Vaccaro sums it up

[L J S A]

My favorite excuse is "If we hadn't lost Keith Thomas......"

Hopefully we can all agree that this excuse expires after this season.

I see you harping on this, but I only see KT's name mentioned by other posters once a month, if that.

 

[logen]

My favorite excuse is "If we hadn't lost Keith Thomas......"

Hopefully we can all agree that this excuse expires after this season.

I see you harping on this, but I only see KT's name mentioned by other posters once a month, if that.

I understand your point but there is still the very occasional post commenting on how good we would be if Harkless was on the team and he left, what, 3 years ago? On the board we are at the same place we were after Norm's first couple of years, you are either for or agin as Lil Abner would say.

 

[monte]

Is it unreasonable to think that this is a tired hurting team thats playing all year with a short roster?. The guys overachieved. A rough spot figured to come along and vs. Nova was mission impossible. Providence picked up from the run that came up short vs. Butler, and we continued the funk that was the Nova game. If the guys regain their legs a good showing in round 1 of the tourny can happen. This is however the same team all agreed at 3-6 was short players. Me, I figured we would finish up games with walkons and 7-11 would be achieved only if the guys didn't quit. Sure, I was sick the way Providence kicked us around, but I can't get down on the players. They came back from the dead, with a team that was lacking to get in. Now I hope CO can feel good enough to help carry the load.

Too many players, not enough players, they were too tired-they are 20 years old and hadn't played a game in 5 days what do you want to do put them in an old age home? Will the excuses never cease?

My favorite excuse is "If we hadn't lost Keith Thomas......"

Hopefully we can all agree that this excuse expires after this season.

Not to mention the excuse of the loss of ADR, who many mistakenly expected to be our version of Josh Smith.

 

[paultzman]

Yy

Is it unreasonable to think that this is a tired hurting team thats playing all year with a short roster?. The guys overachieved. A rough spot figured to come along and vs. Nova was mission impossible. Providence picked up from the run that came up short vs. Butler, and we continued the funk that was the Nova game. If the guys regain their legs a good showing in round 1 of the tourny can happen. This is however the same team all agreed at 3-6 was short players. Me, I figured we would finish up games with walkons and 7-11 would be achieved only if the guys didn't quit. Sure, I was sick the way Providence kicked us around, but I can't get down on the players. They came back from the dead, with a team that was lacking to get in. Now I hope CO can feel good enough to help carry the load.

Too many players, not enough players, they were too tired-they are 20 years old and hadn't played a game in 5 days what do you want to do put them in an old age home? Will the excuses never cease?

My favorite excuse is "If we hadn't lost Keith Thomas......"

Hopefully we can all agree that this excuse expires after this season.

Not to mention the excuse of the loss of ADR, who many mistakenly expected to be our version of Josh Smith.

As you & I know from seeing him often over the years, he won't contribute much until he pays the price of getting in D1 basketball shape, Skilled, yes, ready, no in my opinion. Send him to a big man's camp equipped with an exercise & nutrition component. Will we ever see him on the court is the next question.

 

[Knight]

Yy

Is it unreasonable to think that this is a tired hurting team thats playing all year with a short roster?. The guys overachieved. A rough spot figured to come along and vs. Nova was mission impossible. Providence picked up from the run that came up short vs. Butler, and we continued the funk that was the Nova game. If the guys regain their legs a good showing in round 1 of the tourny can happen. This is however the same team all agreed at 3-6 was short players. Me, I figured we would finish up games with walkons and 7-11 would be achieved only if the guys didn't quit. Sure, I was sick the way Providence kicked us around, but I can't get down on the players. They came back from the dead, with a team that was lacking to get in. Now I hope CO can feel good enough to help carry the load.

Too many players, not enough players, they were too tired-they are 20 years old and hadn't played a game in 5 days what do you want to do put them in an old age home? Will the excuses never cease?

My favorite excuse is "If we hadn't lost Keith Thomas......"

Hopefully we can all agree that this excuse expires after this season.

Not to mention the excuse of the loss of ADR, who many mistakenly expected to be our version of Josh Smith.

As you & I know from seeing him often over the years, he won't contribute much until he pays the price of getting in D1 basketball shape, Skilled, yes, ready, no in my opinion. Send him to a big man's camp equipped with an exercise & nutrition component. Will we ever see him on the court is the next question.

Has ADR qualified?

 

[room112]

Is it unreasonable to think that this is a tired hurting team thats playing all year with a short roster?. The guys overachieved. A rough spot figured to come along and vs. Nova was mission impossible. Providence picked up from the run that came up short vs. Butler, and we continued the funk that was the Nova game. If the guys regain their legs a good showing in round 1 of the tourny can happen. This is however the same team all agreed at 3-6 was short players. Me, I figured we would finish up games with walkons and 7-11 would be achieved only if the guys didn't quit. Sure, I was sick the way Providence kicked us around, but I can't get down on the players. They came back from the dead, with a team that was lacking to get in. Now I hope CO can feel good enough to help carry the load.

Too many players, not enough players, they were too tired-they are 20 years old and hadn't played a game in 5 days what do you want to do put them in an old age home? Will the excuses never cease?

My favorite excuse is "If we hadn't lost Keith Thomas......"

Hopefully we can all agree that this excuse expires after this season.

Not to mention the excuse of the loss of ADR, who many mistakenly expected to be our version of Josh Smith.

Not letting Lavin off the hook, he was the one who brought these players in, but when we found out both were ineligible, most gave us no shot this year, check the old threads

 

[Class of 72]

Yy

Is it unreasonable to think that this is a tired hurting team thats playing all year with a short roster?. The guys overachieved. A rough spot figured to come along and vs. Nova was mission impossible. Providence picked up from the run that came up short vs. Butler, and we continued the funk that was the Nova game. If the guys regain their legs a good showing in round 1 of the tourny can happen. This is however the same team all agreed at 3-6 was short players. Me, I figured we would finish up games with walkons and 7-11 would be achieved only if the guys didn't quit. Sure, I was sick the way Providence kicked us around, but I can't get down on the players. They came back from the dead, with a team that was lacking to get in. Now I hope CO can feel good enough to help carry the load.

Too many players, not enough players, they were too tired-they are 20 years old and hadn't played a game in 5 days what do you want to do put them in an old age home? Will the excuses never cease?

My favorite excuse is "If we hadn't lost Keith Thomas......"

Hopefully we can all agree that this excuse expires after this season.

Not to mention the excuse of the loss of ADR, who many mistakenly expected to be our version of Josh Smith.

As you & I know from seeing him often over the years, he won't contribute much until he pays the price of getting in D1 basketball shape, Skilled, yes, ready, no in my opinion. Send him to a big man's camp equipped with an exercise & nutrition component. Will we ever see him on the court is the next question.

Yes, I agree he needs to audition for the biggest loser but if you think Josh Smith, as a senior, is going to be defined as being in D1 basketball shape then we need to define "shape".
Adonis has every skill his brother lacks except maturity. As for the question will we ever see him on the court again his status circles back to CTK and its coach Arbitrary who found it convenient to keep him qualified and had him collect that prestigious CTK diploma. Your question should be how is he doing in class as a freshman in college and not whether a 5'5 Irish kid impersonating him was able to take his SAT which many colleges should flush down the toilet.

 

[mjmaherjr]

Vaccaro is a phony? He praises STJ when they do something well, and writes a dead on piece like this when they stink the joint up.

There is nothing Vaccaro wrote that was not mentioned a hundred times in various threads here! As a journalist I expected some insight but there was none imo. In poo pooing the seniors performance in the Big East tourney he unfairly singles out these four as if they were the reason for losing one freaking game in each of the 4 years they played here or, since records don't lie, as he stated, for a total of 4 games in single round elimination games they played. We that have witnessed all 120+ games they have played know that they have been as much the victims of various circumstances as they have been protagonists in those few losses. They are victims of their own deficient skill sets, mediocre coaching and other factors. To try to define their legacy as losing 4 Big East tourney games disregards and diminishes their victories, not only over opponents but over their individual hardships and demons. We bitter fans react and write criticisms from our deepest emotions because of our vested interest in our team and for most, our alma mater. In the Big picture of LIFE losing 4 games in these mostly money making meaningless conference tournaments is not a legacy building experience worthy of op-ends by journalists as if to overshadow all the games they played and big games they won.
As we all know, by the time the conference tourneys start the majority of teams have been selected for what they justifiably did during the season. Only upsets in these tourneys change the seeding and selections. In lesser leagues teams like Iona get upset and the kids never even get a chance to have an NCAA memory. That should not define student-athletes legacies. It was very big of Mike Vaccaro to dump on 4 flawed seniors who had a supporting cast of 2 undergrads and nothing else after winning 21 games in one of the top 3 conferences in America.

I'm too drunk to read all this.

+1 for cracking me up although I almost popped the stitches from my wisdom tooth removal

 

[ccnobz]

Ouch, you may need a few drinks after having those teeth pulled.

 

[mjmaherjr]

Ouch, you may need a few drinks after having those teeth pulled.

Yeah the novocaine is wearing off. Pain setting in. Still freaking bleeding even though I got stitches which is annoying.

Pain killer time !!

 

[monte]

Is it unreasonable to think that this is a tired hurting team thats playing all year with a short roster?. The guys overachieved. A rough spot figured to come along and vs. Nova was mission impossible. Providence picked up from the run that came up short vs. Butler, and we continued the funk that was the Nova game. If the guys regain their legs a good showing in round 1 of the tourny can happen. This is however the same team all agreed at 3-6 was short players. Me, I figured we would finish up games with walkons and 7-11 would be achieved only if the guys didn't quit. Sure, I was sick the way Providence kicked us around, but I can't get down on the players. They came back from the dead, with a team that was lacking to get in. Now I hope CO can feel good enough to help carry the load.

Too many players, not enough players, they were too tired-they are 20 years old and hadn't played a game in 5 days what do you want to do put them in an old age home? Will the excuses never cease?

My favorite excuse is "If we hadn't lost Keith Thomas......"

Hopefully we can all agree that this excuse expires after this season.

Not to mention the excuse of the loss of ADR, who many mistakenly expected to be our version of Josh Smith.

Not letting Lavin off the hook, he was the one who brought these players in, but when we found out both were ineligible, most gave us no shot this year, check the old threads

I was not most. Feel free to check my old posts. I felt from the get go that we had a legit shot of making tourney and did not change my opinion all season. I was not counting on much, if anything, from ADR, so losing him didn't change my opinion. Losing KT concerned me, but after watching the team early on I still felt that they could overcome his loss. As I said in another post, I do think that Lavin has done an admirable job with this group this year.

 

[monte]

Yy

Is it unreasonable to think that this is a tired hurting team thats playing all year with a short roster?. The guys overachieved. A rough spot figured to come along and vs. Nova was mission impossible. Providence picked up from the run that came up short vs. Butler, and we continued the funk that was the Nova game. If the guys regain their legs a good showing in round 1 of the tourny can happen. This is however the same team all agreed at 3-6 was short players. Me, I figured we would finish up games with walkons and 7-11 would be achieved only if the guys didn't quit. Sure, I was sick the way Providence kicked us around, but I can't get down on the players. They came back from the dead, with a team that was lacking to get in. Now I hope CO can feel good enough to help carry the load.

Too many players, not enough players, they were too tired-they are 20 years old and hadn't played a game in 5 days what do you want to do put them in an old age home? Will the excuses never cease?

My favorite excuse is "If we hadn't lost Keith Thomas......"

Hopefully we can all agree that this excuse expires after this season.

Not to mention the excuse of the loss of ADR, who many mistakenly expected to be our version of Josh Smith.

As you & I know from seeing him often over the years, he won't contribute much until he pays the price of getting in D1 basketball shape, Skilled, yes, ready, no in my opinion. Send him to a big man's camp equipped with an exercise & nutrition component. Will we ever see him on the court is the next question.

Agreed Paultz. There are 2 huge(no pun) question marks surrounding ADR: Conditioning and academics. Improvement on both involve a lot of hard work. I know nothing about his current academic standings, but the few times that I've seen him at CTK this year there's nothing to indicate that there's been a considerable improvement in his conditioning. Hopefully he is making a serious commitment to both and we'll see him on the court at some point in the future.

 

[Spocky Ramone]

Vaccaro is a phony? He praises STJ when they do something well, and writes a dead on piece like this when they stink the joint up.

There is nothing Vaccaro wrote that was not mentioned a hundred times in various threads here! As a journalist I expected some insight but there was none imo. In poo pooing the seniors performance in the Big East tourney he unfairly singles out these four as if they were the reason for losing one freaking game in each of the 4 years they played here or, since records don't lie, as he stated, for a total of 4 games in single round elimination games they played. We that have witnessed all 120+ games they have played know that they have been as much the victims of various circumstances as they have been protagonists in those few losses. They are victims of their own deficient skill sets, mediocre coaching and other factors. To try to define their legacy as losing 4 Big East tourney games disregards and diminishes their victories, not only over opponents but over their individual hardships and demons. We bitter fans react and write criticisms from our deepest emotions because of our vested interest in our team and for most, our alma mater. In the Big picture of LIFE losing 4 games in these mostly money making meaningless conference tournaments is not a legacy building experience worthy of op-ends by journalists as if to overshadow all the games they played and big games they won.
As we all know, by the time the conference tourneys start the majority of teams have been selected for what they justifiably did during the season. Only upsets in these tourneys change the seeding and selections. In lesser leagues teams like Iona get upset and the kids never even get a chance to have an NCAA memory. That should not define student-athletes legacies. It was very big of Mike Vaccaro to dump on 4 flawed seniors who had a supporting cast of 2 undergrads and nothing else after winning 21 games in one of the top 3 conferences in America.

I'm too drunk to read all this.

+1 for cracking me up although I almost popped the stitches from my wisdom tooth removal

There's a joke in there about how being a Redmen fan is like pulling teeth. Regardless, feel better!

 

[Class of 72]

Is it unreasonable to think that this is a tired hurting team thats playing all year with a short roster?. The guys overachieved. A rough spot figured to come along and vs. Nova was mission impossible. Providence picked up from the run that came up short vs. Butler, and we continued the funk that was the Nova game. If the guys regain their legs a good showing in round 1 of the tourny can happen. This is however the same team all agreed at 3-6 was short players. Me, I figured we would finish up games with walkons and 7-11 would be achieved only if the guys didn't quit. Sure, I was sick the way Providence kicked us around, but I can't get down on the players. They came back from the dead, with a team that was lacking to get in. Now I hope CO can feel good enough to help carry the load.

Too many players, not enough players, they were too tired-they are 20 years old and hadn't played a game in 5 days what do you want to do put them in an old age home? Will the excuses never cease?

My favorite excuse is "If we hadn't lost Keith Thomas......"

Hopefully we can all agree that this excuse expires after this season.

We will never know what could have been with his disqualification but to poo poo his loss as an "excuse" is foolish. He was penciled in at power forward and with Pointer at SF with Obekpa at center the complexion of the depth of this team would have changed radically. Substitutions in backcourt would have been more fluid with Greene and Branch assuming more support roles while our abysmal offensive rebounding may have improved dramatically.
Hopefully next season we don't become the punch line of the Big East if Lavin is fired and the best Ricky Baldi and friends can come up with is Mad Max Masiello and a bunch of walk ons being pummeled by DePaul, Seton Hall and Marquette into last place because those 3 current commits and all pending ones go out the window.
Then again we are masochists here and likely some will enjoy the pain.

 

[ccnobz]

Feel better Mj

 

[Class of 72]

This article was posted yesterday in a separate game thread. Vaccaro does not deserve this much attention on redmen.com. He's a phony.

Don't know anything about the guy personally but his articles have been on point

You should know about him! He gets a lot of his inspiration from reading St. John's fan forums. He even may have posted here! Are you familiar with the term he used in his article "Mulligan"? Well it is rarely used outside of amateur friendly golf games but someone has used it here on Redmen.com before the article came out.