Pittsburgh Post Game Discussion

chat it up

My brother said him and his friends are going to start a Fire Norm chant during the game against SHU, lets see what happens. On a side note, does anyone have the total points for and points against for each half?

Nice game by JUSTIN tonite playing 20 minutes on a sprained ankle.......14 points on 5-7 shooting, 3-3 FTs and 7 boards. Rest of team shot 28%. To bad they just don't get it...........pass the ball, it's a team game.

Why is it that every decent team we play shoots wide open jumpers,
and every shot we take is contested?

this is the split for the entire season (including tonight's game)

1ST HALF: ST JOHN'S 660  OPPONENTS 584

2ND HALF: ST JOHN'S 682  OPPONENTS 669

i couldn't find the numbers just for the BE games...but these numbers speak for itself. the point differential from the 1st half to the 2nd half is pathetic.

of our 8 losses...we were leading at the half in 5 of them:

- Cornell +5 at half, lost by 5
- Providence +1 at half , lost by 15
- @ Louisville +4 at half, lost by 7
- @ Nova +1 at half (+11 w/ 8 mins left), lost by 10
- @ Pitt +4 at half, lost by 10

also...
- @ UConn -3 at half (+6 w/ 7 mins left), lost by 16
- @ G'Town -5 at half, lost by 7

ironically the only loss in which we played better in the 2nd half was...
- @ Duke -16 at half, lost by 9

in conclusion....


FIRE NORM!

Pitt was flat and ripe for a beating.  Unfortunately, we took quick shots, relied on 1-on-1 play and were incredibly disorganized in our halfcourt offense. Our points came on on the break and "scrap" plays.

We also have terrible interior defense against strong post men, like McGee and the Syracuse guy. Justin not strong enough and gets poor position. Granted he played better last night, but why can't we spot Dele to make things a bit harder for folks like this? In a possession by possession game a stop or two can make a difference. Also, are we a terrible passing team or not? That surprises me considering how well Norm passes the buck.

We also have terrible interior defense against strong post men, like McGee and the Syracuse guy. Justin not strong enough and gets poor position. Granted he played better last night, but why can't we spot Dele to make things a bit harder for folks like this? In a possession by possession game a stop or two can make a difference. Also, are we a terrible passing team or not? That surprises me considering how well Norm passes the buck.

arinze onuaku is going to eat us alive.

We came out 2 for 7 from the line...they came out 11 for 12 and ended up 21 for 24.  It would help our desperate, almost futile cause if every team in America didn't shoot better than us from the line.

Our star had an absolutely awful game.  His second in a row.

Didn't see any injuries at all than it was reported that JB1 and Hilton has ankle problems?

Someone should have made that center with the funny hairdo that looks like Kid from Kid and Play go to his left. He goes to that effective right handed jump hook all day.

Another tough charging call against us nullifying a 3 point play, not as bad as the one against Nova though, went against D-buckets. 

I wish we could have won one of these last 3 toughies as I already have tickets to WV and Louisville and was hoping those games would be more meaningful.

We have to be able to beat the Knights, right?

We came out 2 for 7 from the line...they came out 11 for 12 and ended up 21 for 24.  It would help our desperate, almost futile cause if every team in America didn't shoot better than us from the line.

Our star had an absolutely awful game.  His second in a row.

Didn't see any injuries at all than it was reported that JB1 and Hilton has ankle problems?

Someone should have made that center with the funny hairdo that looks like Kid from Kid and Play go to his left. He goes to that effective right handed jump hook all day.

Another tough charging call against us nullifying a 3 point play, not as bad as the one against Nova though, went against D-buckets. 

I wish we could have won one of these last 3 toughies as I already have tickets to WV and Louisville and was hoping those games would be more meaningful.

We have to be able to beat the Knights, right?

Burrell took a charge and guy landed on his ankle and he hobbled off...Paris rolled his ankle on D too and went out as well.

Quote from: carmineabbatiello on January 29, 2010, 01:38:03 PM

We came out 2 for 7 from the line...they came out 11 for 12 and ended up 21 for 24.  It would help our desperate, almost futile cause if every team in America didn't shoot better than us from the line.

Our star had an absolutely awful game.  His second in a row.

Didn't see any injuries at all than it was reported that JB1 and Hilton has ankle problems?

Someone should have made that center with the funny hairdo that looks like Kid from Kid and Play go to his left. He goes to that effective right handed jump hook all day.

Another tough charging call against us nullifying a 3 point play, not as bad as the one against Nova though, went against D-buckets. 

I wish we could have won one of these last 3 toughies as I already have tickets to WV and Louisville and was hoping those games would be more meaningful.

We have to be able to beat the Knights, right?

Burrell took a charge and guy landed on his ankle and he hobbled off...Paris rolled his ankle on D too and went out as well.

You know I only saw it on the espnu replay at 2:00 am and they cut the game down to an hour and a half so I must have missed it.

They did some poor editing.  SJU was down 6 with about 4 min left and PItt going to the line.  Next they cut back in with about 2 min left and SJU down 2. 

Well you didn't miss much, Carmine.  The point of the story is that STJ was down.  We're always down. 

We also have terrible interior defense against strong post men, like McGee and the Syracuse guy. Justin not strong enough and gets poor position. Granted he played better last night, but why can't we spot Dele to make things a bit harder for folks like this? In a possession by possession game a stop or two can make a difference. Also, are we a terrible passing team or not? That surprises me considering how well Norm passes the buck.

what are u talking about one thing he does is play defense mcgee scored off of screens because st.johns coaching philosophy is to switch. so mcgee always had a mismatch and mason never rotated over.jesus christ u gonna blame him for the economy as well??

  Kob the bottom line is this team has only two quality big east starters..Burrell, and Hardy...Nobody else is a big east quality starter..Hence our arses getting handed to us again.

  Kob the bottom line is this team has only two quality big east starters..Burrell, and Hardy...Nobody else is a big east quality starter..Hence our arses getting handed to us again.

Kennedy?

Quote from: paultzman on January 29, 2010, 11:43:50 AM

We also have terrible interior defense against strong post men, like McGee and the Syracuse guy. Justin not strong enough and gets poor position. Granted he played better last night, but why can't we spot Dele to make things a bit harder for folks like this? In a possession by possession game a stop or two can make a difference. Also, are we a terrible passing team or not? That surprises me considering how well Norm passes the buck.

what are u talking about one thing he does is play defense mcgee scored off of screens because st.johns coaching philosophy is to switch. so mcgee always had a mismatch and mason never rotated over.jesus christ u gonna blame him for the economy as well??

I agree with you that Justin actually plays good positional defense.  He seems to be right there quite often.  Also doubt that Justin is not strong enough.  However his instincts are not very good with regard to challenging the shot.  He's usually in the right place standing still with arms outstretched being shot over C's who are usually taller than he is.  Of course problem 1 is he's not a C but forced to play the position especially on D, but he needs to be more aggressive when he's in that position and not hope the taller guy misses shots simply because his hands are up in the air.

I agree with you that Justin actually plays good positional defense.  He seems to be right there quite often.  Also doubt that Justin is not strong enough.  However his instincts are not very good with regard to challenging the shot.  He's usually in the right place standing still with arms outstretched being shot over C's who are usually taller than he is.  Of course problem 1 is he's not a C but forced to play the position especially on D, but he needs to be more aggressive when he's in that position and not hope the taller guy misses shots simply because his hands are up in the air.

Justin seems that he does things technically correctly - he gets good defensive position, he gets position down in the block, he boxes out - but he doesn't yet connect the technique with his instinct and ability. He almost looks to me like he's posing out there sometimes. It could be that this is attributable to his relatively late start at the game, to a lack of natural aggression, to awful coaching, or any combination thereof. Whatever the reason, it looks sometimes like he's just going through the motions. As he demonstrated in the last game, even if he's a little more aggressive he can make a big difference.