St. John's-Texas A&M Game Thread

I was also rooting for us to get a look without getting fouled. And about Greene, I was wondering the same thing, in that situation you should have Moe, Nuri, harrison, green and I would put Pointer/Stith on the floor. You are hoping to spread the floor and get a good shot or fouled, no reason to have Gift on the floor. Greene can make a big shot and he can hit a ft, but you know the ball is going to Nuri there. Nuri can become a great player, but he has to 1) work on his fts, 2) work on his shot, and 3) Most important for me, working on his ability to distribute, hes so quick he should be drawing defenders and dishing all day. 
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Not just the last possesion but he sat almost the entire 2nd half and I thought he was just about our best performer the 1st half.
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He was waiting to come into the game when Pointer made a steal and a layup. Lavin called Greee back to the bench, obviously he was going into the game for Pointer. We certaintly needed his shot at the end of the game.
 
 The one thing that seems alittle troubling is that st johns seems to get out of the gate slowly. fell behing to arizona and the A&M, They were also down 10-3 UMBC. Even today they started slow in the 2nd half 8-0. I think this is something that has to be workded on. no matter who u are playing its always hard to play from behind and when you go up against better teams they are not going to let them back in like A&M. But again, its only 5 games into 95% of the teams career.
 
 With only a 7 man rotation, there will be games where some guys will see more minutes. I think Lavin likes Pointers at the top of the zone and he was disrupting things a bit. I think God'sgift was in late for rebounding. You really needed the pressence late in the game, and with 6 seconds left it was Lyndsy's play all the way and Gift and Harkless would crash the boards. hey just didn't work out, but down the road we win gams like this.
 
 I know these losses suck, but I think they are right where many thought they would be at the this point (3-2). The main positive is that with all the unknowns before the season, these last two games could have been blowouts.

An undersized, inexperienced, depth challenged team just played two top 18 teams in the span of 19 hours and lost by a combined 10 points.
 
Do you realize we had a chance to win the game after Lindsey missed his last foul shot. Harkless leaned into one of A&M's players who had inside position, and missed the rebound. Had he maintained his position he had time to catch and dunk.  
 
A couple of things struck me about the 2 Garden games..The new MSG floor is slippery as ice. I can't count how many times our guys were slipping, sliding, losing their balance, etc.. Maybe Lavin's sneaker company can get them shoes that grip better..

Lindsay has game but, not a complete game.. He needs to hit those Free throws down the stretch.. and, for guys rated as highly as this group was/is, their foul shooting is atrocious, even for freshman. If they have the talent they need to dedicate themselves to becoming great free throw shooters, since it's obvious these kids go to the rim and get fouled, a lot! 

If I'm Lavin, I have them practicing foul shots until they shot 70%, even in practice, Starting tomorrow.. I'd run them into the ground until every kid can hit 70%.

God's Gift was absent both days.. Nearly a Jasulonis/Coker type stat line.. And, I'm not sure Lindsay dishing off down the lane, wasn't a better strategy than having him on the line with the game in the balance.. shooting 8 for 16 are stats only a opposing Coach could hope for.

And, Lavin's Zone hasn;t convinced me in 2 years, albeit with different players, that it's capable of defending the 3.. It killed us last year too..
 
 To be fair to the zone, yes the 3 killed us againt Zona, but today A&M only had 4 3's and 3 were in the first 8 min of the game. Just seems the wing 3;s are always open.
 
A couple of things struck me about the 2 Garden games..The new MSG floor is slippery as ice. I can't count how many times our guys were slipping, sliding, losing their balance, etc.. Maybe Lavin's sneaker company can get them shoes that grip better..
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I think the floor is slippery because of all the stupid stickers they put on the court during tournament games. I don't believe those will be there when we play our home games. 
 
Interesting observation.......Lindsey is left-handed, he dribbles and makes lay-ups with the left but shoots free throws and outside shots with his right-hand.


I don't know how he ended up that way and I think it's too late to change it......so it will make it extremely hard for the coaching staff to improve it.
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So far, two things are definite: he is no Dwight Hardy from the outside and we do not have to worry about the NBA in his immediate future. Until he develops an outside shot and shoots better at the line we will have Nurideen for three years IMO. He is very effective on the dribble drive but so far has shown no other qualities that would make him an effective point guard since his foul shooting is suspect. I can't see him as a two guard in my wildest imagination since I think he has hit just a couple of shots all season from deep to make him a threat. Quite an an enigma!!!
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And, on that last possesion, as much as we don't want Lindsey on the line, who else on our team is going to run a play like that, that effectivly, to put us in that position? The answer is no one. So, he is both a weakness, and a strength at the end of games. You are also correct in that he is neither a 1, nor a 2, which is a problem.

But, we saw last night what the team looks like when he's not avaliable, and it wasen't pretty. So, in the end, he is a strength, albiet one with flaws.
 
Do you realize we had a chance to win the game after Lindsey missed his last foul shot. Harkless leaned into one of A&M's players who had inside position, and missed the rebound. Had he maintained his position he had time to catch and dunk.  
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Actually, I think there ay have been a foul committed by A&M at the very end, but no way it was going to be called.
 
A couple of things struck me about the 2 Garden games..The new MSG floor is slippery as ice. I can't count how many times our guys were slipping, sliding, losing their balance, etc.. Maybe Lavin's sneaker company can get them shoes that grip better..
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I think the floor is slippery because of all the stupid stickers they put on the court during tournament games. I don't believe those will be there when we play our home games. 
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Bingo! Tom Izzo has complained about those stupid, sponser stickers for a few years. Get rid of 'em! Allow the sponsers to have banners throughout the arena; periodically show 'em on the scoreboard and display 'em on the crawl on the sidelines.
 
A couple of things struck me about the 2 Garden games..The new MSG floor is slippery as ice. I can't count how many times our guys were slipping, sliding, losing their balance, etc.. Maybe Lavin's sneaker company can get them shoes that grip better..
Click to expand...

I think the floor is slippery because of all the stupid sticker they put on the court during tournament games. I don't believe those will be there when we play our home games. 
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That's part of it, but I believe it is also condensation (I think I spelled that wrong) from the ice underneath. You see it a lot in NBA games that are played in arenas that also host NHL teams.
 
 I wouldn't call it brutal, tough but not brutal. Brutal is losing to Tebow, when u are supposed to be a super bowl contending team.
 
A couple of things struck me about the 2 Garden games..The new MSG floor is slippery as ice. I can't count how many times our guys were slipping, sliding, losing their balance, etc.. Maybe Lavin's sneaker company can get them shoes that grip better..

Lindsay has game but, not a complete game.. He needs to hit those Free throws down the stretch.. and, for guys rated as highly as this group was/is, their foul shooting is atrocious, even for freshman. If they have the talent they need to dedicate themselves to becoming great free throw shooters, since it's obvious these kids go to the rim and get fouled, a lot! 

If I'm Lavin, I have them practicing foul shots until they shot 70%, even in practice, Starting tomorrow.. I'd run them into the ground until every kid can hit 70%.

God's Gift was absent both days.. Nearly a Jasulonis/Coker type stat line.. And, I'm not sure Lindsay dishing off down the lane, wasn't a better strategy than having him on the line with the game in the balance.. shooting 8 for 16 are stats only a opposing Coach could hope for.

And, Lavin's Zone hasn;t convinced me in 2 years, albeit with different players, that it's capable of defending the 3.. It killed us last year too..
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You're right.... We're gonna have to get better from the FT line, as it seems like they are gonna live at the line. Seriously.... Most teams aren't gonna be able to stop our guys from getting to the tin and we're gonna have to do better from the charity stripe.

Last year's squad showed improvement from the line, so I'm looking forward to the same thing happening with this group. We're gonna be in a similiar situation again this season and we're gonna have to be clutch from 15'.
 
 I wouldn't call it brutal, tough but not brutal. Brutal is losing to Tebow, when u are supposed to be a super bowl contending team.
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Well, I'm not a Jets fan, but this loss was brutal for me. Your starting poit guard missing 2 FT's down one point??? And the team missing 6-8 in crunch time?
 
Moe and Gift need to touch the ball more throughout the game (especially Moe). Gift needs to stop trying to put the ball on the floor when he gets it. Lindsey is great at getting to the basket but he doesn't seem to ever look to pass off the penetration, leaving the other four guys standing around watching and always risking charges as the defense expects him to drive. Impressed with Phil Greene and Harrison's play. Harrison plays with a lot of emotion but has to control it a little bit better.
 
The Good: For an inexperienced bunch, our guys played hard and hung in there against two Top 20 teams
The Bad: Poor free throw shooting and poor rebounding
I really believe that, if we had Sampson and Pelle (two more "bigs"), our rebounding would be much better
I think we should play more man to man defense
Our scampering zone takes as much (or more) energy to play than straight man
It might improve our defense against the three ball as well as our rebounding
 
 All in all I liked what I saw from this team the last two games for the most part. I think everyone would agree after watching these two games that this group has a chance to be special.
Of the three areas that concern me, FT shooting, the match up zone and the lack of rebounding, the FT shooting can be worked on and these guys are young and I think the FT shooting will improve. I feel the same way about defending the 3pt shot. Last year, early in the year the team had the same problem while learning the the match up zone. It improved as the year went on and I feel it will this year also as the this team learns and improves as the year goes on. as with any zone defense, if the offensive team reverses the ball fast enough they will get some good looks but I think that area will improve. What really concerns me is the lack of rebounding. These kids are lacking in size and depth to begin with, but, they're also Freshman and have not had time to be put on a strength and conditioning program to get stronger yet. That won't come until this offseason. That's an area that will kill us all year, the lack of rebounding. it's not just positioning. These guys are getting pushed around underneath.
 
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