Scrimmage vs. Rhode Island

If we won the stupid scrimmage by 20 half this board would be punching our ticket to the final 4. We lost to a mediocre team and that's not good. Michael Jordan punched teammates in the face during scrimmages. We played our top guys, you take the court you play to win.
 
So let me ask all you experts who was actually there and saw the scrimmage? I will gladly take the analysis of someone who was there and could gauge things like effort, rotations, stops to emphasize offense or defensive sets. attitude of the players. Making assumptions off some tweets and a state sheet seem kind of futile and may show just a bit of desperation for some real action. Kind of like making political decisions or forecasts after watching 30 mins of fox news or MSNBC.
 
Jordan was a once in a century player, we dont have a Jordan. Please refer to Bill Bellichec on the importance of winning scrimmages.
 
[quote="johnsliva" post=298666]Jordan was a once in a century player, we dont have a Jordan. Please refer to Bill Bellichec on the importance of winning scrimmages.[/quote]
BB is a 5 time SB winning coach our coach is a 3 year under 500 coach. I know we don't have a Jordan but you need to play to win and maybe we did but came up short which is not good. I don't care about some stupid scrimmage just reacting to too many on here totally excusing the result.
 
Sounds like you care an awful lot about a stupid scrimmage and would not have been happy with the result unless we had won by 20.
 
The game means nothing. You have five new guys playing and who knows if now that Mullin actually has the type of team that he needs to fully implement his style of play that they weren't working on new offensive sets etc. This is why I have said that it is actually better to have the early season OOC schedule that we have. It will give this team time to jell and then we will be in full on mode when the Big East season begins. It will also give Mullin a little bit of s chance to get Williams , Roberts and Earlington some minutes prior to Big East Conference games. This team will be fine and continue to improve as the season goes on. You want to be playing your best ball in January, February and March not in October.
 
[quote="johnsliva" post=298670]Sounds like you care an awful lot about a stupid scrimmage and would not have been happy with the result unless we had won by 20.[/quote]
Care less about scrimmage than all the excuses being made by posters. I'm sure we have much more talent than RI so losing to them is not a good look.
 
Hopefully people don't mistake this message for freaking out, but yes there should be at least some concern over the results. They shouldn't be 100% dismissed.

3 points:
#1: Rhode Island is ranked #108 in Kenpom's updated rankings. Not just a loss, but since they're 100+ it'd be a "bad loss" (yes, obviously I know this game counts for nothing).
#2: Heron had a poor shooting night (1/10), which a lot of people have pointed out. However, he would've had to hit at least 3-5 more shots for us to win (roughly 50%+) depending on offensive rebounds, etc. Obviously very doable, but it's not like we lost by 1. We lost by 6. Heron was not the only reason.
#3: Interior and 3 point defense were the primary concerns. Sound familiar? I can excuse a poor offensive showing, but defense is tougher to justify.

Again, this is not me pressing the panic button. The game obviously doesn't count for anything. Just saying it's naive to just completely dismiss the results. We should have won this game, no excuses.
 
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There was some athlete/ celebrity show years ago where Charlie Sheen and his dad, Martin Sheen, played Michael Jordan 2 on 1 and crushed him. Based on what I'm reading here, a few posters would have declared Jordan overrated or washed up, and called for the firing of his personal trainer and nutritionist. This game, if you call it that, was meaningless.As proof, there was no line on the game. Can't get more meaningless than that. I remember one of the most important games in St. John's final four season was the loss to Niagara. Didn't lose again until Georgetown at the Garden. In fact, didn't lose to anyone the rest of the year except Georgetown. I would rather a loss in a scrimmage. As one poster said, best thing to get these guys to focus and work hard. Plus, RI doesn't suck. Teams ranked 108 beat good teams all the time in conference play, in OOC play, at tournaments. Let's all get a grip on things.
 
It sucks that we lost, but not enough for me to stress too much over.

The bigger issue for me is that if Roberts and Earlington can't even get burn in a scrimmage, I expect them to not be here next season.

Also, if it's just a scrimmage, could Caraher and Wright have played?
 
[quote="Adam" post=298673]Hopefully people don't mistake this message for freaking out, but yes there should be at least some concern over the results. They shouldn't be 100% dismissed.

3 points:
#1: Rhode Island is ranked #108 in Kenpom's updated rankings. Not just a loss, but since they're 100+ it'd be a "bad loss" (yes, obviously I know this game counts for nothing).
#2: Heron had a poor shooting night (1/10), which a lot of people have pointed out. However, he would've had to hit at least 3-5 more shots for us to win (roughly 50%+) depending on offensive rebounds, etc. Obviously very doable, but it's not like we lost by 1. We lost by 6. Heron was not the only reason.
#3: Interior and 3 point defense were the primary concerns. Sound familiar? I can excuse a poor offensive showing, but defense is tougher to justify.

Again, this is not me pressing the panic button. The game obviously doesn't count for anything. Just saying it's naive to just completely dismiss the results. We should have won this game, no excuses.[/quote]

If this were a regular season game it would not be a bad loss. Rhode Island is picked to finish 5th in the 14 team A10.
Heron may not have lost us the scrimmage alone as Clark took half his shots from the 3 point line and as usual seemingly had no inside presence. Their guards outplayed our guards if one compares stats. That's not a good take away for a team touted to have one of the best backcourt tandems in college ball.
The bottom line is we will know if this scrimmage was meaningful after our first exhibition game.
I'm hoping we are better prepared by then and see our freshmen get some burn. Tyrese Martin, RI's 3 star freshman played around 30 minutes and had decent numbers. Our freshman did not. Again, preparation and mindset may be an issue and it is the coaches that get paid to teach those things.
 
[quote="bamafan" post=298672][quote="johnsliva" post=298670]Sounds like you care an awful lot about a stupid scrimmage and would not have been happy with the result unless we had won by 20.[/quote]
Care less about scrimmage than all the excuses being made by posters. I'm sure we have much more talent than RI so losing to them is not a good look.[/quote]

Being it was a scrimmage I won't exactly set off the alarm bells. But if we had won by 20, as you said above, then most wouldn't dismiss the score.

Still a long, long season ahead, but the coaching questions will remain until proven otherwise.
 
[quote="L J S A" post=298677]It sucks that we lost, but not enough for me to stress too much over.

The bigger issue for me is that if Roberts and Earlington can't even get burn in a scrimmage, I expect them to not be here next season.

Also, if it's just a scrimmage, could Caraher and Wright have played?[/quote]

Transfers sitting can't play. RI did not play all its eligible players either but seemingly played a little harder for their talent level. They came down here to beat a Big East team as if it were a real game. We may have a little egg on our face for treating the scrimmage like a scrimmage.
 
I like Shamorie's line......very efficient. Other than that, I don't take much away from these games. I feel exactly the same as I did before the scrimmage. I am still pumped about the season and I am still pissed about the schedule.
 
[quote="L J S A" post=298684]Just figured I'd put this here to calm prematurely jittery nerves:

http://www.espn.com/mens-college-basketball/news/story?id=4620949[/quote]

The first six games of the 84-85 season, featured the infamous loss at Niagara, as well as one-point squeakers over St. Bonaventure and Fordham (both at home), and those games COUNTED. Can you imagine if this board was around back then, what the reaction would have been like at that time?

Good thing we didn't write off that season at that point, because, if I know my St. John's basketball history, that season turned out pretty well for us.
 
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[quote="L J S A" post=298684]Just figured I'd put this here to calm prematurely jittery nerves:

http://www.espn.com/mens-college-basketball/news/story?id=4620949[/quote]

I remember when that happened. I even clowned a good friend who is a 'Cuse fan about it.

The difference is track records between Boeheim and Mullin. Boeheim had already proved himself when that loss occurred.

I don't think most fans will truly sweat the scrimmage loss to Rhode Island, but the coaching questions will likely make several wonder.
 
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