Tourney Team?

Quote from: redmen1969 on April 24, 2012, 07:40:04 PM

Quote from: we are sju on April 24, 2012, 12:36:05 PM

While I am certainly happy our bench will consist of guys not wearing dress socks. My question is, gun to your head do feel this is an NCAA tournament team?

Although I'll be pulling for us to be in THE tournament, with a gun to my head I'd say we're looking at playing in the Garden next March in the final of the NIT.


 But the following year -- you betcha!

Unacceptable in my mind.  If Lav can't get into the tournament next year its a failure IMO.  Sacrificed this year but no reason why they can't and shouldn't next year.

I agree completely, Moose.  Not making the tourney with what we have now would be an absolute failure.  Add a center like Chandler and we should be a lock.

Guys gettin greedy.

(woah son, thats some killer aliteration.)

Guys gettin greedy.

(woah son, thats some killer aliteration.)

Sorry Choz, you know me I'm the biggest Lavin proponent out there but the parts are in place.  STJ has never arguably seen this level of talent from top to bottom before.  Throw in a sick staff, and a BE that should be down next year and I think the tourney is a goal and pretty realistic.

Still have to fill out the roster. We should be asking this question in September. I dont think we are quite there yet

While I am certainly happy our bench will consist of guys not wearing dress socks. My question is, gun to your head do feel this is an NCAA tournament team?

A lot depends on how good Branch is. But even with a real PG this is the same team that passed the ball around the perimeter for 39 seconds last year. Who's going to score besides Harrison? Maybe Greene took 100 3s a day. Maybe Sir Dominick Pointless took 1000. My guess is Garrett shows the most improvement, which is fine, he has a lot of upside, but Malik Sealy he's not. As for the new ones, maybe these freshmen are different from most other freshmen and won't need a year to acclimate, but none of them are 5-star recruits. Maybe the the JUCOs are like Brownlee and Hardy and need a year as well. That doesn't bode. As a group they're small - maybe the year helped GG but they're still all 6'8". That's a lot of maybes. Hopefully they don't suck, I'm sick of bad basketball. Glass half empty: I'd be happy with the bubble.

Yes!  If you don't have dreams...you have nightmares.

A lot unknowns but my gut tells me we are making the tourney next year especially if we get more size like Chandler.

My gut is also telling me to go feed it some ice cream

Well will finish the season ranked and get a top 7 seed. Of course well get sent out west and lose to Creighton in the first round.

Well will finish the season ranked and get a top 7 seed. Of course well get sent out west and lose to Creighton in the first round.

Unless there's an catastrophic injury just before the dance (Gadzuric in 1999, DJ last year), Steve doesn't lose in the first round.

Quote from: Amaseinyourface2 on April 24, 2012, 10:31:54 PM

Well will finish the season ranked and get a top 7 seed. Of course well get sent out west and lose to Creighton in the first round.

Unless there's an catastrophic injury just before the dance (Gadzuric in 1999, DJ last year), Steve doesn't lose in the first round.

But st johns does

Quote from: Choz4Life on April 24, 2012, 08:49:40 PM

Guys gettin greedy.

(woah son, thats some killer aliteration.)

Sorry Choz, you know me I'm the biggest Lavin proponent out there but the parts are in place.  STJ has never arguably seen this level of talent from top to bottom before.  Throw in a sick staff, and a BE that should be down next year and I think the tourney is a goal and pretty realistic.

Moose, I don't disagree that the stakes should be higher this year,
But plenty of teams who were littered with Top 100 talent didn't make the tournament.   UCLA was on the outside looking in, Arizona too, and don't forget Seth Greenberg's Hokies had 7 Top 100 players to start the season.   Not to mention a handful of disappointments from our own conference.. hello Pittsburgh and Villanova.   

Quote from: Moose on April 24, 2012, 08:59:24 PM

Quote from: Choz4Life on April 24, 2012, 08:49:40 PM

Guys gettin greedy.

(woah son, thats some killer aliteration.)

Sorry Choz, you know me I'm the biggest Lavin proponent out there but the parts are in place.  STJ has never arguably seen this level of talent from top to bottom before.  Throw in a sick staff, and a BE that should be down next year and I think the tourney is a goal and pretty realistic.

Moose, I don't disagree that the stakes should be higher this year,
But plenty of teams who were littered with Top 100 talent didn't make the tournament.   UCLA was on the outside looking in, Arizona too, and don't forget Seth Greenberg's Hokies had 7 Top 100 players to start the season.   Not to mention a handful of disappointments from our own conference.. hello Pittsburgh and Villanova.   

True but each team had some issues. Zona and UCLA seemed dysfunctional. Pitt lost Woodall for big stretch. Greenberg sucks as a coach IMO. And Wright is suspect to me in many lights. I'd be very disappointed if we didn't dance. Not looking for much more as that's greedy besides its all matchups but with Chandler on board we will have a pretty lethal lineup.

Quote from: crgreen on April 24, 2012, 11:11:27 PM

Quote from: Amaseinyourface2 on April 24, 2012, 10:31:54 PM

Well will finish the season ranked and get a top 7 seed. Of course well get sent out west and lose to Creighton in the first round.

Unless there's an catastrophic injury just before the dance (Gadzuric in 1999, DJ last year), Steve doesn't lose in the first round.

But st johns does

As Kim Darby phrased it on the original Star Trek, that was "The Before-time".

The key IMO to making the tourney this yr is how many close games we win.  Last year we had 13 wins and a bunch of lopsided losses.  I expect that with a full roster of talented players those lopsided losses are gonna become closer games.  Now of course we had our share of close wins but the blowout losses out weighed the close wins.  If we grab at least half of our blowouts and turn them into wins, coupled in with maybe a tough loss or two we should still be around 19 wins heading into b.e. Tourney.  That is a tourney team from b.e. Conference especially with what I suspect having top notch rpi or SOS.  A big key aside from that, is we have to be better ooc.  Last year we were 7-7 overall.  Got to be 10-4 at worst.  Combine that with a .500 record in conference, which I believe is normal benchmark to be considered for ncaa's you have got 19 wins right there.  That is def an attainable goal with a full staff and roster before b.e. Tourney. Should these things happen or anyway we can get to 19-20 wins pencil us in for the tourney.  I think my only flaw in math could be how the loss of wvu from conf plays into how big east games are added up but everyone should see where I am going with this post.

Quote from: Amaseinyourface2 on April 24, 2012, 11:13:00 PM

Quote from: crgreen on April 24, 2012, 11:11:27 PM

Quote from: Amaseinyourface2 on April 24, 2012, 10:31:54 PM

Well will finish the season ranked and get a top 7 seed. Of course well get sent out west and lose to Creighton in the first round.

Unless there's an catastrophic injury just before the dance (Gadzuric in 1999, DJ last year), Steve doesn't lose in the first round.

But st johns does

As Kim Darby phrased it on the original Star Trek, that was "The Before-time".

That's one way of looking at it. Another is that Lavin's never in his career won a first round game where he was lower than an 8 seed. He's .500 where he was seeded lower than 6. He hasn't won a tournament game at all in 10 years, since he lost hold of Wooden's coat tails. (Anyway he's 5-2 in first round games but 5-0 in second round games. Those are the ones he doesn't lose.)

You have a remarkable knowledge of UCLA basketball. Stunning really. But you know next to nothing about SJ. This is not UCLA. UCLA is the Yankees. This is SJ. SJ is the Toledo Mudhens. We're barely playing the same sport. SJ are losers. Lou Carnesecca - our treasured Louie, with his raspy voice and his sweaters and his pasta - was a loser. Go look at his record. Louser Carnesecca. Twenty cupcakes as an appetizer and then choke on the entree. Year after dreary year. We're not even loveable losers. Since Lou - which losing was our apex - there's been a parade of buffoons coaching a procession of cripples, rapists, and incompetents. So no offense but take your 10 national championships in a row we don't lose in the first round hero worship and cram it. Lavin's 44-50 as head coach since 2002. Take away Betelguese's senior class and TGAPL is 23-38 and hasn't had a winning record since nearly the last century. This is one of those rare occasions where Carmine has stumbled upon a fact. We are. Saint John's. We suck. You'll have to forgive us our skepticism.

A lot depends on how good Branch is. But even with a real PG this is the same team that passed the ball around the perimeter for 39 seconds last year. Who's going to score besides Harrison? Maybe Greene took 100 3s a day. Maybe Sir Dominick Pointless took 1000. My guess is Garrett shows the most improvement, which is fine, he has a lot of upside, but Malik Sealy he's not. As for the new ones, maybe these freshmen are different from most other freshmen and won't need a year to acclimate, but none of them are 5-star recruits. Maybe the the JUCOs are like Brownlee and Hardy and need a year as well. That doesn't bode. As a group they're small - maybe the year helped GG but they're still all 6'8". That's a lot of maybes. Hopefully they don't suck, I'm sick of bad basketball. Glass half empty: I'd be happy with the bubble.


I think Branch will be an upgrade as even though Greene showed improvement at the end he was a terrible point guard. As usual with the experts on these boards people are overating people they have probably never saw play while underating the people that left. We lost our best player from a 13 win 60 point per game team. If you put Harkless on this team I say we are a 20 win 8 seed. W/o Moe unless Sampson is as good as Moe was I think NIT is a better goal.

I think Branch will be an upgrade as even though Greene showed improvement at the end he was a terrible point guard. As usual with the experts on these boards people are overating people they have probably never saw play while underating the people that left. We lost our best player from a 13 win 60 point per game team. If you put Harkless on this team I say we are a 20 win 8 seed. W/o Moe unless Sampson is as good as Moe was I think NIT is a better goal.

Shoe fits both feet.  You say some overrate players I think some posters (you included) undderrate and shoot lower.  Almost reverse psychology maybe so your pleasantly surprised

It's not fair to say that Greene was a terrible pg. He wasn't terrible, he's just not a pg. He's a 2 guard playing the point because our starting pg had emotional problems. He improved. I think he'll be fine to start the season for us, and he may even surprise us and put up a fight for his job

It's not fair to say that Greene was a terrible pg. He wasn't terrible, he's just not a pg. He's a 2 guard playing the point because our starting pg had emotional problems. He improved. I think he'll be fine to start the season for us, and he may even surprise us and put up a fight for his

I said Greene improved but he was a terrible point guard. I agree he is not a point but that is where he was playing and he was terrible at it. If he was operating on people w/o a medical license and killing them I would call him a terrible doctor whether or not he was qualified is irrelevant if he is actualy doing the thing he is terrible at.

Greene is best suited to being a combo third or 4th guard coming off the bench.

I said Greene improved but he was a terrible point guard. I agree he is not a point but that is where he was playing and he was terrible at it. If he was operating on people w/o a medical license and killing them I would call him a terrible doctor whether or not he was qualified is irrelevant if he is actualy doing the thing he is terrible at.

Greene is best suited to being a combo third or 4th guard coming off the bench.

I agree with we are sju, Green is/was a terrible point guard.  I got killed during the year when I would trash Greene, but I hate his game.  I can't wait for Branch to be able to play.  I think Greene is a decent role player off the bench, but starting BE pg he is not.  Maybe Greene will prove me wrong, but I just don't see what other posters see when they gush over Greene.  Also, I am sure I am going to get about 10 reaction posts telling me about the 2 games Greene put up great numbers and how much he improved, but I just don't see it.