Duke game - partial redemption

Dear Johnnies fans, I'm a Hoya fan coming by to offer you some encouragement. I feel bad your BE season has gone so poorly as I'd love to see St. J's become an NCAA tourney team again. I think you'd get some redemption with a victory over Duke this Saturday because beating a top 4 ranked team is a nice accomplishment.

It would show the world that you have a good team and can beat anyone. I think it would also help with your recruiting. Lastly, it would show that your record in the BE is to some degree due to the incredible strength of the BE, and not that your program is bad.

Related to that last point, part of me would like to see the BE add two additional teams that are located in major media markets, but have so-so programs (such as Boston U or Northeastern) in order to give the existing BE teams a couple of easier teams to beat, so their in-conference records can look respectable. It's sometimes hard for the 6th and 7th best BE teams to break into the tourney because their in conference records usually don't look good, and sometimes their overall records don't look good for the same reason.

It's pretty much impossible for the #8 BE team to get in. Granted this year the #8 team (Depaul or G-town) don't deserve to get in, but there will be years where the #8 team will be good enough to get in and won't because of their record due to playing in the BE. I think it also can make recruiting harder because it's somewhat harder to recruit when you're #8 out of 10 versus #8 out of 12.

Anyway, it would be great if a lot of fans make it out to the Duke game and the Johnnies get a huge upset at MSG.

Classy post.

And then you woke up. They might as well add FDU to the league while they're at it. They had their best chance at a BE win last night and blew it. Duke is going to house them.

Per Zach B

Big list of St John’s visitors Saturday for Duke at MSG:

2019
Scottie Lewis
Bryan Antoine
Karim Coulibaly
Kofi Cockburn

2020
Elijah Wood
Nate Tabor
Zed Key
Gary Grant
Jyare Davis

2021
Moussa Cisse

#sjubb

So nice of SJU to host and subsidize Duke recruiting efforts for some of the guts on the list.

I like this guy more than half the posters on this board.

I like this guy more than half the posters on this board.

Thanks. I remember about 10 to 15 years ago when G-town was going through a somewhat rough few years, we upset Duke when they were ranked in the top 5, and it gave fans a big boost for the next year. It probably helped recruiting a good amount because within about 3-4 years we made it to the Final 4 due mostly to having a couple of high level recruits on the team.

If your team almost beat Xavier, you can definitely beat Duke, especially if they're having a somewhat off day. Good luck.

Quote from: HowCouldUBeSoHarkless on February 01, 2018, 08:31:06 PM

I like this guy more than half the posters on this board.

Thanks. I remember about 10 to 15 years ago when G-town was going through a somewhat rough few years, we upset Duke when they were ranked in the top 5, and it gave fans a big boost for the next year. It probably helped recruiting a good amount because within about 3-4 years we made it to the Final 4 due mostly to having a couple of high level recruits on the team.

If your team almost beat Xavier, you can definitely beat Duke, especially if they're having a somewhat off day. Good luck.

Georgetown wasn't struggling when they beat Duke back during the 2005-2006 season.  They were fresh off a decent NIT run the previous season, and was 11-4 (3-2 in the Big East) leading up to their game versus Duke.  They didn't have a signature win prior to beating Duke, but you could see an ascending team in Georgetown.  Can you say the same about this Johnnies team? 

Georgetown made the "Sweet 16" during that particular season and advanced to the Final Four the following season (2006-2007).

Nevertheless, I hope we pull off the upset. 

Georgetown wasn't struggling when they beat Duke back during the 2005-2006 season.

Fallacy, strawman. He didn't say GT was "struggling." He said they were "going through a somewhat rough few years." Which is a pretty fair characterization by a used to making the NCAA tournament every year GT fan of the the Craig Esherick era and JT III's first year, years in which GT won 20 games a single time and made the NCAA tournament once.   

No doubt you'll apologize to the nice man for calling him a liar. Especially since he game here to support the program you root for so optimistically.

Quote from: mjdinkins on February 03, 2018, 01:15:38 AM

Georgetown wasn't struggling when they beat Duke back during the 2005-2006 season.

Fallacy, strawman. He didn't say GT was "struggling." He said they were "going through a somewhat rough few years." Which is a pretty fair characterization by a used to making the NCAA tournament every year GT fan of the the Craig Esherick era and JT III's first year, years in which GT won 20 games a single time and made the NCAA tournament once.   

No doubt you'll apologize to the nice man for calling him a liar. Especially since he game here to support the program you root for so optimistically.

I know he didn't say they was struggling, punk.  St. John's is currently struggling, which is what I meant when I said, "Georgetown wasn't struggling when they beat Duke in 2006."

I wasn't in any attempt trying to diss him or call him a liar, either.  Nice try, chicken shit hack.

Quote from: Foad on February 03, 2018, 08:02:43 AM

Quote from: mjdinkins on February 03, 2018, 01:15:38 AM

Georgetown wasn't struggling when they beat Duke back during the 2005-2006 season.

Fallacy, strawman. He didn't say GT was "struggling." He said they were "going through a somewhat rough few years." Which is a pretty fair characterization by a used to making the NCAA tournament every year GT fan of the the Craig Esherick era and JT III's first year, years in which GT won 20 games a single time and made the NCAA tournament once.   

No doubt you'll apologize to the nice man for calling him a liar. Especially since he game here to support the program you root for so optimistically.

I know he didn't say they was struggling, punk. 

You know he didn't say they were struggling, shirley.

St. John's is currently struggling, which is what I meant when I said, "Georgetown wasn't struggling when they beat Duke in 2006.".

So all that stuff you said about GT, their record, their NIT appearance, their obvious ascendancy, that wasn't to refute his statement that GT "going through a somewhat rough few years," that was show that SJU is currently struggling? Because you could have just pointed to their record, no need to rehash GT's from ten years ago.

I wasn't in any attempt trying to diss him or call him a liar, either.  Nice try, chicken shit hack

You're a silly billy.

Quote from: mjdinkins on February 03, 2018, 10:39:19 AM

Quote from: Foad on February 03, 2018, 08:02:43 AM

Quote from: mjdinkins on February 03, 2018, 01:15:38 AM

Georgetown wasn't struggling when they beat Duke back during the 2005-2006 season.

Fallacy, strawman. He didn't say GT was "struggling." He said they were "going through a somewhat rough few years." Which is a pretty fair characterization by a used to making the NCAA tournament every year GT fan of the the Craig Esherick era and JT III's first year, years in which GT won 20 games a single time and made the NCAA tournament once.   

No doubt you'll apologize to the nice man for calling him a liar. Especially since he game here to support the program you root for so optimistically.

I know he didn't say they was struggling, punk. 

You know he didn't say they were struggling, shirley.

Quote

St. John's is currently struggling, which is what I meant when I said, "Georgetown wasn't struggling when they beat Duke in 2006.".

So all that stuff you said about GT, their record, their NIT appearance, their obvious ascendancy, that wasn't to refute his statement that GT "going through a somewhat rough few years," that was show that SJU is currently struggling? Because you could have just pointed to their record, no need to rehash GT's from ten years ago.

Quote

I wasn't in any attempt trying to diss him or call him a liar, either.  Nice try, chicken shit hack

You're a silly billy.

I rehashed to their record that particular season they beat Duke, nice person.  As, I felt it was relevant.  Georgetown wasn't some crappy team (like the current Johnnies team) the year they beat Duke.  They may have still been attempting to find themselves amongst the better teams in the country, but you could see an ascending team, and the ascencion started the previous season before they beat Duke.  Relevant. 

I rehashed to their Final Four season the following year (after beating Duke) because the OP was off on the timeframe, pussy.  Your bloodline won't allow you to understand shit.  Go back to projecting your personality on Steve Lavin.  You are who you claim him to be, wussy.

This perfectly fits your punk ass.....

Before we got that Duke win, we had failed to make it to the NCAA 7 out the previous 8 years. Winning only two games in the previous season's NIT (over Boston University and Cal-State Fullerton) meant very little to anyone: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2005_National_Invitation_Tournament. I wouldn't consider wins over those two teams as being a strong run in the NIT.

When we beat Duke, it wasn't even half-way through the season and GT fans were still in a fairly bad place, even though we had hope with a new coach. Anyway, it gave fans a big boost and a big amount of confidence to the players. It helped the players for the rest of the season and in the tourney. If you beat Duke when they're ranked in the top 4, your confidence goes up.

I think your team is a lot better than its in-conference record shows. The record is in part because the league is super tough this year. Example - Marquette is only 4-7, and they're still considered to have a good chance to make the tourney. You've also lost close games. And you also lost your #2 scorer to injury.

I bet if you had your #2 scorer, you'd be even with Marquette in conference (and maybe ahead of them), and would be a bubble team, would get an NIT bid and do as well in it as GT did in the season just before we ascended. And quite possibly better, given that if you add up your point totals in three games against 3 top six teams, you were almost even with them. If you had your #2 scorer, you probably would have won the Xavier game: meaning two wins against top 6 teams.

Tonight I read an article on one of the major news sites that said the Duke win demonstrates the team is better than its conference record, and that you're closer to having a NCAA tourney team than your conference record indicates. Your recruiters can now say "We beat a top 4 team, we came very close to beating a top 6 team (Xavier) and we had a pretty close game against the #1 team that's been blowing out most teams. We lost a lot of close games in conference play, but with the addition of 1 or 2 more high quality players, we'd win those games and would be a tourney team, so please join us to make it happen.

I bet it will also be a morale booster to your players during this season, off-season and going into next year, and morale is very needed during your next eight months. The players are more likely to keep working hard in practices and during the off-season, knowing that they could make the tourney next year and make a run in it.

Next year you probably have your whole team coming back except Ahmed, which isn't much of a loss, and you have your #2 scorer coming back, plus a 4-star recruit, a 3-star recruit and a big man with potential. And all your existing players will have a year more experience, which matters a bunch in college hoops. Other teams will mostly be losing 1 or 2 key players.

I think you're reasonably close to where Georgetown was the year before we returned to the tourney.  You won't have 2 NIT wins but you will have a huge win over a #4 team and close games against two other top 6 teams. If we had lost our #2 scorer that year, we wouldn't have even made it to the NIT. And we most likely wouldn't have beat a #4 Duke in that NIT year even with our #2 scorer.

I shouldn't have said Lovett is coming back for sure, but the fact he's still going to all the games and wearing St. John's gear indicates to me there's a good chance he will. I think the Duke win increases the odds that he does. If I'm in his shoes, I'm likely thinking similar to:

"If this team can almost beat three top 6 teams, and beat #4 Duke without me, and there are two quality recruits joining next year, we'd have fair potential to make a run in the tourney next year if I come back. We could also have some rocking games in front of big crowds at the garden. I'd like to be part of beating top teams at the garden. If I don't come back and I transfer, I have to sit out for some time, which further delays my playing. It means I'll go for over 15 months without playing in any games."

Even if he doesn't come back, I think with your incoming 3 recruits, you could make the tourney next year, and after you do that, often everything becomes easier.

Before we got that Duke win, we had failed to make it to the NCAA 7 out the previous 8 years. Winning only two games in the previous season's NIT (over Boston University and Cal-State Fullerton) meant very little to anyone: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2005_National_Invitation_Tournament. I wouldn't consider wins over those two teams as being a strong run in the NIT.

When we beat Duke, it wasn't even half-way through the season and GT fans were still in a fairly bad place, even though we had hope with a new coach. Anyway, it gave fans a big boost and a big amount of confidence to the players. It helped the players for the rest of the season and in the tourney. If you beat Duke when they're ranked in the top 4, your confidence goes up.

I watched quite a bit of Georgetown games (and was at their game in the 3rd round of the NIT versus South Carolina, which could've gone either way), and I have a few friends who are Hoya fans.  So, I was and are very aware with what they're doing.  I don't recall anyone diminishing that season, as most fans were high to what they could accomplish the following season with what they had seen from then-freshmen, Jeff Green and Roy Hibbert, as well as a few leftovers from Craig Esherick.  I think you're also being disingenuous by saying those "two teams (not) being a strong run in the NIT."  Georgetown played some decent ball in the NIT, and was likely headed to the NCAA Tournament, if it wasn't for a late season collapse.   

During their NIT season: Georgetown beat #16 Pitt (on the road), a solid Villanova team (on the road), nearly beat #7 Syracuse (if Brandon Bowman's shoe was a half size smaller (LOL), then they come out of the Carrier Dome with a win), and a solid, West Virginia team (at Georgetown).  They was 16-6 overall (8-3) in the Big East before losing 5 straight conference games to end the season. 

They beat Seton Hall in the Big East Tournament before losing to #12 UConn in the Quarterfinals.  They won two NIT games before losing to the Gamecocks for a trip to MSG in the NIT Semifinals.  I'll never forget outside of the arena, as we (one of my childhood friends and I went to the game....  He's a Hoya fan) ran into someone we both know.  The young lady was teasing him about the Gamecocks beating the Hoyas.  He said (paraphrased), "I wish Georgetown could play the Gamecocks again next season.  We're gonna be good (next season), and we'd bury the Gamecocks."  He went on to say, "I think we'll be in (NCAA) Tournament next season."  It was actually a season where they didn't have any expectations of making either the NCAA or NIT.  'Though, you could see their team was ascending.

Although, Georgetown didn't have a signature win leading up to their game versus Duke, you could still see it wasn't the program under Esherick.  Georgetown's program leading up to their game versus Duke in 2006 isn't on the same plane as the Johnnies' program leading up to their game versus Duke yesterday.  I'm elated about the win, no doubt!  I'm just stating the difference in program's leading up to their respective games versus Duke.

I hope this win can springboard the program.  Hopefully, the remainder of the season gives many of us hope that yesterday's game was the kick start that we needed.

 

I shouldn't have said Lovett is coming back for sure, but the fact he's still going to all the games and wearing St. John's gear indicates to me there's a good chance he will. I think the Duke win increases the odds that he does.

LoVett is done at St. John's.

MJDinkins,

Wow, I come on here to give SJ fans some encouragement, and I get you splitting hairs with me and calling me disingenuous. I can see why the other poster was critical of you and calling you a bully.

I have not been saying they're at exactly the same points as the year that GT beat Duke. If you look at my last post, I conveyed that I think SJ is reasonably close in team quality (not conference record) to where GT was in that NIT season, not to where GT was the following year. The Hoyas finishing with 5 losses in a row to end the regular season felt bad and going 1-1 in the BET and 2-1 in the NIT didn't matter much to most fans. A relatively low percentage of total Hoya fans even watch the NIT games.

Yes fans were hopeful about JT3 (which I've already said) and the two new freshman. But Ponds is playing at a higher level this year than either of those two guys played that NIT year. Hibbert was still somewhat of a project. We had a win against a top 20 team, but that's not as good as beating a top 4 team. And we didn't play four games against Top 6 teams in which we came reasonably close to winning all four. That is pretty good. It doesn't mean they're as good as the Hoyas were in the NIT year, but definitely much better than the conference record indicates.

And we didn't lose our #2 player for most of the season, including the hardest 2/3rds of the season.  We also didn't have the 5th hardest schedule in the country like you've had this year. I"m not saying your team is as good as the Hoyas were that year. But while your conference record doesn't show it, your team is reasonably close.

My two main points have been:

1) Beating a #4 team is a morale booster and a confidence builder for players and fans when they're going through a tough stretch. Your top player said the following about what would occur if they beat Duke:

“That would get our confidence back,” he said.
https://nypost.com/2018/02/03/shamorie-ponds-knew-this-wasnt-going-to-be-an-easy-road/

Read post-game comments from a few players about how they feel about such a huge victory.

2) The team is much better than their conference record indicates.

Another point has been that a win over a #4 team helps with recruiting. Most Hoya fans I knew felt the Duke win was going to help recruiting.

You pretty much ignore the main points, and instead focus on splitting hairs. I'm posting a note on a sports board, not writing a news article for the New York Times, so when I say that a big upset over Duke was a morale booster for us after we went through a rough stretch (an 8 year rough stretch), why do you feel the need to heavily harp on exactly how perfectly it was stated or whether the Hoya program was at the exact same stage as SJ?

At the time of the Duke win, we were still in the midst of an 8 year drought. Going to the NIT didn't change that drought. Yes there was optimism due to having a new coach and a few good players, but as of the time of the Duke game, for all we knew, we were going to fail to make the tourney again. So it was a morale booster for fans, and I think also a confidence booster for players. It may not be the exact same kind of morale booster, but I never said it was. So why not acknowledge the basic point. And if anything, your players and fans need a morale booster more now than GT did back then, so this might turn out to be more important than our Duke upset was.

Wow, I come on here to give SJ fans some encouragement, and I get you splitting hairs with me and calling me disingenuous. I can see why the other poster was critical of you and calling you a bully.

Don't mind him, he's pretty emotionally invested in Mullin failing. On the bright side once you wind him up - and it's pretty easy - he starts frothing at the mouth and hurling vicious 70s insults like punk and jive ass turkey. He can be pretty funny when he gets going.

You pretty much ignore the main points, and instead focus on splitting hairs. I'm posting a note on a sports board, not writing a news article for the New York Times, so when I say that a big upset over Duke was a morale booster for us after we went through a rough stretch (an 8 year rough stretch), why do you feel the need to heavily harp on exactly how perfectly it was stated or whether the Hoya program was at the exact same stage as SJ?

At the time of the Duke win, we were still in the midst of an 8 year drought. Going to the NIT didn't change that drought. Yes there was optimism due to having a new coach and a few good players, but as of the time of the Duke game, for all we knew, we were going to fail to make the tourney again. So it was a morale booster for fans, and I think also a confidence booster for players. It may not be the exact same kind of morale booster, but I never said it was. So why not acknowledge the basic point. And if anything, your players and fans need a morale booster more now than GT did back then, so this might turn out to be more important than our Duke upset was.

You don't need to defend yourself. You made a spot on analogy and hopefully this works out for SJ the way that did for GT. As the official greeter I say stop by anytime, you're a better fan than half these whiny mutts.

A great win and moment for the program. But let's not kid ourselves. This team is still 0-11 in the Big East. Mullin still needs a real coaching staff under him. I'm glad we won as hopefully it helps keeps our recruits and incoming players intact. However let's not take our eyes off the bigger picture here as changes still need to be made.