Post Game Discussion - St. John's vs. Duke

Well lets here it guys I know there has to be some strong reactions...

It's the first time I've been happy with a loss in a while.  Things looked very bleak in the first half, but DJ Kennedy once again proved why he is one of the top players in the conference.  18 second half points for DJ, well done kid.

7-0 if you count moral victories.  I was worried for that one stretch where Duke went on the 12-0 run.  But the team played with great effort for the rest of the game.

Dele Coker...Wow!  Great Effort.

Our only chance was if Horne or Hardy went off.  The fact that we were able to keep it respectable and even to get it down to 4 was good.  Rebounding killed us.  They are tough rebounding team.  I don't think I've seen a Duke team that rebounds like this one. 

47 points in the 2nd half is impressive.  We played tough D most of the way...with our ability to run maybe just maybe we could do some damage this year. 

DJ with 9 assists and Horne finally hit some shots in the 2nd half.  Hopefully he gets it going.

I wanted to strangle the refs in the 1st half, pssy fouls they called on us.

Great job by Norm and the team, Kennedy was great in 2nd half, I wish he would have took it to Singler more in the 1st half

Random Thoughts:

One bad stretch in the first half...that 18-3 run was a killer. Go from down 1 to down 31 - 15 is something that cant happen at Cameron.  That being said i'm proud the way we fought back.  In an environment like this, last years team would have folded and been blown away. 

DJ had an outstanding 2nd half but he needs to be more aggressive in the first half.  I know he was in foul trouble but he needs to shoot more than two shots.  Also, DJ should not lose the mins when Mase comes back,  someone else should.     

Coker and Boothe played great...Coker has been solid all season

Evans had 17 points and went 1-6 from the line.  He can take his game up a notch if he can improve at the stripe.

Lately, we have been a second half team.  Outscored Siena by 14 Temple by 8 and Duke by 7. 

Rebounding still an issue
   



 

Kudos to Evans, Dj, and coker-  mvps for us today.  no one beats Duke at home, out of conference, and even the die-hard Johnnie fans didn't think that would change today.
 The game was over in the 1st half , but the 2nd half run was commedable.  Unless you can dictate the pace of the game with great point guard play,  you are nor going to beat them.  Not a knock on Boothe,  but when 6 points 4 assists and 3 TOs is a "great game" for your point guard,  your not winning against legit opponents.  (  I made up those stats, but they are probably not far off.)

Based on todays results, does anyone not believe we will beat Pitt?

Even with the loss my expectaions for this season have gone UP. we havent had a team in recent memory that would have withstood that first half onslaught and come back to make it interesting. In years past would woulda closed up shop after going down 31-15. We cant have anylet downs the rest of the non conference schedule, and i dont think we will.

Based on todays results, does anyone not believe we will beat Pitt?

Pitt played in the ugliest game since the shot clock was introduced last night at home against New Hampshire. 47-32 win. 15-7 pitt at the half. it set basketball back 50 years with that 1st half

This was one of the better loses of the Norm Roberts era. Two big runs by Duke was what decided this game. You can't let that happen on the road against a good team.

DJ has all the makings of a star. He was a little soft in the first half because of the early fouls but in the 2nd half he took over the game. He was the best player on the court.

Coker played great getting JB's minutes after he was hurt on the first play of the game.

Evans great game minus the missed FT's. Norm better have him shooting 100 a day in practice. He is aggressive and is going to get to the line he needs to be able to make them.

All in all I am still quite excited about this team. I will look forward to the game against Georgia to see how we bounce back from the loss.

I will be in the Garden and hope everyone that can make it will be there, and the rest of New York hopefully will be out rooting for the Johnnies.

Evans' foul shot is a line drive...and, worst, he doesn't try to adjust the second shot when the first one clanks back iron and bounces off.

i like what i saw today...we showed some resiliency by coming back 2-3 times after the duke runs. i think if we had burrell it would be a different story.  evans and kennedy were impressive as usual, esp kennedy with 9 assists. but evans has got to hit those free throws, cant be having that. i also loved how coker stepped in an contributed with 5 pts 6 rebs and 3-4 blocks and only 2 fouls. boothe played great even though his stat line didnt show that (7 pts, 3-5 from the field, 1-2 from 3, 2 assists, 1 rebound, and 2 TOs). horne started to score, hopefully helps him get out of that slump. all of hardys shots seemed to go in and out, they will start to fall. brownlee disappeared, i dont even remember seeing him in the game that often. lawrence made some stupid decisions on both sides of the ball. norm should have put in quincy roberts for some run with lawrence struggling. but like i said i like what i saw today and pleased with the performance. i think we are gonna make some noise in the big east this year and i cant wait to watch. oh yeah and kennedy looked good running the point, when mase comes back we could have some size and mismatches with kennedy playing the point at times during the game, which could help us.

What I don't understand is why did norm take out Coker and especially DJ when we cut the lead to 4?

Boothe drove well today...finishing himself a couple of times, and dishing it off a few times.

What I don't understand is why did norm take out Coker and especially DJ when we cut the lead to 4?

ya man...no one understood why he took them out at that point

Quote from: boooooooooothe on December 05, 2009, 07:12:46 PM

What I don't understand is why did norm take out Coker and especially DJ when we cut the lead to 4?

ya man...no one understood why he took them out at that point

as much as i want to see norm succeed as our coach, he still does things that dont make sense. the way he used our last timeout was dumb. [not that it ended up really mattering in the end] the substitutions towards the end were strange.

playing duke really illustrated the fact that at times we look completely hopeless in the half court offense. people just stand around the perimeter at times.
the play with the shot clock violation/hornes 50 foot prayer really helps explain my point. we wasted the whole shot clock with bad ball movement, and as a result, turned the ball over.

norm needs to practice the half court offense/rebounding. that is where we were terrible today. 

I am worried about Horne - his confidence, his shot... man.

We need guys to be a little smarter about making stupid mistakes.  And bad shots... Paris and Brownlee both took desperation shots in that 18 or 20-3 Duke run.  And that's just losing your head.  Run the offense.

But man, COKER!  I know Dave's talked about it, and I'm a Coker fan to.  Nice to see him ball a little out there! 

I loved Evans' energy and movement without the ball.  Kennedy's a damned player.  And Lawrence made plays - even if he needs some more coaching on offense and defense.  A lot of lessons to take from this game.

The America east is a joke. What Syracuse is doing to maine is what any respectable BE team should to do to the AE.

These teams have no talent. Pitt, is in trouble. We need them to fall hard,
and when we play them, we need to kill them, and then pour it on.

Also, Singler is a hell of a player, but had a couple of REAL soft moments - pulling up instead of trying to dunk on Coker (he would have drawn a foul) and getting bumped by Coker and bouncing off like he just got girl-slapped by Carmelo Anthony.

But he had some awesome moments out there.

Plus: my friends watched the game in our bar... next to Chris Duhon. They're not St. John's fans (one's an actual Dukie, one's U Mass), but they were talking a little smack for St. John's.

You have be happy for some of the played Kennedy to Evans made. That oop was whoa! Evans was a problem for Duke to cover. Kennedy is developing into a p-t-p'er was Dickie V would say.

Coker gave some great minutes and he was a force defensively. He also showed nice touch from the outside with that baseline jumpshot in the first half and was active offensively on putbacks. We can't have him out on the perimeter making decisions on where to distribute the ball because thats where he gets into trouble. All in all Coker played awesome.

Also someone that flew under the radar was Malik Boothe, he stepped up big time. He handled the ball with poise, distributed, and made smart decisions with the basketball inside the paint. He never forced anything and took it himself when he needed to while making some pretty dishes to easy twos.

Horne is in a funk but he had his moments. He ran the break well and hit some J's in the 2nd half which were big for us.

Hardy and Brownlee played poorly today but this is their first big time college atmoshpere game so I'll cut them some slack. They've been waiting for this moment for two plus years. I know they'll bounce back.

Malik Stith and Omari Lawrence played like freshman some dumb mistakes but both had confidence in what they did even though they shouldn't have been as brazen.

The big thing we have to focus on is team defense, not getting stagnant moving on offense, and just being focused on rebounding the basketball better. As we rebound the more we run. The more we run the more we score. The more we score the more we win.