Sorry St. John's
- Thread starter usfdons
- Start date
One really has nothing to do with the other. Joe wouldn't know the relative strength of the WCC it if walked up to him with a T Shirt saying "Hi, I'm the relative strength of the WCC". He's a kid who overvalues BCS conferences relative strength in college hoops. One may think the bottom five teams are cupcakes, I don't, but the Zags are good enough to make them look as such. I agree with you that the Zags are probably one of the top teams this year. Talent all over the floor. They'd be a top 3 BE team this year no doubt.
All that said, I've often taken the exact same position as Joe with regard to the definition of a mid major. There are 6 high major conferences in college hoops, defined so by budgets and BCS affiliation. Any other team by definition belongs to a mid major conference (or lower) and is therefore a mid major. That said some mid major rankings have stopped including Gonzaga, I guess having decided their history of success belies their conference affiliation. I don't agree with that.
true and logical but you can't really say "by definition" since there is no such thing as "high major" or "mid major" as far as the NCAA is concerned and there is no official definition of what constitutes them... the argument itself can only ever be a matter of subjective opinion and semantics but Gonzaga is the #1 worst example to try to make this type of argument.
Gonzaga is very good, but top 3 absolutely not. Kentucky, Cuse, Florida, Duke, Indiana, Michigan, L'Ville, OSU, Kansas, are all better IMO. They are nationally respected, and have a great team this year, but you tell me if they would run the WCC as easy in the Big East. I say no way. Any Big East team can beat a major team any given day. Any WCC team beating a major team other than Zaga, St. Mary's, or BYU is much more unlikely. Very recently SJ beat Duke, Rutgers (I know they are not here anymore) beat Florida, Seton Hall beat G'Town, etc. Those are the lower tier Big East teams beating studs. If you think the WCC is as rigorous as the Big East you should check yourself into the closest psychiatric ward. This is not about Gonzaga, it's about SF and they aren't a juggernaut like some people seem to believe. They are a mid major not even close to Murray State. By some of your flawed logic, we currently have Cuse in our conference. That means SJ is as good as Cuse. Huh? Exactly...makes no sense. Just because Gonzaga is in the same conference as SF does not mean they are even in the same universe talent wise.
Can we lose? Sure...SF is solid. Are we the favorites? Yes. Do upsets happen? Sure. But one thing is not even debatable: SF is a mid major as surely as Chris Christie is obese.
Can we lose? Sure...SF is solid. Are we the favorites? Yes. Do upsets happen? Sure. But one thing is not even debatable: SF is a mid major as surely as Chris Christie is obese.
Joe, I would say we are underdogs going into a cramped gym all the way across the country.
So by your logic, if UCLA or Indiana comes to Carnesecca, we will be the favorites? No way are we underdogs 6-2 beating a few of the top mid majors already as a Big East team with all this talent playing right with #16 Baylor until the final minutes and outplaying Murray State even if we blew it. We are no juggernaut, but SF is not a team we are supposed to lose to by any means. They can very well beat us, but they are definitely not the favorites.
Well your examples given are teams among the best in the country. You are making it sound like STJ is Indiana and Sf is some horrible team. Im simply stating a group of young men could be considered underdogs if they struggled at home against NJIT, just four days later they have to play across the country against a team you are really underrating IMO.
And Vermont beat Cuse once. Every major team has a few trap games. Look at L'Ville vs Illinois State...is L'Ville suddenly the underdog now in a small gym at some mid major school? It makes zero sense. If you only consider us not only winning but winning by 20+ every game as par for the course then you will be miserable all season. Where did I say SF was horrible? You just totally made that one up. I said they can definitely beat us and they are a very solid mid major. HOWEVER, we are the Big East team and they are the mid major. We are supposed to win. You really think playing an away game completely takes talent out of the picture for the game? Maybe if Cuse flies to play Santa Clara, Cuse will magically have their talent sucked out of them? It's possible that our players are tired, but talent usually trumps who has home court or how long the flight was.
Jack, you could make a pee wee league basketball team full of 8 year olds seem scary and a real threat to SJ. SF is better than Charleston but worse than Murray State and Detroit IMO so it's a toss up to me. If SF beats us, it will be a major notch in their belt and their fans might storm the court. If we beat SF we will say "good, we should have" and move on. That should tell you who the real underdog is.
Jack, you could make a pee wee league basketball team full of 8 year olds seem scary and a real threat to SJ. SF is better than Charleston but worse than Murray State and Detroit IMO so it's a toss up to me. If SF beats us, it will be a major notch in their belt and their fans might storm the court. If we beat SF we will say "good, we should have" and move on. That should tell you who the real underdog is.
Ok Joe, first of all, if you are saying that teams arent affected by places they are playing, you are wrong. Being on the road, I am saying we will not play our best game all the way out in San Fran. That being said, I didnt say you said Sf was horrible, I said you were simply underrating them. And you are. They blew out Columbia by 20 (who beat Nova). Competed against Stanford who are very solid and also beat Montana who have made the tourney many times the last few years. Also your other point is totally pointless. You are saying Depaul should beat St Mary's in California because Depaul is a major team. All im saying here Joe is we are in their place in San Fran, Tough place to play, Sf has proven they are solid, and their three top scorers are all juniors. So they are more experienced, and at home, and that makes me see them as a favorite, if you see it differently, well.... Agree to disagree...
I don't think they should be underdogs either and I do believe STJ should win this game. But their top scorer was being touted by our own CRGreen (or is he JJ's own, whatever) when he was with UCLA last year and he's shooting over 70% from 3 this year (LOL), their starting PF is averaging 15/15 which is good no matter who you're playing for and their PG seems efficient. Not much else besides that and a huge Chinese guy though. Wish I could make it up there.
Don't compare Indiana and UCLA. Indiana is one thing. We'd blow the doors off UCLA at Carnesecca right now IMO. The two are not on the same stratosphere as is.
As far as our potential goes though, with Branch and IF we get Sanchez, I don't think there's a team we can't match up with down the stretch this season. Not one. Problem is though, that I'm not sure we will get Sanchez unfortunately.
You underrate talent and overrate home court advantage. You are using the old: a friend of a friend of a friend concept trying to prove a team is good. This team beat that team which beat that team which beat that team, so you know they must be good! Come on...you know that doesn't work. If I touched the hand of a man who touched another man's hand who touched another man's hand who touched Abraham Lincoln, it doesn't mean I know Lincoln. To use your own logic against you, we beat Charleston who beat Baylor so we are better than a team who beat Columbia who beat Nova. It's just a stupid way to analyze how good a team is because you rarely have that perfect consistency where you beat everyone you are supposed to and lose to everyone you are supposed to. It's funny how the same stuff gets repeated every week. First Detroit is way better than us, then it's Charleston, then it's FGCU, then it's South Carolina, and we end up winning all of those, some convincingly. You sound like you have zero faith in SJ. Reality check: it's San Francisco, not Indiana we are facing.
The thing is I don't remember anyone saying any of those teams was better than STJ, lots of folks expected many of those games to be competitive with a chance to lose and all but South Carolina were. You've predicted every game to be a blow out. So they were right and you were not. I also think too often guys post on hear like they're coaches. "Take every team seriously, Any given Sunday, blah blah blah" I'm guilty of that as well. because I've seen STJ teams as good as this one and better lose to teams like USF and worse many times. Not often but it does happen.
Somebody may be able to clarify the logistics of playing CoC in the tournament and whether its a "true road game" or not. If not this is our 1st true road game of the year. This game stands between us and a sterling 10-2 start, yes I am dismissing Fordham, Asheville, and st Francis. Will be a pivotal fixture tomorrow night and it doesn't matter if they're a mid major, high mid major, or BCS foe. What matters is their 5 guys against our 5 guys.