San Francisco Pre Game Thread

[jumbo_peanuts]

Prefer to see Marco in the game over Max

Agree! Don't want to sound negative, but Hooper has shown me nothing so far. Marco, meanwhile, has.

Did you miss the Penn State game?

So that's one game out of how many? From what I've seen, I'd rather see Marco in the three-point specialist role.

Last night was hard to compare the two. Marco hit one 3. That one 3 was on a set play designed to get a 3pt shot at the top of the key, and to his credit, he made it. Hooper was 0-2, and if I remember correctly, one was in a little transition, and the other was off of a drive-kick out.

My question is, why are we actually setting up plays for Marco, and not Max? Is it their difference in shooting style?

 

[logen]

Hey 72

If you recorded the game please fast forward to 12.3 seconds left in the first half and you will see why Hooper does not play. [Hint: his man blew past him at the foul line while driving the lane from the top of the key.]

Oh as if Greene,Harrison and Jordan never get beat to the basket. You can take isolated plays like that and make a case for Michael Jordan not getting playing time. I mean at least try and be a little objective. He has not gotten enough time to prove anything one way or the other; the same as Bourgault last year. It is Lavin's call and maybe neither are good enough to play but any fan saying they have seen enough to know is just ridiculous. If they are not good enough than that has to go in the negative column of Lavin's recruiting because this team obviously needs shooting.

 

[logen]

I highly agree. I would love to see hooper play more and do well but he is a defensive liability. Against cuse jermi grant blew right by hooper for a high light real dunk

See my reply to Otis. Be the way, Ennis absolutely took Greene to school that game; guess we need to bench him too.

 

[gman]

We just stomped a solid mid major team and all people can do it argue about hooper vs Marco. How silly.

 

[tom in salem]

Whiplash!
No, not because we whipped the Dons (Vito Corleone's favorite team) but because I literally have a sore neck from all the dizzying substitutions made by the wizard of Lavinwood last night! At one point Lav was telling Ron Linfonte to get in the game!
Safe to say the absence of Doolin has taken its toll on the SF offense and Lav felt sympathy and spared the Don's a Fordham-like embarrassment. SJ could have won by 40 but SF made a valiant comeback at the end with help of Khadim Ndiaye and Walston....wait...they were SJ walk-ons!
My only negative observations involve the play of Pointer and Branch. Both were looking for their points and forgot they had teammates.

Pointer has to be averaging at least 1 air ball per game. Of all the athletes on this team, he is the most gifted physically. If he isn't taking 500 shots a day after practice and every day in the off season, then he is throwing that gift, and a chance at the NBA, away. His jump shot is getting worse, and was not great to begin with. We are talking not even close, not around the rim and out. For the most part, I believe that you have to have it early as a shooter. Tough to change years of bad habits. But there is room for improvement if you work hard enough.

Disagree with Pointer analysis.
Third year in he still has no handle either.
Anyone who is physically gifted can dribble by the age of 10.

 

[Class of 72]

I highly agree. I would love to see hooper play more and do well but he is a defensive liability. Against cuse jermi grant blew right by hooper for a high light real dunk

Hooper giving us nothing right now. If he can't hit his 3s against SFU he can't hit them against anyone. I thought both his shots were rushed and not smart shots.

You have to feel for the kid! No one works on his shooting harder than Max. His shots were rushed but I think it is because he knows he is in there just for his 3 point shot and rarely touches the ball. Nothing to do with smarts. What was Pointer...1-6... And his shots were terrible! Khadim Ndiaye got 3 minutes. He was giving us nothing. I think he deserves to be on the bench.

 

[Andrew]

We just stomped a solid mid major team and all people can do it argue about hooper vs Marco. How silly.

A team with this level of talent needs to stomp the Fordham's and San Francisco's of this world. I do give credit to the coaching staff and the team as a lot of progress is being made. Whether to use Max and Marco and how much is one of the remaining areas that needs to get resolved as Big East play is around the corner.

 

[Class of 72]

Hey 72

If you recorded the game please fast forward to 12.3 seconds left in the first half and you will see why Hooper does not play. [Hint: his man blew past him at the foul line while driving the lane from the top of the key.]

What did u want Max to do? Spit at him and trip him? Sanchez was slow to cover and fouled him. I think you just don't like the kid because of his haircut!

 

[usguard]

We just stomped a solid mid major team and all people.can do it argue about hooper vs Marco. How silly.

I give the team credit It is not about if one player gets beat or has a bad defensive game .or has a bad shooting game.. All that can be over come. It is about chemistry and knowing .each. others strengths .and weaknesses . making the extra pass .not losing your man on switches ,boxing out etc. .etc. etc Five playing has one unselfish basketball which I am seeing more every game No complaints with the players or staff I would like to be undefeated which if with hit 3 or 4 more 3s maybe we could have been But like where we are and were we are going

 

[GardenCity62]

At this time it appears the Marco/Hooper experiment is a bust.Man to man defenses negate them completely and vs. zones they are asked to hit shots immediately. This roster does not allow them time to get comfortable. They have to hit half their shots or they are a liability. This will only get worse in league play. If Hooper played 30 min. a game Obepka would break every shot locking record in existence.

 

[JackofVirginia]

Team continues to look good. Good job by the players and staff. This is not a revelation but i am impressed with our athleticism. They are buying into what Lavin and staff are teaching. Good sign. Happy for D'lo- had a real solid game.

Better interior offense.
Better offensive rebounding.
Better passing.
Finally we have a point guard who finishes on his drives.

 

[simplyred]

We just stomped a solid mid major team and all people can do it argue about hooper vs Marco. How silly.

+100 I wish I could give you more +karma for this post.

 

[logen]

At this time it appears the Marco/Hooper experiment is a bust.Man to man defenses negate them completely and vs. zones they are asked to hit shots immediately. This roster does not allow them time to get comfortable. They have to hit half their shots or they are a liability. This will only get worse in league play. If Hooper played 30 min. a game Obepka would break every shot locking record in existence.

Oh and Obekpa has gotten all his blocks to date in spite of the fact that our guards allow so little penetration. My only point with Hooper and Bourgault is that neither has gotten enough time to give a fair evaluation; if we saw practices it would be a different story. Like it was posted earlier, I guess it is just their haircuts.

 

[logen]

We just stomped a solid mid major team and all people can do it argue about hooper vs Marco. How silly.

Taking nothing away from the team last night but a solid mid major team missing its best player and with its leading scorer in foul trouble most of the night. Again, I do not want in any way to put a negative spin on the win; we did exactly what we should have. However, last night and the next 2 games are essentially nothing to win everything to lose situations; we need to perform in conference play because basically our finest performance to date was coming back against Syracuse and then folding down the stretch.

 

[beast of the east]

I don't want to throw cold water on a dominant win, but I can't get too excited about a win where Jakarr Sampson had at least 6 dunks when he couldn't do a thing inside vs. Syracuse. I'll take a blowout any day against any competition, but I didn't think this was a very competitive opponent.

 

[lawmanfan]

I pretty much agree with Logen and (in what may be a first) Beast. I didn't think much of San Fran, and #25 who apparently scores 20 a game for them was in foul trouble all night.

Our team looked very good last night. They played with confidence, which is probably a result of the competitive loss against Cuse (occasional poster Muse had predicted that, and he was right).

Harrison's shot finally fell, which hopefully will continue because we need outside shooting. Sanchez did what he does, which is pass the ball well and play a good all around game. Somebody on this thread actually compared him to Sean Evans bringing the ball up, that's just silly. Sanchez handles the ball as well as any big man you will see.

Phil and Dom played their usual roles, both very valuable role players on this team.

Jordan handled the ball well and got to the rim extremely well. Since he did it against Cuse also I don't think that has to do with the level of the competition, I think he has just turned the corner. it would be nice if his jumper fell even once in a while, but his form is good and I'm sure it will.

Jordan and Jakarr ran a nice pick-and-pop together, but I think Jakarr should plan on staying another year and developing some more aspects to his game beyond the dunk.

Obekpa really is much improved. He is becoming a much better post defender (fundamentals, his blocking speaks for itself), and he was much more assertive (and productive) on the offensive end of the floor last night. If he could score 8 ppg he would be All-BE IMHO. I bet next year he scores 12 ppg.

People should just stop with Max and Marco. I'm sure they can both hit some shots by themselves in a gym. They might even hit some shots if somebody leaves them standing alone in the corner in a game. But neither of them can create their own shot, and neither of them can play defense worth a darn. You could hide that in a zone, but it is obvious to everyone (even our staff now) that we are most effective playing an aggressive man-to-man and pressing, and they don't fit into that at all.

The Youngstown State game should be a repeat of the strong performance against SF. The staff used the SF game to give a lot of guys some burn. Generally that's fine, but I think Jordan and to a lesser extent Sampson need as many minutes as they can get right now. We need to start focusing on league play. This team has the ability to win a whole bunch of games if it establishes an identity and plays with some discipline and, well, brains. It did some of that against Cuse and more against SF, they need to keep it up because if they do good things will happen.

 

[SJUISBACK]

I don't want to throw cold water on a dominant win, but I can't get too excited about a win where Jakarr Sampson had at least 6 dunks when he couldn't do a thing inside vs. Syracuse. I'll take a blowout any day against any competition, but I didn't think this was a very competitive opponent.

EXACTLY!!!!!!!!!!!

This is exactly the way we suppose to treat schools like SF. If we are going to be a top team then this type of blowout against mid majors should be the norm. As I said in my last post: "enjoy the win, but back to work today to get ready for Youngstown St. on Saturday."

I`ll get excited if we beat down Nova (a top10 school), for SF, Youngstown St., and Columbia lets act like we expect this.

 

[Eddyman11]

First of all.. I am very happy about this win. I said in other post that more than anything, I was hoping to see another all around solid performance from the redmen. We def controlled the game from tip off to final buzzer.

2nd of all I know we werent playing UCLA in the 70's type team lol, but my biggest take away of the game (the level of competition not withstanding) is that we brought it for the 3rd game in a row. "Hammer to rock" a couple more games like this and it will build confidence (and fan base expextaction) once we get into BE play.

Finally, I've seen a lot of strong opinions about our two "shooters" Max and Marco. Everyone is entitled to their opinion( great part about being a fan). In my humble opinion: IF we can play our St johns brand of basketball and stay true to our Identity ( In your face man to man d/confusing zones/ presses/ Fastbreaks/shot blocking/dribble-drive-dish/high free throw attempts) we should be a top 15 team in the country. Our depth allows us to play that 48 minutes of hell type of defense. our athletes are some of the best around the rim in the country. We have to continue to play to our strengths. Also can some one refresh my memory: When is the last time we had a team or player that was really a threat from deep? ( no body say avery patterson or paris horne please lol)

 

[1and1sju]

This is exactly the way we suppose to treat schools like SF. If we are going to be a top team then this type of blowout against mid majors should be the norm. As I said in my last post: "enjoy the win, but back to work today to get ready for Youngstown St. on Saturday."

Preach man, preach! I think that's exactly the way to look at it. Fun game, we looked very good at times, but that should be the norm against USF. Today they should be back at work.
There are a number of things that need working on.

 

[monte]

We just stomped a solid mid major team and all people can do it argue about hooper vs Marco. How silly.

First of all that's not all people are doing(talking about) on this thread. I started the conversion(debate?) with a post earlier in the game stating that I would prefer to see Marco in the game over Max. Others chimed in. The fact that discussion doesn't interest you hardly makes it "silly"