Very unrealistic expectations

[McGarry2]

Interestingly C Mullin appears to appreciate speed as well as quickness. Where as I remember Lou's team as being quick but not particularly fast. Mark Jackson also experienced a long NBA career with at best average speed and lack of speed contributed to Walter Berry rather short NBA a career. Lovett appear to have the kind of speed that will enable him to overcome his height to play in the NBA where as concerning Ponds it is questionable. Back in the day felt one of important difference between the Georgetown team and us was speed, theirs.

 

[KG44]

Lovett and Ponds' height is fine for college. I'm not really worried about their NBA prospects at this point. There have been many excellent college guards who did not profile for the NBA. I'm more concerned about how they develop from now until the end of the season, and what they do for St. John's the next few years. I don't expect either to average 20ppg or shoot over 50% from 3-pt range the entire year. Good teams will be able to limit them. IMO this is still a 15 win team given the tough schedule, but I could see 17-18 if this team comes together. I do expect this team to be a Top 25 caliber team next year.

 

[beast of the east]

Interestingly C Mullin appears to appreciate speed as well as quickness. Where as I remember Lou's team as being quick but not particularly fast. Mark Jackson also experienced a long NBA career with at best average speed and lack of speed contributed to Walter Berry rather short NBA a career. Lovett appear to have the kind of speed that will enable him to overcome his height to play in the NBA where as concerning Ponds it is questionable. Back in the day felt one of important difference between the Georgetown team and us was speed, theirs.

Pearl Washington wasn't the fastest guy I've ever seen, but with the ball in his hands was one of the quickest. Stop-Stop-head fake-ball fake-spin-cut-freeze is the reason why in the schoolyards he was given the more apt nickname "Pac-Man" who could seemingly go in any direction, maybe even the illusion of all directions, in s micro second, making him un-guardable as a collegiate, getting the best of even Patrick Ewing, and making Mark Jackson look like Jackson was mired in quicksand. As a pro, where the trees are taller, faster, and stronger, without a deadeye jumper, Washington's career itself was DOA.

Lovett has a long way to go. Let him have his baptism before we bring him to the altar. A lot of sacraments in between.

 

[Amaseinyourface]

Don't know why I keep seeing posters state that Lovett & Ponds are too small for the NBA. 6'0 and 6'1 is not too small for the point guard position. Both guys will be drafted and play in the NBA someday. And in Lovetts case, it will probably be sooner than many here think. If he sticks around for even 3 years consider it fortunate. He will be a starter on the NBA level in my opinion.

Again that 3 game thing but just my take is if you are a smaller guard you need to be lightening quick and though far from slow I would not put Lovett in that category. He is more crafty with good quickness. Shoots much better than I had imagined. Nice touch.

If Ponds can learn to play point he has a slightly better shot. Again just my opinion and hope we don't find out for 4 years.

Really? Lovett is not lightening quick? He is as quick as they come.

Again for his size would need to be John Wall quick and he is not that from what I can see. We are talking pros here for some reason and I don't see pro speed for 6 foot guy. Just my opinion.

I think there is a good chance he is the quickest guard in every game he plays this year. I think its actually his biggest asset. The fact that he is a more than capable shooter and distributor makes him that much better.

 

[Class of 72]

While the theme here is avoiding judgment based on a 3 game sample, some of the same posters are expressing disappointment in our frontcourt 3 games in. What is unreasonable is expecting Yakwe to develop offensive skills in one summer that most players have been honing since they were kids. Despite Yakwe being an elite athlete, he is a raw talent. Sima is a nice athlete, but also is raw. It is possible that they never become the offensive threats that everyone is hoping for. It would be interesting to know who is working with them on post moves. Does anyone know who worked with Billy Paultz? He looked hopeless when he arrived at SJU, and showed incredible improvement.

As for backcourts, I expect Lovett and Ponds to be our best ever. Funny thing is that neither one may make the NBA because of size issues. Rencher and Carter were one of our better backcourts. Cater made the NBA. Can't recall if Rencher was drafted. Mullin and anybody. But SJU never had a backcourt with 2 dynamic scorers and shooters like we have now.

Just to be clear, I had pretty low expectations for the frontcourt coming in but hoped they had improved substantially over the summer. Yakwe and Yankuba showed they were great athletes with mediocre basketball skills last year. Those types of guys need to become better basketball players to really make an impact in the game and I don't see that much progress so far, beside Yankuba's FT shooting.

Yankuba Sima is far from a great athlete. His biggest problem is lack of aggression. A player with little emotion. Yakwe is a good athlete who has a quick jump to block shots but nothing else right now. They needed to be brought along slowly and learn from older players. They don't have that luxury at St. John's because Clark is sitting and Chris Obekpa is taking tokes in between games in Palookaville.

 

[usguard]

See the problem is not people on these boards being overly optimistic, they were just looking for a reason to bitch.
If you went into this season with modest expectations of looking forward to watching as exciting a pair of guards as the school has ever had and hoping we would win 5 or so more games and be competitive....Well then you thoroughly enjoyed the season's first three games. I did!

First off for the love of Kate Upton's boobs, if one more person criticizes Marcus Lovett for being selfish, I will have no choice but to label that person either the stupidest person on the planet a racist or both. SJU best shot is any shot that Lovett or Ponds choose to throw up there. That was the case with most of Harrison's career here as well as Marcus Hatten. If we start to get better offensive players in here and Lovett still is shooting 30 times you can circle back to me. But for right now I am happy with any shot those two take and am not the least bit worried about how many shot a small slow guard that has to be wide, I mean really wide open to get off a good shot gets.
This team is way better than last year but will still only account for 5 or 6 more wins. We are starting from zero. We have to nice building blocks that are fun to watch. Yakwe and Sima are nice pieces but are as raw as anything on the menu at your favorite sushi place.
Enjoy Lovett and Ponds, hope Ahmed can pick it up and Sima and Yakwe improve. If you chose to watch by bitching that is your loss!

An SJU fan racist is they are critical of two guards on a roster that for the past 25 years has been predominately African American? Are you out of your mind? Is a D1 college basketball fan is racist he had better start rooting for another sport and likely at the high school level in Garden City.

At this point the dropoff in offensive prowess after Ponds and Lovett is steep, and there were many on here who predicted NCAAs in Mullin's year 2 and definitely by year 3. Steadfastedly I thought year 4 form the beginning was more realistic once it became clear the cupboard was bare.

Ponds and Lovett are our best two players. period. If they have to shoulder this offensive load, the team will not win. That's a reality, and not a personal shot at either.

Unless there is an overt racist comment, please remove that rhetoric from discussion here. We have had a number of great backcourts in SJU history, so for that matter, it's foolish to proclaim Lovett and Ponds as exciting a pair as any that have played here is just foolish.

I'm not crapping on you, but using the word racist in a discussion of how our team is doing thus far is pretty damned inflammatory.

The constant DLO criticism and recent Lovett sniping coupled with the bizarre pimping of Mussini and German Fred Lyson is very curious. Lovett is 27 shots better than Mussini, end of story. Team has a bunch of issues, Ponds and Lovett aren't any of them.
Every game is different and 27 shot is a lot but that game dictated those 27 shots!

Not so sure? Perhaps our coaching staff could have adj some things. Not saying I wasn't thrill that we made it close Just seems that other players could have been involved more but giving up all those points Defensively could be a glaring problem going forward unless it was just a bad game

 

[monte]

When talking about greatest guard tandems of all time, let's not forget to take in to account defense, LoVett and Ponds still have to show that as a pair, they can keep bigger stronger guards in check.