(7) Saturday BE Games 12/10/16

[ecasadoSBU]

St. John's is embarrassing

[gosports1]

Mick Cronin's postgame interview was pretty entertaining. I get the impression that he's not a fan of the Big East.

Lol at Cronin, i love it.

Translation of Cronin: our team isn't tough enough or strong enough to compete against the Big East. We have no chance of competing against them.

This should be used in all BE promo videos. Thanks Butler!!!

I thought his league (the American) was the REAL Big East just with a new name?
A non conference game was officiated by BE refs?

[SJHooper]

This program is officially dead. Not even Ponds, LoVett, or 2 HOF players coaching can save it. That's saying something. In the past 2 years we have lost games that MAAC teams would be embarrassed by. Lost to St. Thomas Aquinas, Incarnate Word, Delaware State, and now LIU. This is not losing to a lesser Big East team...this is losing to some of the WORST the country has to offer. You will hear excuses from lots of SJ fans. Not me. This program was terrible last year but at least we knew it would be. This year we have some of the most talented guards ever and we STILL suck? What is going on? How are we possibly WORSE than last year to this point? I'll tell you: coaching. We have not had a great coach since Lou who retired in 1991. I do not understand why we just continue to accept awful coaching for 5 years at a time. If they are bad FIRE them. Mullin is not the answer. I will bet anyone...that's the one thing I'm confident about...that he will not get us where we need to go. Fire him. People say "if you fire him then other coaches will be scared to come!" really? Pretty sure coaches understand that if you can't do your job you will be fired. Enough with the sugar-coating. This program is in shambles and we have just wasted 2 more years in a failed experiment. Lavin wasted 5 years, now we try the Mullin experiment and that has failed as well.

The worst part is that there's no top 5 draft pick we can look forward to. Just continued irrelevance. We have a losing culture and it's clearly stuck in the program.

[kayako]

SJU is not good, maybe worse than Depaul.....that is all.

To be fair, DePaul was better than St. John's last season. It shouldn't be a surprise if the Johnnies are the worst team in the league again.

Having said that, it's too early to call for Mullins' head at this point. They've played some decent teams close, and I haven't seen them get blown off the floor yet. I'd like to see them win at least one of next 2 games before conference play starts.

[Bill Marsh]

This program is officially dead. Not even Ponds, LoVett, or 2 HOF players coaching can save it. That's saying something. In the past 2 years we have lost games that MAAC teams would be embarrassed by. Lost to St. Thomas Aquinas, Incarnate Word, Delaware State, and now LIU. This is not losing to a lesser Big East team...this is losing to some of the WORST the country has to offer. You will hear excuses from lots of SJ fans. Not me. This program was terrible last year but at least we knew it would be. This year we have some of the most talented guards ever and we STILL suck? What is going on? How are we possibly WORSE than last year to this point? I'll tell you: coaching. We have not had a great coach since Lou who retired in 1991. I do not understand why we just continue to accept awful coaching for 5 years at a time. If they are bad FIRE them. Mullin is not the answer. I will bet anyone...that's the one thing I'm confident about...that he will not get us where we need to go. Fire him. People say "if you fire him then other coaches will be scared to come!" really? Pretty sure coaches understand that if you can't do your job you will be fired. Enough with the sugar-coating. This program is in shambles and we have just wasted 2 more years in a failed experiment. Lavin wasted 5 years, now we try the Mullin experiment and that has failed as well.

The worst part is that there's no top 5 draft pick we can look forward to. Just continued irrelevance. We have a losing culture and it's clearly stuck in the program.

Some of the most talented guards ever? Really?

First of all, you didn't have Lovett vs LIU, so I don't know how that's relevant to this discussion.

As for most talented ever, Ponds and Lovett must have been ranked top 5 coming out of HS, right? No? Then top 10? Not that either? Top 25? Top 30? Neither of those either?

The fact is that Ponds was top 40, is the only top 60 player on the roster, and he's just a freshman. Lovett wouldn't even be starting for most BE schools at this stage of his career.

This is what hero worshipping fans do. They build up the talent on the roster way beyond what they actually are, and then blame the coaches for not winning. You're in the early stages of a rebuilding project. Lavin left the cupboard bare. Inflating what you've got won't change anything.

[SJHooper]

This program is officially dead. Not even Ponds, LoVett, or 2 HOF players coaching can save it. That's saying something. In the past 2 years we have lost games that MAAC teams would be embarrassed by. Lost to St. Thomas Aquinas, Incarnate Word, Delaware State, and now LIU. This is not losing to a lesser Big East team...this is losing to some of the WORST the country has to offer. You will hear excuses from lots of SJ fans. Not me. This program was terrible last year but at least we knew it would be. This year we have some of the most talented guards ever and we STILL suck? What is going on? How are we possibly WORSE than last year to this point? I'll tell you: coaching. We have not had a great coach since Lou who retired in 1991. I do not understand why we just continue to accept awful coaching for 5 years at a time. If they are bad FIRE them. Mullin is not the answer. I will bet anyone...that's the one thing I'm confident about...that he will not get us where we need to go. Fire him. People say "if you fire him then other coaches will be scared to come!" really? Pretty sure coaches understand that if you can't do your job you will be fired. Enough with the sugar-coating. This program is in shambles and we have just wasted 2 more years in a failed experiment. Lavin wasted 5 years, now we try the Mullin experiment and that has failed as well.

The worst part is that there's no top 5 draft pick we can look forward to. Just continued irrelevance. We have a losing culture and it's clearly stuck in the program.

Some of the most talented guards ever? Really?

First of all, you didn't have Lovett vs LIU, so I don't know how that's relevant to this discussion.

As for most talented ever, Ponds and Lovett must have been ranked top 5 coming out of HS, right? No? Then top 10? Not that either? Top 25? Top 30? Neither of those either?

The fact is that Ponds was top 40, is the only top 60 player on the roster, and he's just a freshman. Lovett wouldn't even be starting for most BE schools at this stage of his career.

This is what hero worshipping fans do. They build up the talent on the roster way beyond what they actually are, and then blame the coaches for not winning. You're in the early stages of a rebuilding project. Lavin left the cupboard bare. Inflating what you've got won't change anything.

Rankings aren't everything. Once you get outside the top 20 it gets very muddied. Yes I stand by my statement...what guards performed better at this stage in their careers for us other than LoVett and Ponds? Ponds looks like a likely Big East POY by the time he's a senior. He's already on pace for Big East ROY. LoVett was averaging about 20 PPG before he got injured and showed he can score against the big boys too not just cupcakes. Again, these are 2 freshmen and they have the ability to drop 40-50 on teams any given night. We have not had such offensively gifted guards ever IMO. I'm 27 so admittedly I don't have a big sample size but the guards aren't the problem. Between LoVett, Ponds, and Simon next year, we will have one of the most dangerous backcourts in the country. The reason we are in the top 5 nationally in 3PT% is mostly due to them. Did you watch us during the Lavin years? If we shot 35% from 3 I was happy. And that was usually our high water mark. To say LoVett wouldn't start on most BE teams is just wrong and insane. He would most definitely start on most of them. Maybe not Nova, but most. I am the most critical of SJ fans, so if I hype someone up, it's for good reason. Our guards are WAY ahead of our bigs at this point and that along with terrible coaching is why we are losing these bunny games.

By the way, we can't rely on Zach Brown, he will not qualify next year. All we have is Clark coming in. We need Matt A to get us some big strong bodies, no more toothpicks. Look at teams like Michigan State and Miami...they always find built big men who are 240 lbs before even setting foot on campus it seems. We have guys who are 6'11 and 185 lbs soaking wet.

[Bill Marsh]

SJU is not good, maybe worse than Depaul.....that is all.

it's too early to call for Mullins' head at this point.

That won't stop SJ Hooper from doing it.

[SJHooper]

Bill, with all due respect there is clear evidence to defend my assertion that Mullin is not the answer. Last year was the year we weren't able to criticize anything at all coaching wise...he had no talent. But this year is fair game. This is his 2nd year, we have players who have been around a few years (his guys) and we finally have legit talent in Ponds, LoVett, Mussini, etc. If Mullin were a good coach or even headed in the right direction, why did Sima regress so significantly? Why did Yakwe regress so much? Why are you giving the ball to anyone but Ponds in the last few minutes...especially our worst ball handler Yakwe who is literally a guaranteed turnover with the ball? He went to him TWICE in the closing minutes in a tight game. I actually tweeted out "stop giving the ball to Yakwe he always turns it over", then a minute later the ball found its way to Yakwe AGAIN! And the expected turnover...again. In that moment, I knew more than Mullin apparently which is scary.

[DudeAnon]

Bill, with all due respect there is clear evidence to defend my assertion that Mullin is not the answer. Last year was the year we weren't able to criticize anything at all coaching wise...he had no talent. But this year is fair game. This is his 2nd year, we have players who have been around a few years (his guys) and we finally have legit talent in Ponds, LoVett, Mussini, etc. If Mullin were a good coach or even headed in the right direction, why did Sima regress so significantly? Why did Yakwe regress so much? Why are you giving the ball to anyone but Ponds in the last few minutes...especially our worst ball handler Yakwe who is literally a guaranteed turnover with the ball? He went to him TWICE in the closing minutes in a tight game. I actually tweeted out "stop giving the ball to Yakwe he always turns it over", then a minute later the ball found its way to Yakwe AGAIN! And the expected turnover...again. In that moment, I knew more than Mullin apparently which is scary.

You can criticize all you want, the fact is that Mullin is going to get at least 4 years and probably 5. So you might as well try to be glass half-full and look for growth and optimism.

[Hall2012]

Relax Hooper. This year was never going to be your big step forward. You have a lot of talent, which is great, but it takes time for young talent to learn how to win at the D1 level. St. John's is reminding me a lot of Seton Hall's current junior class from when they were freshmen. They had flashes of greatness mixed with a lot of rookie mistakes. The big difference, and the reason Seton Hall survived into January before going up in flames was that their go-to scorer was also an experienced veteran in Sterling Gibbs (or Kemba Walker in disguise, still not sure...). The Johnnies unfortunately don't have that, and the result is they're likely going to take a lot more lumps this year, but they'll gain valuable experience and the improvement in their sophomore years could be even better.