(PRE-GAME) Wagner, Sat. Nov. 30, 12 Noon, FS-2, 570 WMCA

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Thanks for starting this now, Knight. I’ll be away for Thanksgiving weekend so my two tickets for this Saturday’s game are available. Please pm me if you’re interested. Go Johnnies!
 
[quote="Tonyinfairfield " post=364762]Thanks for starting this now, Knight. I’ll be away for Thanksgiving weekend so my two tickets for this Saturday’s game are available. Please pm me if you’re interested. Go Johnnies![/quote]

I am apparently far to confused how to send a PM, but I am interested if your tickets are still available. I haven't done the cold in about 25 years, but am leaving sunny Florida for Thanksgiving with family, and would love to visit CA for the first time in years.
 
Our win today was massive, and here's why: these tournaments in recent "rebuilding years" completely ended our momentum (and our seasons a week later). If we win against Wagner, then we'll have as many OOC wins as Mullin's second year (where we went 6-7 OOC). His first year we went 7-6 (one of them being a D2 win), and then years 3 and 4 we had very good OOC records (11-2 and 13-0.. we just couldn't follow them up with good BE performances).

Going back to those first 2 years, what really hurt us was these tournaments. They KILLED our momentum. Year 1 we started 3-0 (with a win over Rutgers), but then went 1-2 in our tournament with the only win being a close one against D2 Chaminade. After that we lost to some bad teams including Fordham (immediately after our tournament), Incarnate Word and NJIT.

Year 2 was even worse, We started 2-0 but then lost FIVE in a row, including going 0-3 during our Thanksgiving tournament. What really killed us was we lost our final Thanksgiving tournament game to Old Dominion, and then immediately after lost to Delaware St. Later we dropped games to LIU Brooklyn and Penn St.

Anyways, obviously our current roster has more talent than those teams so this is not a fair comparison. Still, starting 2-5 vs 5-2 is night and day and I'm convinced those tournaments badly hurt our confidence in recent rebuilding years. It was HUGE to win today and get to 5-2, going home with a solid record and remaining in good spirits. The team is doing fine and we are on a solid trajectory. Just keep playing hard and staying focused. No reason we can't aim for an NIT bid this year, or at least a .500 season.
 
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[quote="Ray Morgan" post=364848][quote="Tonyinfairfield " post=364762]Thanks for starting this now, Knight. I’ll be away for Thanksgiving weekend so my two tickets for this Saturday’s game are available. Please pm me if you’re interested. Go Johnnies![/quote]

I am apparently far to confused how to send a PM, but I am interested if your tickets are still available. I haven't done the cold in about 25 years, but am leaving sunny Florida for Thanksgiving with family, and would love to visit CA for the first time in years.[/quote]

Ray you should now be able to pm me and the tickets are still available.
 
Agree we are right on schedule with where we should be if CMA is a solid coach. Vermont and ASU were too much to ask this early in the season without Steere and not enough talent yet. Could've won both, but not there yet. Regarding in season tournaments, we have historically performed very poorly. Whenever there's the chance to meet "Insert huge brand like Virginia here" for the championship game, I know in my gut we almost certainly aren't getting there, just based on my time as a fan where it almost never happens. And when we finally did get to the championship round last year against VCU it took a favorable ref call and we won by the skin of our teeth. How long has it been since we won an in season tourney like we did last year? Decades? I don't count the Holiday Festival if that's even a tournament because the teams are almost always awful. And by the way, last year was awesome but VCU is a good not great program. We all know if it was Michigan State or Ohio State meeting us for the championship round last year we would've been killed.

I wonder if there's any reason for the poor tourney performances of the last few decades or at least the last decade. I just want to see everything click one of these years in one tourney then put an exclamation point on winning one against a major top 15 program. Winning these things early on is how you get ranked early.
 
[quote="Mike Zaun" post=365027]Agree we are right on schedule with where we should be if CMA is a solid coach. Vermont and ASU were too much to ask this early in the season without Steere and not enough talent yet. Could've won both, but not there yet. Regarding in season tournaments, we have historically performed very poorly. Whenever there's the chance to meet "Insert huge brand like Virginia here" for the championship game, I know in my gut we almost certainly aren't getting there, just based on my time as a fan where it almost never happens. And when we finally did get to the championship round last year against VCU it took a favorable ref call and we won by the skin of our teeth. How long has it been since we won an in season tourney like we did last year? Decades? I don't count the Holiday Festival if that's even a tournament because the teams are almost always awful. And by the way, last year was awesome but VCU is a good not great program. We all know if it was Michigan State or Ohio State meeting us for the championship round last year we would've been killed.

I wonder if there's any reason for the poor tourney performances of the last few decades or at least the last decade. I just want to see everything click one of these years in one tourney then put an exclamation point on winning one against a major top 15 program. Winning these things early on is how you get ranked early.[/quote]

Mike - The past ten seasons haven’t been great and our performance in pre season tournaments reflects this. We either lacked the talent or underperformed. We made three NCAA tournaments during this period and did not win a game. We also haven’t been to the finals of the Big East tournaments and I don’t believe we have escaped the quarterfinals more than twice in this period(could use some help here). VCU has been a very strong program the last ten years making eight NCAA’s, advancing past the first round three times and making the Final Four in 2011. I know making the Final Four would make us all ecstatic. I too would like to see us get a big win in the pre season against a Power 5 team that is ranked. If we want to become a more respected program we need to do that as well as being in contention for more NCAA tournaments and grab a few wins. I am pretty sure that is what we all want. All we can do is look forward and hope for the best. I do sense you are becoming more realistic and have a little more optimism. I will be 50 next year so I guess that puts me somewhere in the middle of the posters on here. I am old enough to remember a much stronger program but young enough that a significant portion of rooting for the program can drive me crazy as well at times. I hope that you get to see some more winning soon.
 
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Thanks Andrew, I hope the same for you as well and everyone else. I know it probably seems silly, but the single games where we beat Duke, Cuse 3x, #1 Nova, and even some ranked wins vs. Notre Dame and Cincy under Lavin really made my day. When we are winning major games like that, it feels amazing to take it all in because for that day or day after, we are in the national spotlight and nationally relevant. I think a few years ago over Thanksgiving break we played a ranked Michigan State team and came pretty close to beating them. To be honest even if we beat ASU, they're nothing special nationally. It just seems that even by pure chance/luck we would win more of these kinds of games than we have over the last decade. We have our moments, but we can't ever seem to string them together to have a wildly successful season. Perfect example, our Duke win was meaningless because we were awful to start the season that year. Imagine that game while already having a good season.

Sorry if I'm venting here, just gets frustrating doing so poorly in any tournament so consistently the past decade. I just want us to carry the banner for the Big East a bit and win some real impressive games every so often instead of feeling like DePaul's friend in the basement. Hope there's a big change with CMA.
 
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[quote="Mike Zaun" post=365032]Thanks Andrew, I hope the same for you as well and everyone else. I know it probably seems silly, but the single games where we beat Duke, Cuse 3x, #1 Nova, and even some ranked wins vs. Notre Dame and Cincy under Lavin really made my day. When we are winning major games like that, it feels amazing to take it all in because for that day or day after, we are in the national spotlight and nationally relevant. I think a few years ago over Thanksgiving break we played a ranked Michigan State team and came pretty close to beating them. To be honest even if we beat ASU, they're nothing special nationally. It just seems that even by pure chance/luck we would win more of these kinds of games than we have over the last decade. We have our moments, but we can't ever seem to string them together to have a wildly successful season. Perfect example, our Duke win was meaningless because we were awful to start the season that year. Imagine that game while already having a good season.

Sorry if I'm venting here, just gets frustrating doing so poorly in any tournament so consistently the past decade. I just want us to carry the banner for the Big East a bit and win some real impressive games every so often instead of feeling like DePaul's friend in the basement. Hope there's a big change with CMA.[/quote]

It does feel good to get extra media attention particularly during a good season.
 
Mike- going 0-2 was more likely than going 2-0, so 1-1 was a solid result. The odds of beating ASU were around 40% and then beating UVA would've been probably 20%. So winning both games would've been around 8%. Sticking with odds, we're very unlikely to be a tournament team this year, let alone a Top 25 team. We all like to think we're smarter than the analysts, but when everyone is against us more often than not they're correct. For me, I just want to have a respectable year with growth from our freshmen/sophomores and some good recruiting. So far we've done that.

We actually have helped out the league OOC the last couple years. Last year we had a 25 NET after our 12-0 start, which I agree wasn't flashy but still got us into the Tournament despite our 8-10 BE record. The prior year we also had a great OOC where we went 11-2 including the Duke win. The league had a very good year with 2 number 1 seeds and Nova winning the Title. Ironically that was in part due to us completely choking during Big East play and propping everyone else up. None of us wanted that as fans of St. John's first and the Big East second, but we certainly weren't a dead weight like DePaul.

I feel strongly that with CMA things will click for us, but this is a rebuilding year and won't be one in which we win tournaments. Take the split and hope that we can take care of business against teams like Wagner. That'd already be a BIG step up from recent rebuilding years.
 
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Tuesday, November 26th:

8:00 PM - Central Michigan at DePaul (71.3%) - FS1
9:30 PM - Stanford vs. Butler (79.6%), from Kansas City, MO - ESPN2

Discrepancy time, again. Butler "only" a 3 and a half point favorite, but BPI likes them more then that.

EDIT: Sorry, this was meant for the Big East thread. I'll copy, mods can take it off here.
 
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[quote="Adam" post=365040]Mike- going 0-2 was more likely than going 2-0, so 1-1 was a solid result. The odds of beating ASU were around 40% and then beating UVA would've been probably 20%. So winning both games would've been around 8%. Sticking with odds, we're very unlikely to be a tournament team this year, let alone a Top 25 team. We all like to think we're smarter than the analysts, but when everyone is against us more often than not they're correct. For me, I just want to have a respectable year with growth from our freshmen/sophomores and some good recruiting. So far we've done that.

We actually have helped out the league OOC the last couple years. Last year we had a 25 NET after our 12-0 start, which I agree wasn't flashy but still got us into the Tournament despite our 8-10 BE record. The prior year we also had a great OOC where we went 11-2 including the Duke win. The league had a very good year with 2 number 1 seeds and Nova winning the Title. Ironically that was in part due to us completely choking during Big East play and propping everyone else up. None of us wanted that as fans of St. John's first and the Big East second, but we certainly weren't a dead weight like DePaul.

I feel strongly that with CMA things will click for us, but this is a rebuilding year and won't be one in which we win tournaments. Take the split and hope that we can take care of business against teams like Wagner. That'd already be a BIG step up from recent rebuilding years.[/quote]

Right...I don't mean this year obviously I know we are rebuilding but just in general. Even when we have teams we think are going to really be able to compete and ready for the spotlight, we still do quite poorly in these in season tournaments or any tournaments really. That's what I was saying. I really hope CMA's teams can change that. Frustrating when your gut gives you the feeling that there's no chance whenever we get matched up with F5 teams in these especially if ranked. We need to start winning some real games if we want to get back on the map and start winning some hardware. We are all so overdue for success it's crazy. Even by pure luck we should be due for a new golden age.
 
I watched that WVU game last night where they squeaked last Northern Iowa. WVU is also a winnable game this year if we play 2 full halves. They are tough and obviously well coached but don’t shoot well from the outside. I think we can win that one if we play a good game and our 2 best players come to play.
 
[quote="MCNPA" post=365125]I watched that WVU game last night where they squeaked last Northern Iowa. WVU is also a winnable game this year if we play 2 full halves. They are tough and obviously well coached but don’t shoot well from the outside. I think we can win that one if we play a good game and our 2 best players come to play.[/quote]

Not looking ahead, but ESPN actually has us favored in the BPI. Their defense is going to be tough though...since allowing 84 to Akron, they only seem to let up 50-65 points. They rebound pretty well. We are definitely due for LJ and Heron to go off again like they did early on. Heron's poor play has been killing us lately. Need to find a way to get WVU win, because we likely won't have another chance to get a real nice nationally relevant win OOC after that. Arizona just dropped like 114 points...I just don't see us having a shot there.
 
Mike, for what it’s worth, we did win the Great Alaska Shootout in Lavin’s first year, ironically beating ASU for the title. That was also a team that trapped and pressed the hell out of ASU and other opponents, leading to many of the big wins we all still fondly recall from that group. Having said that, ASU was the only name team we played in Alaska.
 
[quote="Jnaw17" post=365128]Mike, for what it’s worth, we did win the Great Alaska Shootout in Lavin’s first year, ironically beating ASU for the title. That was also a team that trapped and pressed the hell out of ASU and other opponents, leading to many of the big wins we all still fondly recall from that group. Having said that, ASU was the only name team we played in Alaska.[/quote]

True...I'm just thinking as a whole. How many tournaments total have we been in the past 10 years? I believe 3 NCAA, 10 BET, and maybe 10 in season tourneys (about 1 a year or so)? So say 23 tourneys or so (again very rough estimate) and how many times have we had a great performance? Maybe 3 total? None in the NCAA, Lavin's first year Alaska, and Mullin's Legends Classic at Barclays...I left room for one more I'm probably forgetting. BET we've been almost an immediate out, NCAA haven't won in 20 years, NIT I think we won a single game on one or two occasions then exited early. So basically the only tourney success we've had combined in the last 10 years or maybe even more were the 2 that we indicated (Alaskan Shootout and Legends Classic last year).

Not trying to be negative, just holding a mirror to our tourney performances the past decade which have overall been embarrassing. If we want to be treated as relevant, we need to win or advance in these types of games even when we aren't expected to. We need to get more shots at top notch opponents. Can't beat top 10 teams if you never get to the championship round. NCAA tourney performance as a whole has been terrible for our conference with the exception of Nova, Xavier, and Butler.
 
[quote="MCNPA" post=365125]I watched that WVU game last night where they squeaked last Northern Iowa. WVU is also a winnable game this year if we play 2 full halves. They are tough and obviously well coached but don’t shoot well from the outside. I think we can win that one if we play a good game and our 2 best players come to play.[/quote]



I agree, however we will have to improve against their full court press. and guard penetration. Having two of Northern Iowa's big men foul out didn't help. Alot of fouling for both teams, we have to improve on the foul line.
 
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Hopefully the team is NOT talking about West Virginia as there is unfinished business--first Wagner and then St. Peters. One game at a time.
 
[quote="BrooklynRed" post=365159]Hopefully the team is NOT talking about West Virginia as there is unfinished business--first Wagner and then St. Peters. One game at a time.[/quote]

The fans are allowed to look ahead. The players, not so much...
 
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