losing would be a disaster. But take care of business 3 games in a row, build some momentum, and then take another crack at it vs a top 5 team. I’ll worry about the schedule again after our next loss. Whether that’s KU, today, or somewhere else down the road. 
 
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I don't know?

We all love Looie right?

Didn't Looie have year after year of Cupcake City, Baby!?

and Didn't we make a Tournament every single year (most-often NCAA) and didn't Looie get 22+ Ws, almost every year?

On the other hand, schedule better cupcakes, than Emily Dickinson, St. Peter's and NJIT, and especially no MVS's.
 
Loose loved the cupcakes. I don’t recall the years but he had a streak of over forty in a row at one point. And he has a statue.
 
Too much wining.
The schedule is what it is.
 
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