Providence, Sat. Mar. 4, Noon, FS2/970AM
- Thread starter Knight
- Start date
Was Mullin frustrated to the point of throwing doubts about his ability to communicate with his players?
“You going to pick and choose when you play? Kidding me. Come and compete, no matter what. If we play this game on West 4th Street, go play, and play with passion and play with fun,” he said. “Maybe I’m oblivious to it, but I would hope not. I am out of touch, I’m not a phone guy, not an email guy, so I’m pretty out of touch. That might be the case.
“If it is,” Mullin added, “I won’t be sitting here much longer.”
Clearly this is a very flawed team. Marcus Lovett has been MIA as the point guard for three games in a row. Today Marcus had 1 assist and played smaller than his 5'10 stature. His defense is making Mussini look like a good defender, which he is not. Something is up and it doesn't look good.
The entire front court sucked today. While Bashir Ahmed scored points and was aggressive, his outside shot was absent today. From Owens to Yakwe we showed no hustle and little desire to play any interior defense. I think a nymphomaniac in a swap club puts up better resistance than we do inside. It may be that Owens and Williams are not 100% but Yakwe and Alibegovic have been matadors desguised as college basketball players all season.
Matt Abelsuperrecruiter better have some big man for next season on his list because without one year three of Mullin's tenure may be another .500 or so so season and even the ever vacationing Steve Lavin did better than that.
In the end it comes down to recruiting the right players at every position and St. John's seems to specialize at always having a big hole in its starting lineups. This year, no talent at center and no power at the 4 position.
Given what we witnessed against Providence today, I expect Georgetown to pound it inside next week and St. John's exiting the Big East tourney in its home town as usual, early.
No, I think Mullin is simply frustrated by the inability of this team to consistently play hard with commitment and energy. A coach is going to judge performance not necessarily on record but on the realization of potential and I think there this team leaves a lot on the table. I think Chris would agree.[/quote]
Agree. The only reason we didn't get completely blown out yesterday was because PC didn't play all that well. Frankly with the way we came out and played we should have lost by 30. I commented at the first TV TO, that we had bad body language and a low energy level right out of the gate. When I see that I pretty much put a L in the books. No excuse for that this late in the season. For as much as there were games this year where it looked like we were improving, there were an equal amount of games were it looked like we had regressed. Like yesterday. I have never been hung up on using the exact number of Ws as a measure of success and was expecting a bit of a roller coaster season because we are so young. I was more concerned with the team showing progress over the course of the year. In totality, I can't say that I've seen much progress from these kids individually or as a team.
Agree that he is not to small to be an effective scorer. Yakwe's biggest problem is that he has no one strong specific skill(s). Its almost seems like Chris is using him as a placeholder till next year when hopefully Matt brings in a PF. At that point, unless he improves his game substantially, he sees 5-10 minutes a game off the bench.
Sure the kids on the floor are responsible for the energy they bring, but the staff has to own this. It's on them to create an environment that addresses bad body language, low energy etc.
A little too much coddling IMO... likely because of the risk of them not returning.
Our three walk-ons deserved a few minutes on the floor late in the game for having to sit through that train wreck of lack of effort and teamwork.
A little too much coddling IMO... likely because of the risk of them not returning.
Our three walk-ons deserved a few minutes on the floor late in the game for having to sit through that train wreck of lack of effort and teamwork.
Was Mullin frustrated to the point of throwing doubts about his ability to communicate with his players?
“You going to pick and choose when you play? Kidding me. Come and compete, no matter what. If we play this game on West 4th Street, go play, and play with passion and play with fun,” he said. “Maybe I’m oblivious to it, but I would hope not. I am out of touch, I’m not a phone guy, not an email guy, so I’m pretty out of touch. That might be the case.
“If it is,” Mullin added, “I won’t be sitting here much longer.”
Clearly this is a very flawed team. Marcus Lovett has been MIA as the point guard for three games in a row. Today Marcus had 1 assist and played smaller than his 5'10 stature. His defense is making Mussini look like a good defender, which he is not. Something is up and it doesn't look good.
The entire front court sucked today. While Bashir Ahmed scored points and was aggressive, his outside shot was absent today. From Owens to Yakwe we showed no hustle and little desire to play any interior defense. I think a nymphomaniac in a swap club puts up better resistance than we do inside. It may be that Owens and Williams are not 100% but Yakwe and Alibegovic have been matadors desguised as college basketball players all season.
Matt Abelsuperrecruiter better have some big man for next season on his list because without one year three of Mullin's tenure may be another .500 or so so season and even the ever vacationing Steve Lavin did better than that.
In the end it comes down to recruiting the right players at every position and St. John's seems to specialize at always having a big hole in its starting lineups. This year, no talent at center and no power at the 4 position.
Given what we witnessed against Providence today, I expect Georgetown to pound it inside next week and St. John's exiting the Big East tourney in its home town as usual, early.
No, I think Mullin is simply frustrated by the inability of this team to consistently play hard with commitment and energy. A coach is going to judge performance not necessarily on record but on the realization of potential and I think there this team leaves a lot on the table. I think Chris would agree.
Agree. The only reason we didn't get completely blown out yesterday was because PC didn't play all that well. Frankly with the way we came out and played we should have lost by 30. I commented at the first TV TO, that we had bad body language and a low energy level right out of the gate. When I see that I pretty much put a L in the books. No excuse for that this late in the season. For as much as there were games this year where it looked like we were improving, there were an equal amount of games were it looked like we had regressed. Like yesterday. I have never been hung up on using the exact number of Ws as a measure of success and was expecting a bit of a roller coaster season because we are so young. I was more concerned with the team showing progress over the course of the year. In totality, I can't say that I've seen much progress from these kids individually or as a team.[/quote]
I remember that post of yours in the beginning of the game. You literally nailed it on the head right away
did you leave to make sure you had enough time to get shake shack before the train or to just get an earlier train ? Both options are completely acceptable for a game like yesterday
Ha- we were wiped out we were down in Tampa for Yanks spring training all week - just got an earlier train. Shake shack is incredible tho :cheer:
The ironic thing is that the effort showed in the last two minutes when the game was over and PC played stupid and soft.
Maybe PC just beat up our team on the defensive end in that first and took it to our team to make up for losing at home to a stupid freshmen team. The only hope we had was for the refs to call a foul on every possession rather than half of them. The problem for PC in the NCAA is that they will be called for a foul on every possession when the other team is Duke or UNC.
I saw a PC team that played our team on the defensive end as well as anyone. They came out to stop the perimeter game and were physical about it. Ponds took a beating. On the inside Owens looked like a rag doll and we're lucky he survived to play Wednesday night. The johnnies to a man were no match against that effort. Credit goes to them and their coach. Hopefully, our team is learning from it today.
Yesterday was a prime example. We needed someone to make Providence pay for extending their defense. Someone who could receive the ball at the foul line and make a quick decision to shoot a short jumper, drive to the hoop or pass. We simply have no one who can do that and, as a result, we have to work too hard for our baskets.
stjohnschris
Active member
Next year should be a wake up call for both Yakwe and Ellison...I see limited minutes for both unless they take some real steps forward. Neither one should be a fixture on a starting line up card for a Big East team...but that's where we are at this season.
Coaster1955
Member
Honestly, I can't be confident or patient with KY, because I see no basketball skills whatsoever. And his attempted blocks leave opponents unguarded. I'll give him that he vastly improved his FTs....good job on that. But sadly he is lacking in every other aspect.
beast of the east
Active member
Yesterday's loss was simple:
We were flat for all 40 minutes and its amazing we didn't lose by 35 points.
Basketball iscall about creating mismatches and when the mismatch is hurtingbyou, you make adjustments. Providence created isolations all games against out guards and even our fowards. We stayed in 3 guard offense and got beat again and again.
Ahmed took us off game early. I think he is colorblind, and behind the wheel my guess is all he sees are green lights. He's a guy you need on a team like this that lacks offense after the guards but on a tourney team would get very limited run. He decides very early on a touch that hes not giving it up and thevresult is many bad shots with plenty of clock remaining. Biggest reason we lost today was Ahmed
We were flat for all 40 minutes and its amazing we didn't lose by 35 points.
Basketball iscall about creating mismatches and when the mismatch is hurtingbyou, you make adjustments. Providence created isolations all games against out guards and even our fowards. We stayed in 3 guard offense and got beat again and again.
Ahmed took us off game early. I think he is colorblind, and behind the wheel my guess is all he sees are green lights. He's a guy you need on a team like this that lacks offense after the guards but on a tourney team would get very limited run. He decides very early on a touch that hes not giving it up and thevresult is many bad shots with plenty of clock remaining. Biggest reason we lost today was Ahmed
Staff owns this loss.. very disappointed in their lack of everything.
Ahmed had a few touches in the high post. Had one nice drive, missed a jumper and was fouled a few times. Not sure why they didn't do that more.
Was Mullin frustrated to the point of throwing doubts about his ability to communicate with his players?
“You going to pick and choose when you play? Kidding me. Come and compete, no matter what. If we play this game on West 4th Street, go play, and play with passion and play with fun,” he said. “Maybe I’m oblivious to it, but I would hope not. I am out of touch, I’m not a phone guy, not an email guy, so I’m pretty out of touch. That might be the case.
“If it is,” Mullin added, “I won’t be sitting here much longer.”
Clearly this is a very flawed team. Marcus Lovett has been MIA as the point guard for three games in a row. Today Marcus had 1 assist and played smaller than his 5'10 stature. His defense is making Mussini look like a good defender, which he is not. Something is up and it doesn't look good.
The entire front court sucked today. While Bashir Ahmed scored points and was aggressive, his outside shot was absent today. From Owens to Yakwe we showed no hustle and little desire to play any interior defense. I think a nymphomaniac in a swap club puts up better resistance than we do inside. It may be that Owens and Williams are not 100% but Yakwe and Alibegovic have been matadors desguised as college basketball players all season.
Matt Abelsuperrecruiter better have some big man for next season on his list because without one year three of Mullin's tenure may be another .500 or so so season and even the ever vacationing Steve Lavin did better than that.
In the end it comes down to recruiting the right players at every position and St. John's seems to specialize at always having a big hole in its starting lineups. This year, no talent at center and no power at the 4 position.
Given what we witnessed against Providence today, I expect Georgetown to pound it inside next week and St. John's exiting the Big East tourney in its home town as usual, early.
No, I think Mullin is simply frustrated by the inability of this team to consistently play hard with commitment and energy. A coach is going to judge performance not necessarily on record but on the realization of potential and I think there this team leaves a lot on the table. I think Chris would agree.
Agree. The only reason we didn't get completely blown out yesterday was because PC didn't play all that well. Frankly with the way we came out and played we should have lost by 30. I commented at the first TV TO, that we had bad body language and a low energy level right out of the gate. When I see that I pretty much put a L in the books. No excuse for that this late in the season. For as much as there were games this year where it looked like we were improving, there were an equal amount of games were it looked like we had regressed. Like yesterday. I have never been hung up on using the exact number of Ws as a measure of success and was expecting a bit of a roller coaster season because we are so young. I was more concerned with the team showing progress over the course of the year. In totality, I can't say that I've seen much progress from these kids individually or as a team.[/quote]
Could not agree more. It starts with consistent effort and this team just does not give it possession by possession. Whatever the reason, it is just not there. No junk yard dogs, no grinders, too many guys just looking to score. Defense breeds consistency.
What was interesting about our effort is just how inconsistent it was. With young team expected some volatility and uneven efforts. But looking back on regular season this team was really all over the map, either great or awful, with very little middle ground. Mostly not even considering results either, just effort and engagement.
On a relative basis I thought we played pretty hard @Minny and in the Bahamas. We just understandably didn't seem to be ready for that level of scheduling. 3 solid efforts against tournament teams and then a bit of a letdown against a decent Old Dominion team.
From that point forward I count, probably being slightly generous, 4 games where we were just ok: CSU Northridge (perhaps only because it ended in a win), Nova, Creighton, and Xavier. The rest of the games were mostly either really good or really bad.
On one hand mixing in so many good efforts is obviously a lot better than only having bad or middling efforts. What the team did against Butler, @Prov, Marquette, and SHU was impressive and definitely well beyond what I was expecting as of mid-December.
On the other was frustrating we couldn't build some momentum towards stringing together consistent efforts. Again even setting aside that we only won at least 2 games in a row three times, with the last coming on Jan 1., because I think that's really expected with a young team in a league this tough. But looking beyond W/L, it's still tough to identify consecutive games where we played really hard and executed and just came up short, a much lower bar. After Cuse/Butler/@DePaul, the 5 game stretch between @Prov and SHU was probably our best string of games, and a pretty good one no doubt, but still had a little bit of an every other component to it.
Am still willing to chalk a lot of this up to youth, inexperience, and lack of depth. A lot of mostly first year guys getting major minutes without a lot of help that maybe don't yet fully know what it takes to put together complete and consistent efforts. It's also a long, physically demanding season that you sometimes have to go through once before you can adjust to the preparation and maintenance required to navigate a 5-6 month season.
Not all of it though, as from the outside seems like staff needs to demand more from players in certain aspects, and players same from one another. Big picture think progress has to be made in both respects next year. For now hoping we have one of our good games against Georgetown to put more of a positive spin on end of season than what has transpired 4 of last 5 games.
On a relative basis I thought we played pretty hard @Minny and in the Bahamas. We just understandably didn't seem to be ready for that level of scheduling. 3 solid efforts against tournament teams and then a bit of a letdown against a decent Old Dominion team.
From that point forward I count, probably being slightly generous, 4 games where we were just ok: CSU Northridge (perhaps only because it ended in a win), Nova, Creighton, and Xavier. The rest of the games were mostly either really good or really bad.
On one hand mixing in so many good efforts is obviously a lot better than only having bad or middling efforts. What the team did against Butler, @Prov, Marquette, and SHU was impressive and definitely well beyond what I was expecting as of mid-December.
On the other was frustrating we couldn't build some momentum towards stringing together consistent efforts. Again even setting aside that we only won at least 2 games in a row three times, with the last coming on Jan 1., because I think that's really expected with a young team in a league this tough. But looking beyond W/L, it's still tough to identify consecutive games where we played really hard and executed and just came up short, a much lower bar. After Cuse/Butler/@DePaul, the 5 game stretch between @Prov and SHU was probably our best string of games, and a pretty good one no doubt, but still had a little bit of an every other component to it.
Am still willing to chalk a lot of this up to youth, inexperience, and lack of depth. A lot of mostly first year guys getting major minutes without a lot of help that maybe don't yet fully know what it takes to put together complete and consistent efforts. It's also a long, physically demanding season that you sometimes have to go through once before you can adjust to the preparation and maintenance required to navigate a 5-6 month season.
Not all of it though, as from the outside seems like staff needs to demand more from players in certain aspects, and players same from one another. Big picture think progress has to be made in both respects next year. For now hoping we have one of our good games against Georgetown to put more of a positive spin on end of season than what has transpired 4 of last 5 games.