RED WHITE CLUB EVENT

[quote="mjmaherjr" post=402117][quote="Duke of Earlington" post=402106]Just finished the 1st half. Observations:

Cole is automatic from deep. Buried at least 4 threes. Hes a true shooting guard.

Posh is a floor general. Pesky on d and buried 2 threes and his free throws. Hes special.

Moore is such a big upgrade over roberts is scary. He has a real nice offensive game.[/quote] No Earlington review ? Very disappointed in you :)[/quote]

Earlington wasnt great out there today. I get a feeling the duke isnt going to blow u away at practice and scrimmages. But when the lights go on, the Duke always comes to play.

Cant wait till Wed night at 7!
 
[quote="Monte" post=402091][quote="Mike Zaun" post=402073]Glad to hear new guys looked good. I'm sure they blew out returners because Champ was out. That's a huge blow if for any extended time. We will need him if we want a solid chance of beating BC and TT. We should be able to beat the other teams early on without him. Also, be careful about getting too gung-ho from a practice. AI said it best. Conference play will be the true test. Feels like we haven't had over a .500 record there in forever. Hope Champ is back asap.[/quote]

Trivia question: which coach recruited the St. John's team with the best Big East record over the last 20 years?[/quote]

Didn't see an answer to this. Had to be Norm Roberts (to set up Lavins first year)
 
If they removed it for competitive reasons, that makes sense. No need for St. Peter's or LaSalle to get inside look. But they probably got live link look.

Still wish they gave more than 24 hr notice for this but the updates from members here are really appreciated!
 
Of the new guys, Cole looks like a real deal shooter. And his free throws are works of art. Just automatic. His footwork was pretty poor though off the ball/defense. Moore looks great. When he was recruited I was expecting a kind of passive shooter typical of all of these long guys trying to prove they are stretch 4. But he's aggressive full court and a legit stretch 4 and looks real good at the FT line especially for such a long guy. Toro has some nice nuances to his game and looks like he plays within his skill set. The FT shooting form made me cringe though!
Wusu surprisingly solid. Mgrff seems like a younger Dunn. Really strong for his size, athletic with a better handle than Dunn but doesn't look like a confident shooter. He does look confident with the ball though. On the floor with Posh for extended time so perhaps we'll see that in season. It seems like when he came in Posh immediately started hoisting 3s and good to see him hit. Posh is a fully loaded PG who is going to kill it. Did not see any particular weak area in his game.
 
“Stinkers: roberts, caraher, earlington, gwill toro and dunn. Maybe the vets just werent up for the scrimmage like the newbies were, but didnt see anything special out of any of these guys.”

I disagree a bit here. Earlington was a bit sloppy and missed a lot of bunnies. Not something he is known for. Toro was quite good and very smart. Paul is right, weird hitch in his FT stroke is cringeworthy, but he plays the game well and is solid. His passing is really good too. Dunn was fine but didn’t do anything spectacular. We know what he will bring. He’s relentless and when opposing teams are out there he’s at his best. He will concede Pg spot to Posh though as Posh is a lot more talented overall, which isn’t a bad thing. Dunn is a player and we know that. GWill has skills but fades into background too much. He concedes too much and it doesn’t help us nor him. He needs cojones. Josh Robert’s is solid but he struggled against better bigs in Moore and Toro. He will be fine defensively but hasn’t really developed any offense.

This all said, the newcomers definitely shined today and it wasn’t just because Champagnie was out. We definitely added talent overall. Most of the new guys looked better than guys returning which is a good thing. Our goal is to get better every year and I think we will looking at it today. Best part is that we have all these guys combined to give opponents problems.
 
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[quote="Paul Massell" post=402133]Mgrff seems like a younger Dunn. Really strong for his size, athletic with a better handle than Dunn but doesn't look like a confident shooter. He does look confident with the ball though.[/quote]

I remember one site (not sure how reputable) that said he had the best handle in the class. But I think he only averaged 11 ppg in his last year. So those two things definitely are in line with your assessment.
 
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[quote="Paul Massell" post=402133] On the floor with Posh for extended time so perhaps we'll see that in season. It seems like when he came in Posh immediately started hoisting 3s and good to see him hit. Posh is a fully loaded PG who is going to kill it. Did not see any particular weak area in his game.[/quote]

This seems like the best way you sell Cuffe on sharing the backcourt. Posh can easily shift to scoring mode when Cuffe is handling ball.
 
[quote="Room112" post=402128][quote="Monte" post=402091][quote="Mike Zaun" post=402073]Glad to hear new guys looked good. I'm sure they blew out returners because Champ was out. That's a huge blow if for any extended time. We will need him if we want a solid chance of beating BC and TT. We should be able to beat the other teams early on without him. Also, be careful about getting too gung-ho from a practice. AI said it best. Conference play will be the true test. Feels like we haven't had over a .500 record there in forever. Hope Champ is back asap.[/quote]

Trivia question: which coach recruited the St. John's team with the best Big East record over the last 20 years?[/quote]

Didn't see an answer to this. Had to be Norm Roberts (to set up Lavins first year)[/quote]

That first Lavin team went 12-6 in the Big East, our best conference record of the past 20 years. Kudos to Norm for assembling the components.
 
Yea I figured Lavin...then we kept going 10-8 with him. The thing about those teams though...so much talent that should've easily been top 3 Big East type teams and been ranked all year making a Sweet 16, but he could not coach. So we scrapped and clawed our way to barely make the tourney by the skin of our teeth every yr except the first. I just want to experience success to the point of being a shoe-in some years instead of having our backs up against the wall. The key to that is a fast start in conference play.
 
CMA has a lot of good pieces to work with this year. Like most of the other posts I seen, I was most impressed with Moore and Posh.

The way Moore was playing out there tonight he reminded me of how Bobby Portis looked his freshman year in CMA's system at Arkansas, now I'm not saying Moore is going to end up having the college career Portis did, but the way he runs the floor, the way he can score in multiple ways, the way he's able to play multiple positions at his height is similar to the things Portis brought to the table. I'm not sure if Moore starts on day 1, but he looks like he's going to be a very important piece and play a lot of minutes this year and be a starter sooner than later.

With Posh, he looks like a day 1 starter, just a strong, heady PG. His shot looked good, he can get to the rim, he got teammates involved, he was a pest on defense, he's ready to play in the Big East.

Some guys I was a little disappointed in that looks like they haven't progressed much was Caraher and Roberts. Roberts against Toro and Moore, just looked like he was out matched, missed a lot of easy shots around the rim. Caraher, as someone else mentioned, still rushes shots and it just doesn't look good. I actually think Wusu looked better out there than Caraher, Wusu actually looked really comfortable. From the looks of things, I could see CMA starting out with a 9-10 man rotation with the other guys being situational. Toro, Champ, Williams, Dunn, Posh in the first group, then you have Moore, Cole, Earlington, Wusu probably being in the next group with McGriff, Caraher, and Roberts being situational guys.
 
[quote="Beast of the East" post=402157]I'm generally dismissive of coachspeak but will admit CMA appears genuinely excited and confident about the roster upgrade.[/quote]

I could clearly see why yesterday. We added a significant amount of talent and the first half blowout by the new guys was a stark contrast. I frankly wonder if CMA mixed up the teams at the half for morale purposes or it was planned. It’s good for us overall as a team and we can clearly see the roster is getting better per recruiting class.
 
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CMA has every reason to be confident about the talent he's added. He has a proven track record of making excellent use of JUCOs and has added 2 JUCO AAs who look to be instant top rotation players. Coach Pressey talked at one point during yesterday's scrimmage about how they love JUCOs because they bring maturity and have less of an adjustment to make than kids coming right from HS (did also lament that they won't have Moore/Cole for a longer time).
Add Anderson, Wusu & Toro and you have the makings of a pretty solid recruiting class, rankings aside. Of course the proof will be in the games, particularly BE games, but I am very encouraged going into the season.
 
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[quote="NCJohnnie" post=402163]CMA has every reason to be confident about the talent he's added. He has a proven track record of making excellent use of JUCOs and has added 2 JUCO AAs who look to be instant top rotation players. Coach Pressey talked at one point during yesterday's scrimmage about how they love JUCOs because they bring maturity and have less of an adjustment to make than kids coming right from HS (did also lament that they won't have Moore/Cole for a longer time).
Add Anderson, Wusu & Toro and you have the makings of a pretty solid recruiting class, rankings aside. Of course the proof will be in the games, particularly BE games, but I am very encouraged going into the season.[/quote]

Staff and admin is gushing how Wusu will be a star by year 2. He is comfortable shooting 7-8 feet beyond the arc and no one (as far as I can see) is discouraging him about shooting from that distance, as it appears well within his range.

Do you remember the movie "The Trouble With the Curve"? Clint Eastwood was an aging old school baseball scout who was being dismissed by his MLB team, the Braves. Younger scouts went by the scouting combines and measured analytics. He went by what he saw and heard (his vision was failing). I'm gonna reach and say CMA and staff know what they are looking for, and also what they can recruit at this point, and have put together a very respectable squad that just may surprise the league. Even if he land 7th-9th place, this should be a considerable improvement over last season. I'm cautiously optimistic, and we will know in just a few weeks how good we are at that point
 
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Beast of the East wrote:

Staff and admin is gushing how Wusu will be a star by year 2. He is comfortable shooting 7-8 feet beyond the arc and no one (as far as I can see) is discouraging him about shooting from that distance, as it appears well within his range.

Do you remember the movie "The Trouble With the Curve"? Clint Eastwood was an aging old school baseball scout who was being dismissed by his MLB team, the Braves. Younger scouts went by the scouting combines and measured analytics. He went by what he saw and heard (his vision was failing). I'm gonna reach and say CMA and staff know what they are looking for, and also what they can recruit at this point, and have put together a very respectable squad that just may surprise the league. Even if he land 7th-9th place, this should be a considerable improvement over last season. I'm cautiously optimistic, and we will know in just a few weeks how good we are at that point

Definitely remember and enjoyed The Trouble with the Curve; can't think of many Clint Eastwood directed movies I didn't enjoy. As far as this year, I continue to believe these guys can finish between 5th-7th if we stay healthy, but I am usually optimistic with Johnnies so take that for what it's worth.
 
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