Reasonable Expectations to Close Season

Our only hope is to give Lavin the benefit of the doubt when he says this team will put it all together by February. We'll be out of the NIT running by that time...but we could run the table at the Big East Tournament.

Before that, this team will continue to be very tough to watch.
 
Beast, your 8-11 wins prognostication, repeated by you over 100 times seemingly, is inane in my opinion. With 18 games it is rather safe to come up with such a spread. I can see you saying 8 or 9 for example or 10 or 11, but your choice seems constructed to make you look smart. Man & up pick a number of wins and, btw, we will remember. Was your original choice constructed on possibility we lose first four games?
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Look, stop your nonsense. Most of you whiners had us as locks for the NCAA. I explained the reasons why I had us at 8-11 wins, and the spread was based on lack of performance on a seemingly talented roster, and lack of anecdotal evidence as a solid predictor of success. It hardly matter - at 8,9,or 10 wins, we don't make the tournament. At 11 we have a chance. So reasonably, I thought the odds were against us making the tournament. I didn't expect us to lose the first four games, but am also not shocked.
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I only hoped Coach could achieve his stated goal of making the NCAA Tourney and being a solid team. Never did I expect to be in top three spots for example. Rather than beat this to death & resort to your habit of name calling, I just hope not to read your 8 to 11 Nostradamus like prognostication more than once a day. Thanks and let's move on.
 
Like mighty mouse,the expectations were Hooper and Sanchez were going to save the day.
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Nobody thought Hooper would save the day. Hit two 3's a game and keep a defense honest is not a savior.
What people figured was the team would improve again. Build off NIT. Return your whole team PLUS add Sanchez and Hooper. People figured Top 50 and 100 kids would improve and live up to their rankings. People figured the lighter Big East and relatively easy non conf schedules would lead to wins.

That what expectations were.
 
Agree 100%. Unfortunately, none of that has happened. The funny thing is I think Hooper has played pretty well, actually, let me change that to the team has been + the three extended runs he has had in the Nova and DePaul games. Unfortunately, he has not shot well, the open jumper he missed at the end last night burned; a great shooter just has to stick that. Not the reason we lost but damn......
 
Beast, your 8-11 wins prognostication, repeated by you over 100 times seemingly, is inane in my opinion. With 18 games it is rather safe to come up with such a spread. I can see you saying 8 or 9 for example or 10 or 11, but your choice seems constructed to make you look smart. Man & up pick a number of wins and, btw, we will remember. Was your original choice constructed on possibility we lose first four games?
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Look, stop your nonsense. Most of you whiners had us as locks for the NCAA. I explained the reasons why I had us at 8-11 wins, and the spread was based on lack of performance on a seemingly talented roster, and lack of anecdotal evidence as a solid predictor of success. It hardly matter - at 8,9,or 10 wins, we don't make the tournament. At 11 we have a chance. So reasonably, I thought the odds were against us making the tournament. I didn't expect us to lose the first four games, but am also not shocked.
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I only hoped Coach could achieve his stated goal of making the NCAA Tourney and being a solid team. Never did I expect to be in top three spots for example. Rather than beat this to death & resort to your habit of name calling, I just hope not to read your 8 to 11 Nostradamus like prognostication more than once a day. Thanks and let's move on.
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Yea, let's move on. Calling my posts "inane" and declaring "you think you are so smart" is fifth grade stuff, so yea, you are a whiner, but let's gets past that. I won't respond to your posts, and you can ignore mine. If you "only hoped" that we would reach the goal of the NCAA (a reasonable goal), you wouldn't be among the mob that is going nuts as we have been unable to close out games. We got handily beaten only once, and I don't think any of us were convinced that we lost to a vastly superior team.
 
Our only hope is to give Lavin the benefit of the doubt when he says this team will put it all together by February. We'll be out of the NIT running by that time...but we could run the table at the Big East Tournament.

Before that, this team will continue to be very tough to watch.
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I don't think most games have been unwatchable, just that we folded in the late stages of some very winnable games - Wisconsin, Penn State, Syracuse, Villanova, Xavier, and DePaul. Incredible that there is very good basis to think we could have won them all if we had the ability to step it up in the late going. If we learn(ed) how to win games, we could have won all of those games, and I'm not giving up on them because of that.
 
Our only hope is to give Lavin the benefit of the doubt when he says this team will put it all together by February. We'll be out of the NIT running by that time...but we could run the table at the Big East Tournament.

Before that, this team will continue to be very tough to watch.
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I don't think most games have been unwatchable, just that we folded in the late stages of some very winnable games - Wisconsin, Penn State, Syracuse, Villanova, Xavier, and DePaul. Incredible that there is very good basis to think we could have won them all if we had the ability to step it up in the late going. If we learn(ed) how to win games, we could have won all of those games, and I'm not giving up on them because of that.
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Well, you win games playing 40 minutes, not just at the end, To me it remains the little things all game long that kill us, lack of hustle for loose balls and no committment to rebounding the major factors. But THE major factor is still stupid fouls, game after game, reaching constantly, jumping at every ball fake, trying to block every shot. I watch every game, root hard every game but I would agree this team is a tough watch because of the same stupid mistakes made over and over game after game.
 
Nothing is going to change and there are few reasonable expectations unless our coach changes his fundamental approach. He talks about "the maturation of the group". The group doesn't need to mature - he needs to. His usage of Greene is one of the most egregious cases of petty favoritism I have ever seen beyond the coach's son in 5th grade. This is supposed to be bigtime college hoops.

In 4 Big East games Greene has 16 points, 4 rebounds, and 1 assist...total. 3 games with no assists and 2 games with no rebounds. He's averaging 20.5 MPG in those contests. His minutes are empty, he brings nothing to the table save the occassional scoring streak but hasn't scored double digits in a month. Yet he's started 14 games this season. He registered 15 minutes last night and his contribution was a steal and 2 fouls, the latter of which on some bizarre offense/defense sub in the last few minutes where Greene ended up on Melvin and Melvin made both free throws.

To always argue how Greene negatively impacts Branch is an insult to Branch. We could argue why Marco or Felix aren't getting Greene's minutes. But if we are on Branch as it relates to our coach's blinders to him, did anyone watching that game last night think Branch should have played the least minutes of the 10 players who checked in for SJU? I didn't, the announcers didn't, and I'm sure most don't.

Our coach did, despite the fact that Branch had 3x more assists in 10 minutes last night than his boy Greene has in conference play. We want to talk about executing coaching basics the rest of the season, i.e. identifying the players who are making your team go, then we can talk about expectations. With Branch and Jordan we actually have a chance to facilitate some playmaking. But until basic, fundamental coaching strategy changes we're just banging our heads against the wall talking about expectations, because little if anything is going to change with the illogical evaluation of our own talent we currently employ.
 
Like mighty mouse,the expectations were Hooper and Sanchez were going to save the day.
Click to expand...

Nobody thought Hooper would save the day. Hit two 3's a game and keep a defense honest is not a savior.
What people figured was the team would improve again. Build off NIT. Return your whole team PLUS add Sanchez and Hooper. People figured Top 50 and 100 kids would improve and live up to their rankings. People figured the lighter Big East and relatively easy non conf schedules would lead to wins.

That what expectations were.
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Precisely
 
Like mighty mouse,the expectations were Hooper and Sanchez were going to save the day.
Click to expand...

Nobody thought Hooper would save the day. Hit two 3's a game and keep a defense honest is not a savior.
What people figured was the team would improve again. Build off NIT. Return your whole team PLUS add Sanchez and Hooper. People figured Top 50 and 100 kids would improve and live up to their rankings. People figured the lighter Big East and relatively easy non conf schedules would lead to wins.

That what expectations were.
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Precisely
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And forgot to mention adding Jordan as well.
 
Our only hope is to give Lavin the benefit of the doubt when he says this team will put it all together by February. We'll be out of the NIT running by that time...but we could run the table at the Big East Tournament.

Before that, this team will continue to be very tough to watch.
Click to expand...

I don't think most games have been unwatchable, just that we folded in the late stages of some very winnable games - Wisconsin, Penn State, Syracuse, Villanova, Xavier, and DePaul. Incredible that there is very good basis to think we could have won them all if we had the ability to step it up in the late going. If we learn(ed) how to win games, we could have won all of those games, and I'm not giving up on them because of that.
Click to expand...

Well, you win games playing 40 minutes, not just at the end, To me it remains the little things all game long that kill us, lack of hustle for loose balls and no committment to rebounding the major factors. But THE major factor is still stupid fouls, game after game, reaching constantly, jumping at every ball fake, trying to block every shot. I watch every game, root hard every game but I would agree this team is a tough watch because of the same stupid mistakes made over and over game after game.
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Pretty accurate. Coaches and camps always tell you that you play defense with your feet, not your hands. They teach you that if you rush out to guard and offensive player, your last couple of steps are stutter steps to stop your momentum so the offensive guy doesn't blow by you. You are taught see the man, see the ball when playing defense. You are taught to box out. The lack of these basic fundamentals are causing the team not to be as good as they can be.

NOW, I am certain that lack of fundamentals plague just about every college program, and our failures in the last 4 minutes of games write the story of our season so far. So far as we are concerned, when we watch you can see the big play unfolding for opponents - shooter wide open from the outside, ball handler notices, our defender too late to get there. BANG - seems like opponents shooting percentage in those situations has been 100%
 
Our only hope is to give Lavin the benefit of the doubt when he says this team will put it all together by February. We'll be out of the NIT running by that time...but we could run the table at the Big East Tournament.

Before that, this team will continue to be very tough to watch.
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I agree 100% Newsman. This is what I've been saying also. I actually think that this team can put it all together and win the Big East Tournament. I'm just looking for incremental improvement each game building up to that point. Hell, we actually could have won a lot of these games. We've been in every one except the Georgetown game (which Lavin gave away). A little improvement here and there, Rysheed develops more and more each game, the team learns how to close out some games, we can run the table in the Big East Tournament. No teams in this league are unbeatable.
 
Rebounding has been a problem and Providence has Batts and Henton underneath. If we don't put forth the effort needed with regard to rebounding the basketball this Providence team will score more second chance points than DePaul did against us.
 
I have hope but, if we went 8-8 right now, it would be a nice recovery.. At this point, and from what we've seen so far,you really can't count any future game as a Win.

Yes, we seem to fold like a tent down the stretch but, if you review our games there are usually 5-6 plays early that leave most people dumfounded. SAMPSON'S dunk attempt early, where he threw the ball out of bounds was as costly as DLO's forced attempt under the basket in the last seconds. LAVIN'S bewiderring TO late served no purpose, except to use up a valuable tool that we could have used in the last 30 seconds.

I LOVE jordan's game and his potential but, I thought he was very sloppy handling the ball last nite and it cost us several key possessions.. GARRETT the DePaul PG looked very good last night and controlled the game for them. A smart player, being a Coach's son helps. He plays cool and loose and has great Court VISION..

I wish I knew what it is this team lacks in games but, there are many weaknesses that are costly.. Pointer and Greene, to me are no better than role players and if you measure what they do on the Court positively, it falls short of what they don't do, offensively or defensively. Despite their HS rankings, I think they are overrated and are, at best, average players.. Both, are capable of incredibly poor judgment at key times.

Sampson has to be the biggest disappointment this year.. He's contributing very little, playing poorly, no defense, no rebounding, poor handle, poor shot selection, etc There is no way he's showing any NBA FORM AT THIS POINT. I hope he gets his game together because him being a non contributor is really hurting this team.

Sanchez ? Shows some good skills but, needs to score more and rebound better. He's not assertive enough. At 25, he's not a NBA player.

This team mystifies with the continual wilting under the pressure of the game and, it shows almost every game..Is it team character, poor leadership from the bench or, reverting to one on one ball, when team play is called for? I don't have the answer. Doubt anyone does..

Our expectations as fans were not unrealistic for this NIT team from last year. The disappointment is a function that individually and as a team they really aren't much better than last year, maybe worse and still look like they performed as freshman. The rest of the league hasn't stood still like we have.
 
I don't expect us to beat Providence
Our best shot at a Big East win is the home game against Seton Hall
If we still don't have a win after the next two league games, Lord knows when we will get one
 
I have hope but, if we went 8-8 right now, it would be a nice recovery.. At this point, and from what we've seen so far,you really can't count any future game as a Win.

Yes, we seem to fold like a tent down the stretch but, if you review our games there are usually 5-6 plays early that leave most people dumfounded. SAMPSON'S dunk attempt early, where he threw the ball out of bounds was as costly as DLO's forced attempt under the basket in the last seconds. LAVIN'S bewiderring TO late served no purpose, except to use up a valuable tool that we could have used in the last 30 seconds.

I LOVE jordan's game and his potential but, I thought he was very sloppy handling the ball last nite and it cost us several key possessions.. GARRETT the DePaul PG looked very good last night and controlled the game for them. A smart player, being a Coach's son helps. He plays cool and loose and has great Court VISION..

I wish I knew what it is this team lacks in games but, there are many weaknesses that are costly.. Pointer and Greene, to me are no better than role players and if you measure what they do on the Court positively, it falls short of what they don't do, offensively or defensively. Despite their HS rankings, I think they are overrated and are, at best, average players.. Both, are capable of incredibly poor judgment at key times.

Sampson has to be the biggest disappointment this year.. He's contributing very little, playing poorly, no defense, no rebounding, poor handle, poor shot selection, etc There is no way he's showing any NBA FORM AT THIS POINT. I hope he gets his game together because him being a non contributor is really hurting this team.

Sanchez ? Shows some good skills but, needs to score more and rebound better. He's not assertive enough. At 25, he's not a NBA player.

This team mystifies with the continual wilting under the pressure of the game and, it shows almost every game..Is it team character, poor leadership from the bench or, reverting to one on one ball, when team play is called for? I don't have the answer. Doubt anyone does..

Our expectations as fans were not unrealistic for this NIT team from last year. The disappointment is a function that individually and as a team they really aren't much better than last year, maybe worse and still look like they performed as freshman. The rest of the league hasn't stood still like we have.
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REALLY driving home the POINT with those CAPS, eh? :)
 
It is really hard to fathom how it is possible that this team can be worse than last year's teem, when all the key players are back PLUS a top 25 recruit and a top JC transfer. I think that Lavin is trying to play too many guys and that's why some of them are out of sorts. But, that does not explain it all.
 
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