St. John's vs Cornell Post Game Discussion

I don't want to over react to one game but this was bad. Every bad thing that this team does was exploited in this games.

Evans may have had his worst game since his freshman year. He was awful and played wayyyyyyyyyyyyy to many minutes tonight. When he is not going good he can stall the offense.

Hardy needs to play as many minutes as Kennedy they are the only two guys that can create on offense and we need them.

Rob Thomas needed to play more in this game. He actually knows what to do with the ball inside rather than be reckless like Evans can be.

Lets hope this is only a bump in the road, every team is going to have them especially a team with injuries to two of there starters. Norm needs to fire these guys up and be ready to blow Bryant out of the building on Wednesday.

A few more thoughts while im still up and looking at the box score...

Hardy played 19 minutes toniight.  How is that possible after what he did in the first half.  More Hardy, Less Horne.     

Sean Evans is a turnover machine...He needs to get back to being the garbage man on the offensive boards.  Less face up and dribble, more cutting and rebounding.

Malik played better than expected. 

We have trouble guarding talented big men.   

he had 13 in like7 minutes

3 thoughts...

Hardy goes off in the first half and then sits the last 4-5 mins before coming in for one last possession.  THen it's halftime and he doesnt come back for another 4-5 mins to start the second half.  Does not make sense.  In real time  he prob sat abt a half hour.  When a guy has a hot hand stay with him.

Really tired of the one pass, outside shot offense.  Make the defense move and get a better shot.  THis is stated for Horne and Brownlee...

Paris HOrne has 15 FTA in 11 games.  Compare that to DJ Kennedy who has 64 FTA. It is unacceptable.  All he does is settle for jumpshots.  When all your shots are from the outside, you have a 38 FG% and lack efficiency on offense.  I dont know what the answer is, if he doesnt have the handle to take it to the hole and keep the defense honest maybe Hardy should be taking the majority of the minutes.  He at least shows some ability to take it to the hoop.

great post

A few more thoughts while im still up and looking at the box score...

Hardy played 19 minutes toniight.  How is that possible after what he did in the first half.  More Hardy, Less Horne.     

Sean Evans is a turnover machine...He needs to get back to being the garbage man on the offensive boards.  Less face up and dribble, more cutting and rebounding.

Malik played better than expected. 

We have trouble guarding talented big men.

Disagree here. Hardy does not need to sub for Horne. They were both hot in the first half. We should have ran small.

We fell victim to the hottest shooting team we'll meet all year.

Look at these ridiculous numbers:
TOTAL FG% 1st Half: 10-20 50.0%   2nd Half: 14-22 63.6%   Game: 57.1%  DEADB
3-Pt. FG% 1st Half:  7-11 63.6%   2nd Half:  4-7  57.1%   Game: 61.1%   REBS
F Throw % 1st Half:  4-5  80.0%   2nd Half:  8-12 66.7%   Game: 70.6%    1

61% from 3?
64% from the field in the 2nd half? Unreal.

The first team we played all year who weren't severely bothered by our man D at some point. Forced us into a half-court game.  We couldn't run because they never missed so we were always inbounding the ball instead of rebounding and running.  None of there turnovers ever led to fast breaks.  We didn't have one breakout the entire second half.  They used the full 35 secs almost every possesion.  They play like they have 1500 sat scores.

Foote throwin em down in Dele's face multiple times. 

Hardy boyz hits 3 3's in a 1 min 14 sec span of first half yet only plays 7 minutes that half.  It should have been recognized that he was in the zone and the potential for a huge night was there. Never should have been subbed out.

Evans was limping badly in the second half and JB2 was seen testing a leg on the bench.

The game was decided on half court sets and 3 point shooting.  Not a battle I'd expect to win very often with Cornell.

Too bad Davidson couldn't hit a FT late or stop Cornell from scoring with .7 secs remaining.  We probably could have beat them.


 

I give Cornell for hitting 3's and getting open. They did an excellent job of wearing us down by working the ball around 2-3 times before getting a shot off. They wore us down with patience. Why we didn't full court press more to offset their half court rhythm is beyond me. We boast all this depth yet we're afraid to run our guys at times?!?

We came out flat in the 2nd half for the first time this season. I hope this proves to be a wake up call for players and coaches. I'll begrudgingly trade this loss for a Georgetown win

I am so sick to my stomach over this game.  First off, Cornell got open 3s because of how we defend ball screens, which is to hedge even when the ball screen is coming from 25 feet out.  Ok, fine, BUT after we get burned by it and we see that Cornell obviously has great perimeter forwards, we make NO adjustments to how we defend it.  Not a single one.  We got broken down by ball screens that led to us not being able to rotate in time defensively.  Our big men couldn't recover and this defense has been an issue for many years, and I had flashbacks tonight to the days of watching Aaron Spears and Lamont Hamilton getting burned by doing this. 

The Hardy thing infuriates me as well.  He goess off for 13 points and then sits 9 straight minutes.  AND we have a backcourt of Hardy, Paris and DJ in there when we make our run in the first half, and then we BARELY, if at ALL, see it in the second half.  That completely befuddled me.  I don't remember seeing that backcourt ONCE in the 2nd half, and even if they were out there together, it couldn't have been more than a few possessions.

Ugh, I'm so angry over this.

im gonna say this alot of people on all 2sites are now getting on paris. when lst year alot of yall had a man crush on him. that aint right.he is struggling because he doesnt understand his role. they are gonna need him.

why is paris getting trashed?  he's finally returning to form.  kob's right.  i think many of the players don't know their roles because norm can't figure out their roles.

i've never seen a college team more uncoached.

I agree with a lot of what everyone has said....but one thing I noticed regarding the offense is the away from the ball screens.  When we do run something...no one runs the offense sharp!!!  The away from the ball screens are weak if even set at all.  We need to tighten that up.  If your having a screen set for you, you need to run your man into the screener. 

I also agree, roles need to be defined, and we need to settle on a set rotation!!  Paris is fine...he's one of the few I have confidence in, regardless of his early season struggles!

The bigs don't get the ball, so when they finally do, they're getting anxious with it. We shot the 3 better than we have in maybe a decade, but we lost because that should not have been our plan.

It should never be.

One thought evans was an utter disgrace. He can't switch on a pick and roll when he is guarding the 7 footer. Everytime it lead to an open jumper or an easy layup. He did nothing on offense and was just plain bad put him on the bench

Some of what we see involves recurring problems - Sean Evans' defensive awareness isn't as good as some others - maybe even Coker - but he's quick enough to cover it up most days.  Horne's never been that great at driving to the hoop - he doesn't have the moves.  That said, I thought he made some nice jumpers, even the long 2-pointer he took... but maybe it is a role thing.  He's struggling.  I'm not voting him off the boat.  You don't play as effectively as he did last year and all of a sudden suck.  But he has to figure out how he's gonna play off of everyone else.

He'll be coming off the bench if Mason can play.  Once DJ started going off that was a given; and in truth, Norm would have gone that way anyway.

And efficiency wise, we made Cornell look like Duke.

Ugh, still sick about this.

In a tighter rotation and with everyone healthy the rotation should be:

SF - Kennedy (30 mins)
SG - Mason (25 mins)/ Horne (20 mins btwn SF + SG)
PG - Boothe (20 mins)/ Hardy (20 mins btwn PG + SG)
PF/ C - Evans (22)/ Burrell (20) (whichever one is doing better)
[Supplemental big] - pair Brownlee (20) with Evans for offense or Coker (10) with Burrell for defense

That's probably going to be the main 7 man rotation; Stith will come in to give a rest, Omari will come in to give a rest, Hardy will take some minutes with Horne to fill in the missing minutes from the PF/C positions.  I think someone will be pissed, yeah, but it's likely going to be Horne unless he steps up, because Hardy can fill the buckets.

I think either Brownlee or Evans could do to play less. They've got such energy but sometimes it goes helter-skelter.

So I guess besides Norm you were the only SJU fan on the planet that was happy with Hardy's minutes yesterday
You said he should play 20 minutes and he played 19. You can't give out minutes like they are gift certificates. Minutes should be earned not scripted. That is what coaching is and that is one of the many reasons Norm sucks at coaching! The man scored 19 in 19 minutes!
Unless you are ready to play DJ at the 4 spot, Boothe's minutes half to be cut down drastically and Stith's and Lawrence's minutes need to be taken away for the moment! DJ, Horne and Hardy have to play as much as possible and two of them should ALWAYS be on the floor together as this team can't score!

im gonna say this alot of people on all 2sites are now getting on paris. when lst year alot of yall had a man crush on him. that aint right.he is struggling because he doesnt understand his role. they are gonna need him.

You may be right KOB.  Problem is, with this coach, we need guys to figure out their own roles, so someone like DJ who has gets tons of props, and Paris hasnt, so he doesnt.  It ain't right, we should prob be ripping Norm, but because we're winning and ripping Norm is all we've done for 5+ years, the players who aren't performing get the brunt of it.  I still love Paris, but either Norm, or he, has to figure out his role.  If neither does, it will still result in the same thing:  Less minutes for Paris.

im gonna say this alot of people on all 2sites are now getting on paris. when lst year alot of yall had a man crush on him. that aint right.he is struggling because he doesnt understand his role.

Maybe we need someone else to define rolls for the kids

Our offence is setting a lot of ball screens. The issue I have is we never pic & pop or pic & roll. Our guard played way to selfish.

I know people are going to jump on me for this comment, but Dele hit a very nice back to the basket turn around jump shot in the 1st minute of the game and he never touched the ball in the post again the entire game.

I like DJ and Paris, but they never pass the ball into the post. KOB said it best when he stated that the team played selfish.

Quote from: peter on December 22, 2009, 12:31:02 AM

In a tighter rotation and with everyone healthy the rotation should be:

SF - Kennedy (30 mins)
SG - Mason (25 mins)/ Horne (20 mins btwn SF + SG)
PG - Boothe (20 mins)/ Hardy (20 mins btwn PG + SG)
PF/ C - Evans (22)/ Burrell (20) (whichever one is doing better)
[Supplemental big] - pair Brownlee (20) with Evans for offense or Coker (10) with Burrell for defense

That's probably going to be the main 7 man rotation; Stith will come in to give a rest, Omari will come in to give a rest, Hardy will take some minutes with Horne to fill in the missing minutes from the PF/C positions.  I think someone will be pissed, yeah, but it's likely going to be Horne unless he steps up, because Hardy can fill the buckets.

I think either Brownlee or Evans could do to play less. They've got such energy but sometimes it goes helter-skelter.

So I guess besides Norm you were the only SJU fan on the planet that was happy with Hardy's minutes yesterday
You said he should play 20 minutes and he played 19. You can't give out minutes like they are gift certificates. Minutes should be earned not scripted. That is what coaching is and that is one of the many reasons Norm sucks at coaching! The man scored 19 in 19 minutes!
Unless you are ready to play DJ at the 4 spot, Boothe's minutes half to be cut down drastically and Stith's and Lawrence's minutes need to be taken away for the moment! DJ, Horne and Hardy have to play as much as possible and two of them should ALWAYS be on the floor together as this team can't score!

I'm talking averages here.  Averages.  There have been times where Hardy is having a hard time finding his shots, and sometimes you'll have to go a different direction.  Of COURSE you go with the hotter hand; Hardy should have played more, he was doing more.  But when the team's in Big East play, Hardy's skinny backside's gonna get bumped and prodded, and you're going to want some tough defense - which you get from Horne, not Hardy.

And sometimes they're going to need more Coker, more Thomas.  And sometimes you go 4 guards with Kennedy or Lawrence at what would be the 4 spot.