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8 Kansas vs. St. John's (UBS), 7:00, FS1 - Alex Faust, Jim Jackson
Line: Kansas -7/157

This is a strange game. It's almost like I expect us to get blown out because we have a real chance to be a tourney team this year and finally have a complete team...but on the other hand, we tend to win games like this when we have no expectations and have nothing to lose. We have not handled expectations well the last 10+ yrs. We have some big OOC wins in recent years, but none were years that we thought would really matter. This year we have high expectations...we definitely have the talent to win and Kansas is far from home...but we have a real tough time finding a way to win in these types of games just like we saw with Indiana. It would be very refreshing to grab a W here. This is our best team probably since Lavin's 1st season here with the most size and skill. Since I've been following this team, it seems we have a very good team on paper every 4-5 yrs or so and get hyped up only to fall short when it's time to prove we belong. It's time to win one of these. I'll be there. Though our student support is mostly awful (mostly commuters), over 1,000 student tickets alone have already been sold to this game. Hoping for great atmosphere.

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St. John’s vs Kansas Preview and Prediction - JT Rausch, SB Nation/St. John's basketball - December 2, 2021

St. John’s vs Kansas - ESPN Gamecast - December 3, 2021
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I always thought our pre-season expectations were overblown. They were raised primarily by fans of the program rather than national pundits (nearly all of whom had us as a bubble team). I think it's possible this is our best team in a decade, but I also think it's quite possible that there were several teams better than this (Lavin's final 2 teams, Mullin's final 2 teams, even CMA's first 2 teams).

My prediction is Kansas wins in a blowout. Hopefully I'm wrong, we'll know a lot more about this team tonight.

That said, even if we lose tonight (by 1 or by 50) we can still have an "OK" OOC if we win the final few games. 11-2 for a mediocre OOC schedule wouldn't be a killer given that the Big East will have plenty of opportunities. End of the year, if we don't make the Tournament it'll simply be because we weren't good enough.

adoraz wrote:I always thought our pre-season expectations were overblown. They were raised primarily by fans of the program rather than national pundits (nearly all of whom had us as a bubble team). I think it's possible this is our best team in a decade, but I also think it's quite possible that there were several teams better than this (Lavin's final 2 teams, Mullin's final 2 teams, even CMA's first 2 teams).

My prediction is Kansas wins in a blowout. Hopefully I'm wrong, we'll know a lot more about this team tonight.

That said, even if we lose tonight (by 1 or by 50) we can still have an "OK" OOC if we win the final few games. 11-2 for a mediocre OOC schedule wouldn't be a killer given that the Big East will have plenty of opportunities. End of the year, if we don't make the Tournament it'll simply be because we weren't good enough.

9-2 with the 20 conference games of course....

It'll make things interesting should you guys be 10-10 in conference play. Would need to have a few big wins in there. Going to be key for you guys to have multiple Big East teams IMO in the top 30, so you get home Q1 chances. 3 years ago you guys went 4-6 in conference play vs Q1 with 2 of those wins being home wins. If Nova(26) or Marquette(28) had been a few spots lower and thus not Q1 wins- probably don't make it as last team in.

adoraz wrote:That said, even if we lose tonight (by 1 or by 50) we can still have an "OK" OOC if we win the final few games. 11-2 for a mediocre OOC schedule wouldn't be a killer given that the Big East will have plenty of opportunities. End of the year, if we don't make the Tournament it'll simply be because we weren't good enough.

Ya, and it feels like the bubble may be quite weak this year so a decent conference showing with no bad losses may very well be enough to get in.

Husky_U wrote:

adoraz wrote:That said, even if we lose tonight (by 1 or by 50) we can still have an "OK" OOC if we win the final few games. 11-2 for a mediocre OOC schedule wouldn't be a killer given that the Big East will have plenty of opportunities. End of the year, if we don't make the Tournament it'll simply be because we weren't good enough.

Ya, and it feels like the bubble may be quite weak this year so a decent conference showing with no bad losses may very well be enough to get in.

The bubble it seems EVERY year is quite weak.

I agree with both above posts, however it's so tiresome. We are always talking about playing catch up. We're always talking about moral victories like Indiana. We're always talking about what if. If we don't get big win in OOC, oh well there's always conf play. Then we don't do well there and it's "oh well we could win 50 games in a row in BET" and we don't. Enough of the excuses and go take it. We have an aging fanbase that is now mostly 60+ who remember the 1985 Final Four team well. Even the Elite 8 team of 99 was decades ago. It's the same with the Mets...living off any memory of 1986...eventually the people who remember it well get older and you need fanbases to survive by making new memories. Every 4 yrs practically we say it will be different and it never is. This is the year, no next, no next, no this time for real! I'm worried that if we don't start winning games like this and living up to potential for once that we will have an entire generation who does not care about SJ hoops. Most teams like us lose these games 8 or 9 of every 10x. We need to make it happen. Time to give new generations of SJ fans something to hang their hats on and tell their future kids about.

MullinMayhem wrote:I agree with both above posts, however it's so tiresome. We are always talking about playing catch up. We're always talking about moral victories like Indiana. We're always talking about what if. If we don't get big win in OOC, oh well there's always conf play. Then we don't do well there and it's "oh well we could win 50 games in a row in BET" and we don't. Enough of the excuses and go take it. We have an aging fanbase that is now mostly 60+ who remember the 1985 Final Four team well. Even the Elite 8 team of 99 was decades ago. It's the same with the Mets...living off any memory of 1986...eventually the people who remember it well get older and you need fanbases to survive by making new memories. Every 4 yrs practically we say it will be different and it never is. This is the year, no next, no next, no this time for real! I'm worried that if we don't start winning games like this and living up to potential for once that we will have an entire generation who does not care about SJ hoops. Most teams like us lose these games 8 or 9 of every 10x. We need to make it happen. Time to give new generations of SJ fans something to hang their hats on and tell their future kids about.

AT least your Mets have Max Scherzer now.

I'm not bitter as a Nats fan. I'm really not.... lol.

To quote Joe Pesci in “My Cousin Vinny”……

I’m ascared.