After a warm-up exhibition game against Molloy College, the Johnnies are ready to officially begin their season against the St. Francis Terriers. This game marks the first of four consecutive non-conference home games to start the year for St. John’s. These are the games that this team MUST WIN, if they wish to continue playing basketball in March. Lots of people get on this program for scheduling a weak non-conference schedule, littered with early season home games against so-called “cupcakes”. But in reality, all teams schedule games like this early in the year. And I think especially for a young team such as this, it is very important for the freshman to gain some confidence by winning games before Big East play begins. It is also important to win these games from a fan perspective. If this team can put together some early wins, it will make students on campus take notice and they will start to come out and support this team. Remember, we have 4 Big East games at CA this year. The Jungle needs to be at its loudest for those games. If we support this team now and they do their part on the court, it will just give them more confidence playing on their home court come Big East play. SEE YOU IN THE JUNGLE.
-The Game-
On Wednesday November 14th, the Red Storm of St. John’s University take the court for the first regular seaon game of the year against the Terriers of St. Francis College. The game is scheduled for 7:30 PM at Carnesecca Arena and will be televised on SNY.
-The Lineups-
ST. JOHN’S (0-0)
After sitting out the exhibition game for precautionary reasons, you can count on seeing Mr. Mason Jr. out there for this one. It will be nice to see him playing along side Burrell for the first time. Let’s see what the Dynamic Duo, as they have been dubbed, can do out there. As for the rest of the team, I would expect Norm to go with a 10 man rotation until he gets a feel for the right combination of players. The probable starting lineup for the Red Storm is:
PG – Eugene Lawrence Senior / 6-1 210lbs / 7.2 points, 5.6 assists (06-07)
SG – Larry Wright Sophomore / 6-2 172lbs / 4.0 points, 1.1 rebounds (06-07)
SF – Anthony Mason Jr. Junior / 6-7 209lbs / 11.9 points 5.9 rebounds (06-07)
PF – Justin Burrell Freshman / 6-8 235lbs / 23.0 points 11.0 rebounds (06-07)*
C – Tomas Jasiulionis Junior / 6-11 249lbs / 2.0 points 1.9 rebounds (06-07)
* – statistics at Bridgton Academy (Maine)
St. Francis (1-0)
The Terriers, out of Brooklyn Heights, are part of the Northeast Conference. Last season they finished with a 9-22 record, after starting 0-12. They lost to eventual NEC Champions Central Connecticut State in the opening round of the NEC Tournament. They are coming off a victory in their season opener against Hartford, 62-59, on Friday night. This team returns four starters and seven of their top eight
leading scorers from last season. Senior forward Robert Hines, from Trenton, New Jersey, leads the way for the Terriers. Based on the previous game, their starting lineup should look like this:
PG – Ricky Cadell Freshman / 6-2 180lbs / 9.0 points, 4.0 assists
SG – Jamaal Womack Senior / 5-8 170lbs / 6.0 points, 8.0 assists
SF – Marcus Williams Senior / 6-3 220lbs / 6.0 points, 8.0 rebounds
PF – Robert Hines Senior / 6-5 250lbs / 21.0 points, 4.0 rebounds
C – Bassith Yessoufou Senior / 6-9 218lbs / 3.0 rebounds, 0.0 points
-Keys to Victory-
St. Francis is not exactly a high-scoring team, only putting up 62 points in their win against Hartford. They shot 36% from the field and a woeful 53% from the charity stripe. We have more guys capable of putting the ball in the hole on our team, so I expect us to have no trouble outscoring them.
The go-to guy for St. Francis is Robert Hines. He brings a combination of power and quickness, capable of scoring in the low post and creating shots off the dribble. He averaged 16.5 points and 6.0 boards a night last season. If we can shut him down, we should win this game easily. Look for him to be matched up against Burrell, who is 3 inches taller than Hines, but gives up about 15 pounds in muscle. This will be the first test for our star freshman, look for him to play a little harder than he did against Molloy College.
Their big recruit is freshman point guard Ricky Cadell. Head coach Brian Nash is giving Cadell full point guard responsibilities, and sliding the under-sized Jamaal Womack to the shooting guard position. I want to see Geno all over the freshman point guard on the defensive end. He has 30 pounds on him and much more experience, expect Geno to give this kid fits all night.
With Hines probably being forced to guard Burrell, I expect Mason to have a field day on the other guys trying to defend him. You know he will come out looking to score, especially since he didn’t play in the exhibition game. I think you could put down at least 20 points for Mase on this night.
-Prediction-
I was way off on the score of the exhibition game. Mostly out of being scared that I saw some other D-I teams lose to D-II teams. As well as not really knowing how poor Molloy High School…I mean College, really was. We played this team last season and won a low scoring affair 59-42. I think we got more firepower offensively this year and we
should be able to put this team away. My prediction:
St. John’s 87 – St. Francis 68
The 100th Anniversary Men’s Basketball Media Guide is now available online at redstormsports.com…..St. Francis senior guard Jamaal Womack is from the Bronx and played at the same high school (though not together), Our Savior Lutheran, as Justin Burrell…..Don’t be confused, senior forward Marcus Williams is not the laptop thief that current New Jersey Nets guard was at Yukon…..Big man Sami Pekkola is the St. Francis response to our very own Tomas. Pekkola hails from Finland, but bares a striking resemblance to one of the players from the German squad in the movie Beerfest…..Center Bassith Yessoufou definitely wins the award for most confusing name on the team. He goes by Bass for short.
By: Garrett Knieste Johnny Jungle Staff Writer
Leave a Reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.