@rumbleSBN: What can St. John's do going forward to improve their NCAA Tournament chances? #sjubbhttp://t.co/z2i7Itf1wzhttp://t.co/ge1PoYlCDT
Remaining schedule
- Thread starter redfan259999888
- Start date
Paultz, believe you made this point in this or another thread, in order for there to be meaningful NCAA conversation this needs to be a 2-0 week. Could not agree more. While it could certainly happen with a 1-1 week via another route, don't think it can be underestimated to (1) secure conference sweep #1 against quality Providence team, while not yet being swept; and (2) set up another sweep with Creighton by getting tougher, road leg first.
With home losses already to Nova and Butler, would be floored if we made it through those two without at least one sweep. And that's before you get to Georgetown (I'm concerned) or any other hiccups in sweep-avoidance games (SHU, DePaul, possibly Xavier as that doesn't strike me as a road win). So locking in a sweep (Prov) and setting up last most likely remaining chance for a sweep (Cre, to add to Marq) critical before any of the above dominos get in motion. Not only huge for resume but morale.
We become way too reliant on RPI and SOS. Big fan, understand and appreciate their import, but to Lunardi's point there is no substitute for good old fashioned wins. These would be two big ones this week.
redfan259999888
Active member
I'm going to skip the next 5 games.
@X and G-Town, both I see as losses. That would be 2-6
Home games vs. SHU, X, G-Town, I had them winning them all but could easily go 2-1 there, that would be 4-7.
Then at Marq and Nova, say they split there, that's 5-8
So yeah you could say that these next 5 are the season, gotta go atleast 4-1 here.
There is an opportunity for the team to have a 4-5 game winning streak now. With Jordan playing well, Pointer playing the best ball of his career and IF Harrisons health improves. But in order for Lavin to pull this off everything has to go just right with the roster & performance.
Really good coaches are able to keep things together and have a respectable season even when injuries and absence to key players occur. With Lavin however, if everything doesn't go perfectly roster wise he cant keep it together and win (his last season at UCLA an example of this). And even when everything goes perfectly roster wise he underperforms (last year at STJ and every year at UCLA examples of this). This is why I have no confidence going forward with him regardless of what happens. I am rooting for these seniors to experience advancing in the tourney because they obviously have worked hard and upped their games this season and deserve to leave on a positive note. But even if this happens and Lav brings in a class of Sampson, Diallo, Mussini......etc, it is impossible to have confidence that he will actually win with them in the future. Will we be waiting another 4 years to see a tourney berth. He will always underperform with the talent he has.
With all of that said, I hope to see these guys actually get off of the bubble and back into the rankings with a nice run starting now. Its a shame that with all of the talent he has brought in and the league much weaker now, this team is still on the bubble with uncertainties about everything from making the tourney to recruiting.
Really good coaches are able to keep things together and have a respectable season even when injuries and absence to key players occur. With Lavin however, if everything doesn't go perfectly roster wise he cant keep it together and win (his last season at UCLA an example of this). And even when everything goes perfectly roster wise he underperforms (last year at STJ and every year at UCLA examples of this). This is why I have no confidence going forward with him regardless of what happens. I am rooting for these seniors to experience advancing in the tourney because they obviously have worked hard and upped their games this season and deserve to leave on a positive note. But even if this happens and Lav brings in a class of Sampson, Diallo, Mussini......etc, it is impossible to have confidence that he will actually win with them in the future. Will we be waiting another 4 years to see a tourney berth. He will always underperform with the talent he has.
With all of that said, I hope to see these guys actually get off of the bubble and back into the rankings with a nice run starting now. Its a shame that with all of the talent he has brought in and the league much weaker now, this team is still on the bubble with uncertainties about everything from making the tourney to recruiting.
redfan259999888
Active member
Well I found another win @ Marquette who is 2-7 and lost 5 straight
02/03/15 at Butler * 7:00 p.m. ET L 4-5
02/07/15 vs. Creighton * 12:00 p.m. ET W 5-5
02/11/15 vs. DePaul * 9:00 p.m. ET W 6-5
02/14/15 at Xavier * 12:30 p.m. ET L 6-6
02/17/15 at Georgetown * 7:00 p.m. ET L 6-7
2/21/15 vs. Seton Hall * 12:00 p.m. ET W 7-7
02/23/15 vs. Xavier * 8:00 p.m. ET W 8-7
02/28/15 vs. Georgetown * 12:00 p.m. ET W 9-7
03/04/15 at Marquette * 9:00 p.m. ET W 10-7
03/07/15 at Villanova * 2:00 p.m. ET L 10-8
beast of the east
Active member
Honestly I just think it's a lot silly and a little incendiary to predict wins and losses the rest of the way for our team that so much depends on how we are playing, and a little less based on who the Big East competition is. For the record we are now 3-5, so your losing at Butler would have us at 3-6, not 4-5. So right there that would be a loss. I think we are all learning to take it one game at a time, and see which direction this team appears to be pointing.
redfan259999888
Active member
True, they would be 3-6, I forgot to update the records.
Actually, it's not a prediction. You can't predict what a team that goes 6 deep and 1 true big man will do. Just pointing out the games that they have to win to get to the NCAA tourny.
I'm glad your karma is where it is. I don't think you are Miguel, but damn you two were cut from the same cloth
redfan259999888
Active member
lol ok there kiddo. Oh I see your karma is on the minus side as well.
redfan259999888
Active member
Looking at the schedule, right off the bat I see them losing at Xavier, at G-tgown, and at Villanova.
That's 9 losses. They'll lose 1 of the vs shu, x or g-town games at home, and could even see them losing @ Marq.
So that's 10 or 11 losses there.
If they go 8-10 that gives them 19 wins. I saying two wins in the B.E. gets them 21.
I believe that would be best case scenario.
If they lose one of the next two to Creighton or DePaul them shame on them and they don't deserve in the NCAA.
You can't absolutely, positively cant get swept by either of those two teams, and both games is at our place.
Guys, can we honestly stop projecting at this point? The team is 3-6 in conference play at this point and let's be honest for a moment. This team will be hard pressed to end up .500 in conference play. They just aren't that good. Jay Bilas summed it up best. St. John's has some very good players on it. Unfortunately, what they lack is a true identity on the court. They're a bunch of individuals that never truly came together as a cohesive team. Are they more talented than Butler? IMO, yes they are. But they play selfish, stupid basketball. And as much as I want to put all of the blame on Lavin's shoulders, it's very much on seniors like Harrison, Pointer, and Green who play uncontrolled at times despite this being their 4th year. It's on a junior like Obekpa who elbows a guy in the head for no good reason. It's on a second year man like Jordan who basically is becoming JaKarr Sampson Part II out there. Yes, I don't think Lavin has helped them much. But after watching a team like Butler move the ball and find the open man and knock down an open jump shot, I realize that our players have no real interest in doing that. They want the flashy block or the eye popping slam.
I hope I'm wrong about all this and St. John's doesn't lose a game for the rest of the season. Hey, stranger things have happened. But at this point, I'm pretty resigned to the fact that this is not a winning basketball team (to be fair, they never have been winning players at this level). I'll root them on and hope guys like D'Angelo, Sir'Dom, Phil, and Jamal enjoy their senior seasons and get treated with the dignity and respect that fans should really show them. I hope they win a few fun games along the way (would be nice to get W's against some rivals like Georgetown, Seton Hall, and gulp Villanova). And that'll just about sum it up for the season.
I hope I'm wrong about all this and St. John's doesn't lose a game for the rest of the season. Hey, stranger things have happened. But at this point, I'm pretty resigned to the fact that this is not a winning basketball team (to be fair, they never have been winning players at this level). I'll root them on and hope guys like D'Angelo, Sir'Dom, Phil, and Jamal enjoy their senior seasons and get treated with the dignity and respect that fans should really show them. I hope they win a few fun games along the way (would be nice to get W's against some rivals like Georgetown, Seton Hall, and gulp Villanova). And that'll just about sum it up for the season.
You can say a lot about this team, but they certainly do have an identity and they play together. They have severe deficits for depth and experienced size (we all know who is to blame there, but it's bad discussed ad nauseam and isn't relevant to the topic).
The only player that is really not on the same page right now is Jordan and it really hurts this team.
redfan259999888
Active member
"This team will be hard pressed to end up .500 in conference play. They just aren't that good."
As I typed in my post, they'll go 8-10 at best, but still that gives them 19 wins.
If they can get two wins in the B.E. tourny then that's 21 wins, some even think 20 wins gets them in. Holwever if they lose to Creighton or DePaul, then they don't deserve an ncaa bid.
They play together? RySheed went 6-21 while D'Angelo went 2-6. Pretty much the last few games have consisted of isolation plays for RySheed and Sir'Dom. The ball movement is non existent, except for the rare moments that Jamal acts as the floor leader (due to the fact he probably has the best court vision of anybody).