(1) Monday Big East Game 12/05/2016 - Csun v SJU...

[billyjack]

One game on Monday night:

Cal State Northridge at St John's, 6:30pm.

St John's shot lights-out at Tulane on Friday night. While it was amazing, we can't expect that to happen on a regular basis, so the Johnnies have to play defense. Tulane really was bad and got run off the court. Anyway, hopefully it was a huge confidence boost for SJU.

Cal State Northridge is well-coached by Reggie Theus. They're not very good though. I actually watched a lot of their loss vs Portland, which is coached by Terry Porter. Interesting tidbit... of the current Div-1 coaches who also played in the NBA, the top 3 in total NBA points are Theus, Porter, and Chris Mullin. Look for that factoid to pop up during the telecast.

More trivia... Northridge is located in the San Fernando Valley, near such classic California towns as Van Nuys, Encino, Tarzana and of course beautiful downtown Burbank.

Go Johnnies!
And play defense!!!

[SJHooper]

We had a solid game to bounce back vs. Tulane, but we really need to stop relying so much on the 3 ball. It's a great tactic when you can make 70% of them, but how often is that? Teams that win consistently can pound it down low one game and drive and kick to a 3 pt shooter all day the next game. You have to have that dual threat. Right now Yakwe, Sima, and Owens really aren't a threat offensively. Owens more so than the others but that's not saying much. If we had just 1 player like an Ochefu or Stainbrook or Fischer, it would totally change the dynamic of this team. We don't have any issues getting solid guards, but for some reason we can't find big men who can score and weigh more than 120 lbs. We don't have that Joakim Noah guy who will get physical going after boards nonstop. This impedes our ability to get easy paint points and get second chance points/stops on defense. What I really want to see is ball movement, driving and kicking, drawing fouls when possible, and relentless defense. I want to see that we can shoot 30% from 3 and still dominate an opponent like this. For some reason, we have not shot well at Carnesecca but once we get to the Garden we shoot better. The rims in CA are like bricks. It seems like if it touches the rim at all it bounces right off.

Prediction:

SJ: 79
C: 68

[NJRedman]

One game on Monday night:

Cal State Northridge at St John's, 6:30pm.

St John's shot lights-out at Tulane on Friday night. While it was amazing, we can't expect that to happen on a regular basis, so the Johnnies have to play defense. Tulane really was bad and got run off the court. Anyway, hopefully it was a huge confidence boost for SJU.

Cal State Northridge is well-coached by Reggie Theus. They're not very good though. I actually watched a lot of their loss vs Portland, which is coached by Terry Porter. Interesting tidbit... of the current Div-1 coaches who also played in the NBA, the top 3 in total NBA points are Theus, Porter, and Chris Mullin. Look for that factoid to pop up during the telecast.

More trivia... Northridge is located in the San Fernando Valley, near such classic California towns as Van Nuys, Encino, Tarzana and of course beautiful downtown Burbank.

Go Johnnies!
And play defense!!!

I moved out of Tarzana earlier this year and now im in Sherman Oaks. Was really hoping the game was in Northridge, would have been able to make it. Really excited when I heard we are playing at Long Beach State next season.

[ecasadoSBU]

Johnies hold. Nice to see the Johnies winning again and on TV!

Big East would be so much better with a strong St. John's!!!

[billyjack]

Yes, way to fight for the win....

St John's 76, Cal State Northridge 70.

Johnnies were up by 4 to 6 most of 2nd half, though it was tied once or twice, and SJU holds on for the win.
Offense was heavily reliant on 3 pointers again.
Defense still needs to improve.

Got 4 more games til Big East play, so have a good final push... vs Fordham, Long Island U, Penn State, and Syracuse.

[Rum_Ham]

No Lovett for St John's so nice to see them pull off the win. What happened with Yakwe this year I thought he was ready to breakout?

[SJUBBALL]

Good observation. Yakwe seems to have even regressed so far this year. He seems to think way too much now, he just put his head down and played last year.

Enjoyed the win tonight. Very scared for big east play. We play very soft defense, big east level teams are gonna destroy us in the interior. Think 5 or 6 wins in Big East play might a reasonable expectation. Hope we can go 4-0 here to end non - conference. Syracuse looks a kind of weak so far this year, so maybe we can steal one at the Carrier Dome.


Just hope we can see some major progress as the year goes on, something to give us a reason to get excited for next season. Justin Simon, Marvin Clarke, and top 40 recruit Zach Brown will help. But for me to say next year could possibly be a tournament team, i need to see some serious signs THIS season. Haven't seen any thus far.

[SJHooper]

Ugly, ugly game but this team needs to learn how to win gutsy and did.

Positives:
-Ponds showed that he has the same ability to put the team on his back when LoVett cannot or when LoVett is injured...not just a scorer but active on defense and great passer/ball handler

-Mussini had a hot hand tonight...every so often he is due to erupt...nice to see him come out again

-Owens has been better than expected...how many thought he would be our best big? No one.

-Some good passing tonight, driving and kicking worked nicely. Nice shooting overall.

-Finally showed we can close out a game. Wins like this bring teams together.

-That girl screaming during FT attempts has finally gone silent.

Negatives:
-Fox had Mullin mic'd up in the huddle and his words of wisdom were "keep grinding". Yup...two words and then they went back out. You can say I'm not being fair or nitpicking but how many coaches have said two words in a timeout? Hope I'm wrong but that's embarrassing and not a good sign. The announcers were even laughing saying "hey, sometimes that's all you need to say" but they were clearly being nice.

-None of our bigs can handle a basketball. Not even for 3 dribbles. It always ends up poked under their legs and stolen leading to easy fast breaks. Sick of this. It's to the point where I would be scared to pass to them unless they were all alone under the hoop. Owens has had good moments but overall our bigs are bottom of the barrel.

-I put this on Mullin...in the closing minutes in a tight game, we had Amar, Owens, Ahmed, etc. handling the basketball. None of those guys should be dribbling for any extended period of time. Mullin should have said "make sure Ponds gets the ball". This always leads to turnovers and again fast break points.

-What on earth is a guy like Owens doing on top of the key? He should be under the basket fighting for position. Why do we always think our bigs are guards? Just another turnover waiting to happen.

-Our perimeter defense isn't terrible. Our interior defense and overall rebounding is Charmin soft. Every time we scored, before you could blink they already had the ball down low on us and converted seemingly 90% of the time. Whatever they didn't make they went to the line for. Embarrassing.

Bottom line: until we have real bigs we will not be a consistent winner against good competition. Our only hope is that some players like Amar & Ellison transfer and we can get some big bodies who can play right away. Or, Brown better qualify and him and Clark must be solid contributors. Enough recruiting these skinny bunnies for our big men. Our biggest mistake transaction wise was letting Christian Jones go to UNLV while keeping Amar. Jones is exactly the big that we need. The kid was nothing great but he's a bull and he would be converting many of these missed layups/dunks our guys are missing now.

[stever20]

game I'm kind of looking forward to is I guess Thursday when St John's hosts Fordham. A revenge game from last year. Kind of game pride wise that you have to win.

[SJHooper]

Good observation. Yakwe seems to have even regressed so far this year. He seems to think way too much now, he just put his head down and played last year.

Enjoyed the win tonight. Very scared for big east play. We play very soft defense, big east level teams are gonna destroy us in the interior. Think 5 or 6 wins in Big East play might a reasonable expectation. Hope we can go 4-0 here to end non - conference. Syracuse looks a kind of weak so far this year, so maybe we can steal one at the Carrier Dome.


Just hope we can see some major progress as the year goes on, something to give us a reason to get excited for next season. Justin Simon, Marvin Clarke, and top 40 recruit Zach Brown will help. But for me to say next year could possibly be a tournament team, i need to see some serious signs THIS season. Haven't seen any thus far.

4-0 against Fordham (they are 179 we are 115 especially considering we lost to the 341 team), Penn State (at worst as good as Minnesota who dominated us), Syracuse, etc.? I think the most realistic is we go 2-2 heading into conference play. If we go 4-0 it would be shocking. By the way, we don't even know if LoVett will be ready to play. They said he's day to day with an ankle injury but being in a boot seems more severe than day to day.

We have good guards but Ahmed is out of control and our bigs are probably among the worst in the country. When every mid major you play has bigs that dominate you, it's a problem.