The next 10 games

beast of the east

beast of the east

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Now that we've gotten a good look at this year's squad and have a pretty good idea at each individual's talents and how this team performs against top competition, what can re expect over the last ten Big East regular season games and the BET?

Last season, our squad battled mightily during the Big East regular season, and nudged ahead of .500 in conference at 8-7 at one point. Combined with a 12-0 OOC record, at 20-7 we had a great shot at closing strong, finishing third in the conference, and securing a pretty good seed in the dance, if we merely won two out of 3 remaining conference games, and won a game or two in the BET..

We all know what happened next. Three straight regular season losses, a 9th place finish, a win in the BET play in game, and got wrecked by Marquette on our home MSG court. A comatose game against a very beatable Arizona State team, and the promising season and coaching staff were finished.

Well coached teams get better end to end. This season we were elated that a team that lost 3 starters got out of the gates well, and beat two teams, Arizona and WVU that we weren't supposed to. Gleefully our fans crowed, "You see, it's the coaching, the coaching - now we have a real coach!" I believe we do.

However, over the next ten games, the person who has something to prove is CMA. Yes, there will be no post season for our guys, barring a miracle BET. But the thing that very good coaches are able to do is end the season with a much better TEAM than the one that began the season. Cooley's Providence teams come to mind, even as he is maligned by some. Obviously, Jay Wright has had two fairytale seasons by having his guys ready come tourney time.

So over the next ten games, it's really up to CMA to get these guys playing the best ball they are capable of. Whether that means 1 or 2 more wins, or 5 or 6, I don't know. I do know these guys have not played well lately, and they can be much better. A coach lives and dies with how well his teams play. It's all depends on the staff's ability to get the very best out of these guys as we enter the final 1/3 of the season.
 
I am done believing after last night. I will =watch all the games and root like heck for this team but any postseason aspirations I had ended last night.

We will win 2 or 3 out of our last 10 and then its the big ewast tourney. I think we can win an opening round game there.

So I have 3 or 4 more wins this year.
 
I'm not sure how many more games we win These are going to all be tough games.

I am also not sure the next 10 games is a referendum on the coach. He has had precious little time so far. A referendum comes after more time IMHO. I still like what I see from the coach so far.

My wife says to me (and she isn't a BB fan), from what it seems, SJU plays better and even wins sometimes against better teams, and loses against lesser teams. She may be right, but if she is --- I sure hope we have a W against Villanova at the Garden in a week. That would validate a lot of things for me. But watching Nova play Butler last night with such a sub-par performance from Gillespie I do not think that one is in the Win column.

We'll see how it goes. It may get worse before it gets better. I sure hope not.
 
What's rough about this year, as was the case 2 years ago when we went 11-2 OOC with a win over Duke, is that 7-11 along with a BET win or 2 might have been enough to get us into the Dance. Last year 12-1 OOC / 8-10 BE / 1-1 BET was enough in a far weaker Big East. It's disappointing that we fell this hard so quickly. I can't think of any other NCAA team over the past 3 years that has had this much success OOC and then cratered during conference play.

That said, we haven't completely wasted our OOC yet as the NIT is still in play. Everyone on here would be a lot more optimistic going forward if we can get there.

If, however, we finish around 3-15, miss the NIT, and a couple guys deflect, then we almost certainly will be picked to finish 10th or 11th next year in the Big East. I think this staff is very hard working and good at coaching, but even with that in mind it could be a rough tenure if we don't start winning within the next couple years.
 
4 conference wins in total when all is said and done.
 
[quote="Monte" post=373815]4 conference wins in total when all is said and done.[/quote]

Only thing i care about at this point is getting 4 more wins , and finishing 16-15, and even with a loss in the first rnd of the b.e tournament we'll still finish at 500.

I see us losing all of our road games. I see.us beating Georgetown, x and Marquette. Now could we beat either creighton or pc? That's assuming that there's no slip up against the 3 i mentioned as wins.
Get me 4 wins and I'm good with a 5-13 conf record.
 
I think 4 more wins and is a realistic goal for the rest of this year. Either win 4 of our 6 home games against Gtown, Marquette, PC, Xavier, Creighton & Nova or beat Depaul Saturday and win 3 of those 6 home games. If we can do that and win the BE Wednesday night game we will be in NIT which would be an excellent result. We'll see.
 
I expect SJU will win a couple of games.The law of averages will take over a couple of nights and the team will somehow hit 45 per cent of their threes. That will result in a win no matter who is the opponent.
The next game they will go back to hitting 22 per cent of their threes and lose. They could beat any big east team if they could hit 40 per cent of their outside shots but they aren't capable of doing that .
 
The coaching is not the problem. Missing the bunnies, free throws and wide open three pointers are the problems. The only reason we're IN any of these games is because of the coaching.
 
[quote="Monte" post=373815]4 conference wins in total when all is said and done.[/quote]

Said the same before the season started.
 
[quote="rawdognyc" post=373824]The coaching is not the problem. Missing the bunnies, free throws and wide open three pointers are the problems. The only reason we're IN any of these games is because of the coaching.[/quote]

I, regretfully, go on the opposing teams message boards after our games and they have all mentioned that our team is very well coached. Most actually point out that they are nervous to play our team the next few years because of this. Once we get some guys that can hit an open 3 we will be a much better team.
 
I hate to be an arm chair quarterback but I see this team’s problem as more defense than offense. Yes, they are challenged offensively but they have greater difficulty in their half-court defense. They are constantly double teaming or crowding the lane & leaving perimeter shooters wide open. At times, players are so open, it looks like a pre-game shootaround!
 
[quote="Vincent Shallow" post=373839]I hate to be an arm chair quarterback but I see this team’s problem as more defense than offense. Yes, they are challenged offensively but they have greater difficulty in their half-court defense. They are constantly double teaming or crowding the lane & leaving perimeter shooters wide open. At times, players are so open, it looks like a pre-game shootaround![/quote]

Correct. You cant double every halfcourt possesion. These are high d1 basketball players. They are going to pass out of it and get wide open looks.

If we didnt double on every posession, we win last nights game.

If anderson is just going to say “this is what we do no matter what”, we are in big trouble against any team with half decent shooters.
 
During a timeout, with the tv on the coach talking to the players, I am pretty sure I heard him discussing the fact that they were not talking to each other when they double teamed, too far out and leaving someone free for wide open shots. He moved us into more of a zone press but urged communication. Candidly, I think the players are getting used to this style and get a bit over-excited about forcing turnovers when they aren't there. But I don't think the coaching staff is as blind or stubborn, as some of the game commentary here would suggest, that they don't understand the dynamics of the game.
Part of the issue is that we rely on the defense for offense because we are lacking shooting depth as we all agree. I like switching defenses at times, but if your team is limited in its ability to shoot and you rely on layups off steals, you can't just jump in and out of defenses. Frankly, you don't know that the opponent has really "broken" your default defense until it happens multiple times and then you change, which I thought they did reasonably well.
Let's face it, when you can't shoot 3s and foul shots and layups, the defensive flaws, allowing corner 3s for example, are magnified.
 
[quote="Duke of Earlington" post=373840][quote="Vincent Shallow" post=373839]I hate to be an arm chair quarterback but I see this team’s problem as more defense than offense. Yes, they are challenged offensively but they have greater difficulty in their half-court defense. They are constantly double teaming or crowding the lane & leaving perimeter shooters wide open. At times, players are so open, it looks like a pre-game shootaround![/quote]

Correct. You cant double every halfcourt possesion. These are high d1 basketball players. They are going to pass out of it and get wide open looks.

If we didnt double on every posession, we win last nights game.

If anderson is just going to say “this is what we do no matter what”, we are in big trouble against any team with half decent shooters.[/quote]

Along with Redman in Albany, I distinctly remember CMA telling the players in the huddle that they were double-teaming too much. You can lead a horse to water....
 
[quote="CMA TIME" post=373816][quote="Monte" post=373815]4 conference wins in total when all is said and done.[/quote]

Only thing i care about at this point is getting 4 more wins , and finishing 16-15, and even with a loss in the first rnd of the b.e tournament we'll still finish at 500.

I see us losing all of our road games. I see.us beating Georgetown, x and Marquette. Now could we beat either creighton or pc? That's assuming that there's no slip up against the 3 i mentioned as wins.
Get me 4 wins and I'm good with a 5-13 conf record.[/quote]

I like your win total better lol
 
[quote="P Simmons" post=373877][quote="Duke of Earlington" post=373840][quote="Vincent Shallow" post=373839]I hate to be an arm chair quarterback but I see this team’s problem as more defense than offense. Yes, they are challenged offensively but they have greater difficulty in their half-court defense. They are constantly double teaming or crowding the lane & leaving perimeter shooters wide open. At times, players are so open, it looks like a pre-game shootaround![/quote]

Correct. You cant double every halfcourt possesion. These are high d1 basketball players. They are going to pass out of it and get wide open looks.

If we didnt double on every posession, we win last nights game.

If anderson is just going to say “this is what we do no matter what”, we are in big trouble against any team with half decent shooters.[/quote]

Along with Redman in Albany, I distinctly remember CMA telling the players in the huddle that they were double-teaming too much. You can lead a horse to water....[/quote]

The flip side of the argument is that we are #1 in the nation in steals
You can't have it both ways
You want steals, you play a helter skelter type of defense that we do
 
I don't agree that the next 10 games are on CMA or that he has a lot to prove. As so many posters have already indicated, coaching is not our issue. He is not even through his first full year as a coach. It's execution, which stems from a lesser talented team. Once CMA gets his guys, I am confident we will be back. And stronger than we've been in a long while.
 
I'm having a whale of a time finding any game we win the rest of the season. Look at the narratives the last few games. Georgetown was flat out embarrassing like I've never seen before. Providence, one possession game with under 2 mins to go and lose. We have a 13 pt lead vs Seton Hall and lose, the story after the game - "play like that vs anyone else in the conference and they win." Ok Great, you lost to the #10 team in the country fine...Marquette...you hang around through horrible play by Dunn and LJ, get it to a 2 pt game on the road with 8 mins to go, while having the opposing team shooting 33 free throws to your 9. Can't get over the hump. Can't close games. Can't hit free throws (when we even get to the line), shooting the ball atrociously each and every game.

Asking for wins in the big east for us right now, or hoping for them seems like inevitable disappointment. It really sucks, the players are simply not playing well and that's an understatement. LJ and Mustapha have regressed tremendously now that they have been asked to carry the load. We waited half a year for Steere to be eligible and he has proved to not be ready / not earned the trust or given the effort to be on the court. Positives have been with Earlington, Champaigne in flashes, Greg Williams here and there and Dunn sans last few games.

I watch other big east match ups and teams just move the ball so much better than us in the half court, we are so damn stagnant. No one moves crisply without the ball, it's just so bland. Don't know what to attribute that to but it's very obvious when watching these other Big East games.

The other common theme is fans simply saying we're just not that good and our guys simply don't have the amount of talent necessary. I don't know how much I believe that but I lean that way more than not at this point. We showed how well we can play out of conference and in short spurts during Big East play. But what do you say to the horrible shooting? How does that continue the way it has, the only answer is we have have sub par shooters and finishers.

Sorry this is drawn out and negative but it just feels like we have pissed away a great start to the season that gave us hope. And while everyone keeps saying "this was a rebuilding year and we shouldn't have expected anything" In my opinion that changes when you go 11-2, beat WVU and Arizona. But we've been there before so it's the same old song and dance.

Here's to a few more wins somehow and not giving Iron Mike a sub 500 record for the first time ever.
 
St John's is 12-8. I think they'll get 4 more wins. They'll be close games. 16 wins means CMA doesn't have a losing season. I think that will be enough for the NIT. Depends on how they do in the BE tournament.

Heron looked better in the Seton Hall game. 18 pts, 2 rebounds, 2 assists. Played 28 mins. It's encouraging and let's hope Heron continues to improve.

Dunn has shaken off the rust from his year away from basketball. He had 4 rebounds and 4 assists, 8 points against SH. Played 32 mins. His shooting has been erratic and I hope that will improve. I think he was trying to do too much against SH. He needs to trust his teammates and pass. I'm anxious to see if Dunn's shot selection improves in the DePaul game Sat.

Anderson's teams typically peak later in the season. We'll find out very soon if that happens this season.
 
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