2010 Holiday Festival Final: vs. Northwestern [Calm Before the Storm]

Tonight is the last big test before Big East play – fighting for the championship against the impressive Northwestern Wildcats. St. John’s comes off of a hard fought and physical win over the Davidson Wildcats; Northwestern comes off what ended up being a pretty easy and decisive victory over the St. Francis Terriers. How will St. John’s contend with the sharpshooting, 8-0 Northwestern team, led by “John and Juice” [John Shurna + Michael "Juice" Thompson]?

Read Calm Before the Storm to find out.

It would be a great turn in the right direction for our team to give Northwestern their 1st loss of the year.

We have to shut Shurna down from 3 pt range, I mean the guy shoots 62% beyond the arc this year. He is also averaging 24 pts a game. They have a couple other nice players but this is the guy we have to shut down and at 6'8 hes a tough matchup for our smaller players, maybe DJ on him?

We don't bother to guard the 3. No idea why. These kids never bothered to.

Davidson missed a lot of shots at the end of the game. Will Northwestern miss as many?

If not, we had better find our offense.

Time for Burrell to get off

Time for Burrell to get off

Time for Burrell to get off

Marco--you called it; they got him the ball and he finished.  Hopefully a confidence builder.

Also where has Polle been for the last month.  I guess practice is working.

Keep up the work lads as "prime time" starts

Just when you're ready to quit on this team...

Nice win...we played well and luckily NW got cold in the 2nd half.  On to the Big East!

Great win. If they could only play like this more often they would be a very good team. Brownlee was great around the basket and played very good defense on Shurna. Burrell was awesome, he was dominant in the paint and looked like a man among boys on the boards late in the game. Hardy finally had that 3 pt stroke going and DJ was solid. Also it was great to see Polee look good on both sides of the ball I loved how he played tonight. This game will give the team and fans confidence going into the tough BE schedule.

http://espn.go.com/blog/new-yorkcolleges/post/_/id/1154/rapid-reaction-st-johns-85-northwestern-69


NEW YORK -- A quick take on St. John's 85-69 win over Northwestern in the championship game of the annual Holiday Festival at Madison Square Garden.

WHAT IT MEANS: St. John's bounced back in a big way from those two very disappointing losses to St. Bonaventure and Fordham, scratching out a five-point win against Davidson on Monday night and then knocking off undefeated Northwestern on Tuesday to move to 7-3 on the season. Northwestern falls to 8-1.

SLOW START: St. John's trailed 23-13, after giving up six 3-pointers in rapid succession early in this game. Steve Lavin switched to a man-to-man defense in the half-court, and the Red Storm did a much better job against the perimeter jumper from that point on. The game was a dogfight from there, until St. John's pulled away late in the second half.

UNCONSCIOUS! St. John's shot an incredible 16-for-19 from the field in the second half, finishing 31-for-51 for the game (60.8 percent). St. John's big three scorers all stepped up -- Dwight Hardy had 24 points, Justin Brownlee 21 and D.J. Kennedy 13. But Justin Burrell was the St. John's MVP of the championship game, with 17 points and seven boards off the bench. Also, freshman Dwayne Polee played very well for the second straight night, scoring 10 points.

WINNING TIME: The Red Storm trailed 40-37 at halftime, and the game was all tied at 50. That's when St. John's asserted control of this game, going on a 19-7 run to open up a 69-57 lead. Burrell was the dominant force in the second half -- he scored 15 of his 17 in the second 20 minutes.

WHAT'S NEXT: St. John's will open up its Big East schedule at West Virginia on Dec. 29. Northwestern has a quick turnaround -- the Wildcats will host Mount St. Mary's on Thursday.

Quote from: Marco Baldi on December 21, 2010, 06:16:54 PM

Time for Burrell to get off

Marco--you called it; they got him the ball and he finished.  Hopefully a confidence builder.

Also where has Polle been for the last month.  I guess practice is working.

Keep up the work lads as "prime time" starts

Baldi on point, as usual

Baldi, isn't it strange seeing a player get better as the season wears on?

Under Norm, the players only regressed.

Baldi, isn't it strange seeing a player get better as the season wears on?

Under Norm, the players only regressed.

Certainly is nice in Burrells case, but what the hell happenned to Kennedy. And I didnt think Boothe could get worse, but...

Roberts buried Brownlee on the bench. Hardy too.

Quote from: Poison on December 22, 2010, 02:06:50 PM

Baldi, isn't it strange seeing a player get better as the season wears on?

Under Norm, the players only regressed.

Certainly is nice in Burrells case, but what the hell happenned to Kennedy. And I didnt think Boothe could get worse, but...

Kennedy is playing well just no scoring as much because the offense doesn't revolve around just him anymore. Kennedy is playing good D and i shooting over 50% from the floor and also rebounding well. Boothe is right in line with his career averages even though his minutes are diminishing.

  haven't been able ot put my finger on it yet, but something is off with DJ.   Maybe a lack of aggressiveness.  Seems unsure of himself out there.  He'll get it together.  This team is psychotic.   Really bad, really good, really confused.....

Shurna owned DJ in the first half. It was Brownlee that shut him down in the 2nd half.

Kennedy is a bit confused. He used to be the man on offense, and now he's the 3rd option.

We saw last night how much better off we are when DJ is a complimentary player. Hardy and Brownlee are our go to scorers.

And who knows, maybe Justin Burrell can build on this performance. It was pretty great. He'll get a chance next week.

  Probably the best, most complete game we've seen this group play.  Its was quite refreshing.  I would bet my life that this group coul;dn't shoot 80% in a half.  thats 'Nova '85 type of stuff.