SJ beats Baruch (Exhibition) 99-49

[REDMEN1415]

the thing with ST John's is they have 2 cupcake games, then a game at Minnesota. Then 4th game is a HUGE one vs Michigan St in Battle 4 Atlantis. Win there- and you get Baylor or VCU and then one of Wichita St or Louisville. Lose and you get the loser of the Baylor/VCU game, and then likely one of LSU or Old Dominion. Considering only other good OOC game is Syracuse- that's a pretty big swing there. So they have to get the kinks out really fast.

I'm thinking @ Minny will be a loss - First road test for a very young team. I won't statement game if SJU does win since Minny isn't very good, but I'd still be impressed.
MSU can be beat. Their 2 biggest players are injured, their biggest player now is a freshman. Hopefully Sima and Yakwe could school him. Yeah we'll mostly lose to Baylor or VCU but hopefully we can win the third game and go 2-1 there.

Can't wait till next Friday gets here.

[stever20]

Compared to last years exhibition I'd say St. John's is much improved.

This, nobody expects them to make the tournament. All the conference needs is for them to be below an RPI of 245...

Hoyas were absolute dog sh*t last year and still manged a 106 RPI. So its completely doable for St. Johns.

I'm thinking 18wins is doable, which is a solid nit team, after last year, I'll take the NIT in a heartbeat.

18 wins is no lock for the NIT any more. The schedule isn't that much better than Marquette's last year(esp if loss to Mich St). Creighton was 18-14 and only 5 teams were lower seeded than them and at large. Marquette was 20-13 and missed the NIT.

NIT is a different animal now than it used to be. Totally different. You have to earn it a lot more than you used to.

[stever20]

the thing with ST John's is they have 2 cupcake games, then a game at Minnesota. Then 4th game is a HUGE one vs Michigan St in Battle 4 Atlantis. Win there- and you get Baylor or VCU and then one of Wichita St or Louisville. Lose and you get the loser of the Baylor/VCU game, and then likely one of LSU or Old Dominion. Considering only other good OOC game is Syracuse- that's a pretty big swing there. So they have to get the kinks out really fast.

I'm thinking @ Minny will be a loss - First road test for a very young team. I won't statement game if SJU does win since Minny isn't very good, but I'd still be impressed.
MSU can be beat. Their 2 biggest players are injured, their biggest player now is a freshman. Hopefully Sima and Yakwe could school him. Yeah we'll mostly lose to Baylor or VCU but hopefully we can win the third game and go 2-1 there.

Can't wait till next Friday gets here.

The Michigan St game is just huge. There's a few teams in the Big East like that- where 1st exempt tourney game is gigantic. A loss 1st round, and looking squarely at being 0-2 heading into 7th place game.

[Red Rooster]

Yes he had a nice game rebounding, but he's almost 7 ft tall and the tallest Baruch player was about 6'5. Against major teams, Owens will likely be easily boxed out and tossed aside by more meaty bigs. He also turned it over a few times mishandling a pass and traveling. If he contributes anything significant I'd be pleasantly surprised, but once we play the Michigan St.'s and Syracuse's of the world, he will not get 12 boards I can assure you. Good kid, but he reminds me of Joey DeLaRosa. 7 ft tall but can't really do much against real competition at this level.

So, what if he's nearly 7 feet tall? I've known taller kids to not get rebounds and smaller players to garner rebounds. There is a chance Owens could be easily boxed out against major teams, and not pull down 12 caroms against the likes of Michigan State and Syracuse.

It was the first game in a meaningless exhibition against a far, inferior team. But, stop speaking in absolutes.

[NJRedman]

the thing with ST John's is they have 2 cupcake games, then a game at Minnesota. Then 4th game is a HUGE one vs Michigan St in Battle 4 Atlantis. Win there- and you get Baylor or VCU and then one of Wichita St or Louisville. Lose and you get the loser of the Baylor/VCU game, and then likely one of LSU or Old Dominion. Considering only other good OOC game is Syracuse- that's a pretty big swing there. So they have to get the kinks out really fast.

MSU is without their two starting big men up front. Gonna be tough for them too. We also have PSU at MSG who should be pretty good and a tougher out than most think.

[stever20]

the thing with ST John's is they have 2 cupcake games, then a game at Minnesota. Then 4th game is a HUGE one vs Michigan St in Battle 4 Atlantis. Win there- and you get Baylor or VCU and then one of Wichita St or Louisville. Lose and you get the loser of the Baylor/VCU game, and then likely one of LSU or Old Dominion. Considering only other good OOC game is Syracuse- that's a pretty big swing there. So they have to get the kinks out really fast.

MSU is without their two starting big men up front. Gonna be tough for them too. We also have PSU at MSG who should be pretty good and a tougher out than most think.

MSU will have had 2 tougher games before the St John's game with games against Arizona and Kentucky. And the game with St John's is in 3 weeks. So they'll have had a much better chance to work out the kinks than St John's against much better competition than what St John's is seeing.

Penn St is a game with a lot of risk but little reward. It's a home game so a win is only .6 for the RPI. But the SOS won't help much at all.

[REDMEN1415]

My starting 5 for SJU

Lovett PG
Mussini SG
Fruedenberg SF
Bashir PF
Yakwe C

Sima at times looks lost there, Owens in short spurts and Ellison off the bench
Amar and Williams in spot minutes

[SJHooper]

As of now, SJ has 6 ranked games in conference play and at least 2 more OOC (#19 Cuse, #12 Mich St.). That's 8 in total. I fully expect this team to get at least 1 ranked win this year. I would not want to play us and that's a good sign. Wait until they are a year older and we add Simon and Brown to the mix. That's when I think this team will have Sweet 16 potential if not better.

[gtmoBlue]

This is all great news to hear, as I have the Johnnies to finish 6th...maybe better dependent upon both X and G'twn. They have a shot at the Dance, should they make the leap I expect...and maybe a bit of help from X and G'twn.

Ahmed Bashir: Was one of the top NYC players a few years back...plateaued and seemingly never hit his peak (although he had a good senior year). Went Juco due to grades, I believe. Excellent player. Could he "carry" the Johnnies?

At least StJ has good Bigs... UMinn and MSU don't have bigs. MSU reliant on frosh. Do I smell a couple of upsets here?

Who's knockin' STAC? STAC and Coach Anderson have a great Program in Sparkhill. St Thomas Aquinas is a top (Div2) team, with a couple of highly proven players in Justin Reyes and Chaz Watler. STAC went to the East Region Semi's last year (27-5) and are a helluva team. Preseason #2 this season. Watch it, buddy...

C'mon Johnnies!

[JohnW22]

This is all great news to hear, as I have the Johnnies to finish 6th...maybe better dependent upon both X and G'twn. They have a shot at the Dance, should they make the leap I expect...and maybe a bit of help from X and G'twn.

Ahmed Bashir: Was one of the top NYC players a few years back...plateaued and seemingly never hit his peak (although he had a good senior year). Went Juco due to grades, I believe. Excellent player. Could he "carry" the Johnnies?

At least StJ has good Bigs... UMinn and MSU don't have bigs. MSU reliant on frosh. Do I smell a couple of upsets here?

Who's knockin' STAC? STAC and Coach Anderson have a great Program in Sparkhill. St Thomas Aquinas is a top (Div2) team, with a couple of highly proven players in Justin Reyes and Chaz Watler. STAC went to the East Region Semi's last year (27-5) and are a helluva team. Preseason #2 this season. Watch it, buddy...

C'mon Johnnies!

I'm somebody who's probably too high on St. John's and too low on Xavier this season, but I don't think Xavier will be fighting St. John's in the standings. Maybe in a game on the road Xavier could be fighting for a win against them(hell it happened last year) but in the big picture I'd say Xavier will be comfortably ahead of St. John's.