The Gates to the Tourney [Calm Before the Storm]

Mick Cronin’s team has beaten Seton Hall, Rutgers, South Florida, and DePaul by healthy margins.  Well, except DePaul, where the Bearcats were a possession from having the game go to overtime… and managed to throw the ball out of bounds to give the Blue Demons a chance. The Bearcats are an often poor decision-making team.

Even worse for them is that Yancy Gates was suspended for a game for his conduct (I’d heard it involved him yelling at an assistant coach. After the Bearcats got brutalized at Pittsburgh, Yancy found his suspension lifted… because the Bearcats, mediocre with him, absolutely suck without him....

The issue for the Red Storm in the previous game - besides missing those free throws - is that they found it hard to get scoring going in the paint. Justin Brownlee went 1 for 7, and the team as a whole went 12-34 inside the arc (35%), struggling against the Bearcats' defense both in the halfcourt and in transition. The Bearcats' length was a problem. Can the Red Storm find a way to score against them? Can they get transition points? 

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Predictions?

Nice write up Peter.  This is a huge game for us to say the least.  I really hope DJ has finally woken up from his hibernation. The offense runs so much smoother when others are taking some of the pressure off Hardy.  I think the key to the game will be how well our bigs play.  We need JB, JB2 and evans to have good games against Gates and Cincy's other bigs. Let's Go Johnnies!

Its going to be tough.  Much like us Cincy plays much better at home....I say we take them though.  Close one 60-56.

I left the Cincy game sick. We played much better then them and lost. I have season tickets with my Dad. He knows nothing about basketball. After the Cincy game he felt we missed to many easy shots (foul shots- layups- bunnies). He also couldnt believe how big Cincy was compared to us.
 Hopefully tommrow we hit our shots. We also have to get something out of Evans and Coker. Evans barely played against Cincy the last time. Coker didnt get off the bench. We make easy shots and rebound we win.

This is going to be a battle, but I think Cincy will prevail on their home court by a score of 63-59.  I hope I am wrong, a win would go a long way to getting us into the tourney.

73-62 us.

SJU 62 Cincy 57. We played awful the first game and we still should have won. Cincy besides the our game and a win against Xavier has very few good wins. When I watch Cincy I am not impressed by them and us on a bad day can compete with Cincy and if we play well we will beat them soundly. I think we struggle a little on the road but we pull it out, this would be a huge for us obviously. Would we be ranked with this victory? you would have to figure we would be somewhat close.

Big O       - 53
Big Apple - 51

SJU 62 Cincy 57. We played awful the first game and we still should have won. Cincy besides the our game and a win against Xavier has very few good wins. When I watch Cincy I am not impressed by them and us on a bad day can compete with Cincy and if we play well we will beat them soundly. I think we struggle a little on the road but we pull it out, this would be a huge for us obviously. Would we be ranked with this victory? you would have to figure we would be somewhat close.

Yea I'd guess we would be around 30th with a win here.

The cincy game to me is the biggest game we have the rest of the way.  A win and we split with them Gtown, and ND.   This win plus the games should get us to the 18 win mark we need for a guaranteed bid.

This game is so huge. Really is a MUST win game for St. John's.

This moves St. John's from potentially from 10th place to tied for 5th with Villanova. It evens the series with Cincy anothter "bubble" team and if you look at the split St. John's SOS will trump.

This would also chalk up another road win. I can't emphasize enough how important this game is.