Saint Mary's Preview

Very good write up on Yahoo/Rivals.   Seems their
 strength is their guards- one shot 50% from 3 last year

http://rivals.yahoo.com/ncaa/basketball/news?slug=teamreports-2010-ncaab-sbt

St. Mary’s collection of Australian players will have trouble matching the Gaels’ performance of last season,
when they won the WCC tournament and advanced to the third round of the NCAA Tournament.
.......
"St. Mary’s nonconference schedule is only moderately challenging, and the Gaels should have a
 pretty good record by the time conference play begins."

" For the third consecutive season, the Gaels will open the season with an 11 p.m. home game as
part of the ESPN 24-hour marathon. This season, the Gaels host St. John’s and new coach Steve Lavin."

Expect to see a solid write up here by Saturday. They can shoot.  And more.   They're a tough, tough team, even without Samhan.

Does anyone know what there fan site is? I found it a last week. I can't remember the name and no matter what I google I can't find it. Fans on their site expect them to be good. They seem to think it won't be an easy game against us but one they should win. Kinda reminds me of the Siena fans last year.

thanks

We better guard the three point line.......

Expect to see a solid write up here by Saturday. They can shoot.  And more.   They're a tough, tough team, even without Samhan.

Can't wait to read Calm Before the Storm. Seriously its my favorite thing to do before games. I know we had one for exhibition but this is the big time, real time.

Note to Paris Horne: guard the three.

Something that will be in CBTS: guarding the 3 will be a team effort. They screened well last year, got their guys shots all over the place.

Do we come out in zone or go man to man against their 3pt shooters?

http://scores.espn.go.com/ncb/boxscore?gameId=303162608

St. Mary's easily wins their opener against the College of Idaho.  Hoist up 29 3-pointers

This is a statement game. We have 9 seniors, and no excuses. Not only do I expect to win, but we should kill them.

By the end of the first half they should be crying for their mommies.

http://scores.espn.go.com/ncb/boxscore?gameId=303162608

St. Mary's easily wins their opener against the College of Idaho.  Hoist up 29 3-pointers

I found a couple things of interest in that box score.  First, as a team they only shot 8-29 from the 3 that is only 27.6% not all that impressive.  Second, Clint Steindl shot 6-14 from the 3 which is  42.8% so he is definitely a deep threat.  Third, they had as a team 18 steals.  I'm guessing by the score Idaho is terrible but that is still a lot of steals so they must be playing an up-tempo pressure defense.  Should be an interesting match-up for us.  I think we will start out in that 1-2-2 match-up zone that we saw at the beginning of the exhibition game and it will be interesting to see how well we defend the three.  Also, just as a not Oregon beat St. Mary's last year so Dunlap should know this team well.

anyone else surprised McConnell and Dellavedova didn't do much? Combined for 10 pts 12 assists.

I agree with KJD, they shot 29 three's but they only hit 27% of them...I'll take that any day.

Also, and this is HUGEEEE

look at their free throws, 18-28, 64% from the line, that's like us last year. (actually we were probably worse) But you get my drift, that's some bad FT shooting, so maybe we shouldn't be scared to foul em, especially late if it's close.

I don't want to put too much stock into the steals or turnovers they forced, because that's more about their lousy competition. Walker II and Steindl had good games, also noticed in a blowout only 9 kids played..hmm

I'm stoked, ready for our game!!

It's hard to criticize a game where they won by over 30 points.

Stats lie. If you don't need that free throw to go down, who cares if the guy makes it?

The fact that they had a game Friday, albeit against an NAIA opponent, is an interesting wrinkle as it only gives them two days to prepare for us.  We had almost two weeks to prepare for them.

I watched the Richmond-St. Mary's first round tournament game and Richmond absolutely ran past them in the first half.  St. Mary's just could not get back fast enough, because its guards sitting in the corner of three pt territory and they are not great athletes.  Towards the end of the first half and in the second half, St. Mary's reclaimed the pace-setter for the game and really slowed it down with great passing and shooting.

I'm not sure how the zone will work against them.  We might be better off in man-to-man, as our best two defenders play the same position as their best two shooters (Horne, Boothe).  Then again, we need to push the ball and create havoc defensively to generate easy baskets and tire them out so they won't have their legs beneath them in the last ten minutes of the game. 

They are also pretty weak physically and not overly athletic.  If the refs call it like a Big East game, Boothe is going to own McConnell on defense and they have no size/experience up front.  It would really favor St. John's.

We need to run, run, run....we have to dictate the pace of this game.  Defend the perimeter like mad men and give up easy forays going to the basket if you have to...make them beat you going inside.

This is a statement game. We have 9 seniors, and no excuses. Not only do I expect to win, but we should kill them.

I don't know.  It's going to be a snake pit in there.

Carmine, i don't doubt that it's going to be a tough place to play, but we've been to Syracuse, GTown, Nova, Duke and West Virginia.

They need to be able to handle a road game by now. And this is St.Mary's. Not exactly a world beater.