Georgetown Game

Quote from: desco80 on January 13, 2013, 10:27:05 AM

Quote from: redstorm212 on January 12, 2013, 08:29:13 PM

Quote from: MCNPA on January 12, 2013, 08:22:06 PM

I'll say it again.  It's not the offense as much as it is the fact that we are still missing certain parts of the offense.  The biggest think we are missing is a low post scorer.  A guy like Gathers that Lavin was trying to land was supposed to be in that mold.  Now we are also without Sanchez which compounds the issue.  The other thing we don't have a shooters beside D'Angelo.   One last thing is that we haven't had Branch ie. a PG until now.  He will be good at the PG spot, but is just getting his feet wet.

1) new PG
2). Very young team with limited shooters
3) no low-post scoring threat

All three things are surefire recipe for stalled offense.  Why is there not as much motion in the offense as we'd like?  Simple.  Everybody besides D'Angelo is afraid to shoot.  Nobody wants to come off a screen and shoot because they know they'll have to if the ball comes to them.  Jakarr doesn't mind shooting but he has become very hesitant and lost his mojo a bit.

I think people complicate the issues.  Lavin had success with this offense with Norm's guys because we had s lot of upperclassmen but we also had guys that could do the things we are missing now.  It took adding JC players like hardy and brownlee to do it.  We had several guys like hardy, Horne, brownlee and DJ who could hit shots and developed their game over 4 years.  We could play hi-low with Burrell, Evans and Brownlee.

We might not have had as much overall talent but we had a few years of experience under our belts as well as added players to the mix like Lavin will undoubtedly do over next 2 years. Need our personnel to get experience over the next few and add some shooters and low post guys.

It's more fun to just say Lavin can't coach and is an idiot with no plan.

If we have no post players, and no shooters .. What does that tell you about the recruiting job coach did?
Those aren't missing pieces..., that's a huge chunk of your team!
A third wr in football might be a missing piece, but literally no one who can play with their back to the basket, or score (besides Dangelo) .... Perimeter scorers and post players are basically the whole freaking team in basketball, how do we have none?

I agree with you that all our problems aren't strategic coaching decisions, that's being overblown.  Do I like our defense? No.   and I haven't made up my mine on the offense, I could take it or leave it at this point.  But I'll agree the reason were not winning is not all coaching.   Certainly not.

But I can't be giving coach a pat on the back right now for 2 reason:
1) some of our troubles are coaching related.  Not playing Branch at the end of Villanova, not having a better play than Phil dribbling at the end of Nova, or Dangelos isolation 3 at the end of Rutgers? Those are coaching decisions.   Bad ones in my mind.
And 2) he recruited these guys and they are woefully deficient in some areas of the game.   Mcn you say we're a few pieces short, that makes it sound like we need supplemental pieces, but only 5 guys can play at a time.  If we're missing scoring and post play than that means we need at least 2 starters who currently aren't here. 
Missing 2/5s of a team is shitty composition of a team.   
Remember Noah's ark? How we were going to get two of everything?  Where's that second center?  Where's that second point guard?   Is there a real second power forward behind Jakarr?   How come none of our shooting guards or forwards can score? 


You can't argue that coach did a great job assembling this team AND has done a good job coaching them.   If that we're the case we'd be winning.   I lean more towards criticizing how this team was assembled.  I think the coaching is being overrated (although there clearly are things an observer could rationally criticize).

While I agree with you that the team is not ideally assembled right now, I think the difference between us is that I'm not killing coach for it because I understand why we're in this situation. I think it's unreasonable to have expected Lavin to have kick-ass team in year 2. And If you're going to bring up quotes from Lavin, how about the one where he said this was going to be a 3-4 year process?

Sure, you can nit-pick calls here and there from each loss, but you can literally do that with any team who has lost a game in college basketball this year. "If [insert coach's name here] had done this we woulda won that game." I too question decisions but I think I would do that with any coach.

Quote from: DoodyNY33 on January 13, 2013, 09:08:03 AM

Quote from: Chilleb on January 12, 2013, 09:10:03 PM

I'm sorry but I don't see 30 nba GM's passing on d'lo. He's a one man show right now, imagine how good he can be if you put some talent around him. He handles, can shoot and defends well ( dosent get enough credit for his defense). He has flaws but he has a nba skill ( shooting) and he's very crafty. Anybody complaining about d'lo should really get there head checked, without him were 2-15 right now

D'Angelo is the most skilled player on the court for St. John's.  But is he ready for the NBA?  Absolutely not

When he is hot, he can be unconscious out there.  Look no further than the Villanova game.  We would've been blown out of that building w/o him.  But he has also had some games this season that he's been ice cold and not adjusted his game accordingly.  However, the big issue with him right now is his handle.  He's obviously a right handed dominant player and the fact that he cannot drive to his left at all limits him offensively.  He gets away with it in college because the fact is he's better than most of the players out there.  But the NBA is a different ball game.  If you as a PG/SG cannot handle the ball on your left side, you are going to be significantly limited out there.  If he wants to have a pro career, which he definitely has the potential to do, he needs to improve that and make himself a more dangerous weapon out there.

When has "being ready" for the NBA been a factor for kids in the past 2 and a half decades. Is he ready to get major minutes from day one .. No. But if he declares would he be in the top 60 talent wise . Hell fricken yes and unquestionably yes. It's all about projection and potential this kid is 19 and scores like its nobodys business. And he has a legit nba skill in his shooting. He's only gonna get better. Nobody's asking him to give a team 20 minutes from day 1. But one thing he will give you from day 1 is effort and passion. You can't teach character and heart. If he can turn into a Steve Kerr/Jamal tinsley blend he will be fine. He has all the foundational tools to build upon. And As I said Before he has one definite nba skill already , you can't leave him open, unlike Scott machado, marquise Teague,tony wroten,Kendall marshall

Quote from: redstorm212 on January 13, 2013, 11:04:10 AM

Quote from: desco80 on January 13, 2013, 10:27:05 AM

Quote from: redstorm212 on January 12, 2013, 08:29:13 PM

Quote from: MCNPA on January 12, 2013, 08:22:06 PM

I'll say it again.  It's not the offense as much as it is the fact that we are still missing certain parts of the offense.  The biggest think we are missing is a low post scorer.  A guy like Gathers that Lavin was trying to land was supposed to be in that mold.  Now we are also without Sanchez which compounds the issue.  The other thing we don't have a shooters beside D'Angelo.   One last thing is that we haven't had Branch ie. a PG until now.  He will be good at the PG spot, but is just getting his feet wet.

1) new PG
2). Very young team with limited shooters
3) no low-post scoring threat

All three things are surefire recipe for stalled offense.  Why is there not as much motion in the offense as we'd like?  Simple.  Everybody besides D'Angelo is afraid to shoot.  Nobody wants to come off a screen and shoot because they know they'll have to if the ball comes to them.  Jakarr doesn't mind shooting but he has become very hesitant and lost his mojo a bit.

I think people complicate the issues.  Lavin had success with this offense with Norm's guys because we had s lot of upperclassmen but we also had guys that could do the things we are missing now.  It took adding JC players like hardy and brownlee to do it.  We had several guys like hardy, Horne, brownlee and DJ who could hit shots and developed their game over 4 years.  We could play hi-low with Burrell, Evans and Brownlee.

We might not have had as much overall talent but we had a few years of experience under our belts as well as added players to the mix like Lavin will undoubtedly do over next 2 years. Need our personnel to get experience over the next few and add some shooters and low post guys.

It's more fun to just say Lavin can't coach and is an idiot with no plan.

If we have no post players, and no shooters .. What does that tell you about the recruiting job coach did?
Those aren't missing pieces..., that's a huge chunk of your team!
A third wr in football might be a missing piece, but literally no one who can play with their back to the basket, or score (besides Dangelo) .... Perimeter scorers and post players are basically the whole freaking team in basketball, how do we have none?

I agree with you that all our problems aren't strategic coaching decisions, that's being overblown.  Do I like our defense? No.   and I haven't made up my mine on the offense, I could take it or leave it at this point.  But I'll agree the reason were not winning is not all coaching.   Certainly not.

But I can't be giving coach a pat on the back right now for 2 reason:
1) some of our troubles are coaching related.  Not playing Branch at the end of Villanova, not having a better play than Phil dribbling at the end of Nova, or Dangelos isolation 3 at the end of Rutgers? Those are coaching decisions.   Bad ones in my mind.
And 2) he recruited these guys and they are woefully deficient in some areas of the game.   Mcn you say we're a few pieces short, that makes it sound like we need supplemental pieces, but only 5 guys can play at a time.  If we're missing scoring and post play than that means we need at least 2 starters who currently aren't here. 
Missing 2/5s of a team is shitty composition of a team.   
Remember Noah's ark? How we were going to get two of everything?  Where's that second center?  Where's that second point guard?   Is there a real second power forward behind Jakarr?   How come none of our shooting guards or forwards can score? 


You can't argue that coach did a great job assembling this team AND has done a good job coaching them.   If that we're the case we'd be winning.   I lean more towards criticizing how this team was assembled.  I think the coaching is being overrated (although there clearly are things an observer could rationally criticize).

While I agree with you that the team is not ideally assembled right now, I think the difference between us is that I'm not killing coach for it because I understand why we're in this situation. I think it's unreasonable to have expected Lavin to have kick-ass team in year 2. And If you're going to bring up quotes from Lavin, how about the one where he said this was going to be a 3-4 year process?

Sure, you can nit-pick calls here and there from each loss, but you can literally do that with any team who has lost a game in college basketball this year. "If [insert coach's name here] had done this we woulda won that game." I too question decisions but I think I would do that with any coach.

You are absolutely right that you can point to in-game decisions gone wrong for every coach, and some of it is Monday morning quarterbacking for sure.  And like I've said, I'm not trying to kill coach Lavin, his coaching hasn't been nearly as bad as some make it out to be.   However,  I don't think you can let coach Lavin off the hook entirely for his X's and O's though, because to me there are two areas of the game where it's easy to identify well-coached teams; coming out of a timeout, and at the end of games.   Those are situations you drill until the guys know the play inside and out.   And I think we do a pretty good job on inbounds plays.  We have that curl play for Dangelo, and more often than not we look like we know what we're doing.  Same for defending coming out of a timeout.  With the rare exception aside, we look pretty good in those situations. 
I do not think we look as good as we should at the end of the half or the end of games, though. 
Coming out of timeouts we looked completely lost at the end of the Nova and Rutgers games.   And why coach burned two timeouts at once against Rutgers is bizarre. 

So I think we agree on a lot more than we realize.  I'm not trying to kill coach, and some of the criticism is ridiculous... He can't make guys better foul shooters over night.   Obviously they practice them.   
But, at the same time.. In certain situations I want us to look better coached.   I really don't think that's asking too much. 

The makeup of the team is another issue entirely, and I'm of the mind now that I'll wait and see who we sign and who leaves before I comment on his recruiting decisions anymore.   Because truthfully, coach knows more than I do about dangelos intentions, our shot with Lawrence or Jordan, gifts role etc etc.   maybe there is a plan that we can't fully see yet. 


But - our offensive execution in set plays scenarios has to improve.   That's as clear an indicator of good coaching as there is.

By the way, I haven't had a chance to say this yet, but bravo to Dom.

Earlier in the year I said his rep as a very good defender was all myth and bs. But, the last few games he's lived up to his rep; he's blocked shots, picked people's pockets, and just generally has played tight D without fouling. 

That's some legit, concrete, progress right there; and he's doing it against Big East competition, not the cupcakes. 

Plus, I don't know if anybody else noticed but when Balamou got called for a hard foul and started jawing at the gtown player, and then with the ref, Dom pulled Felix away, calmed him down, and then went to talk to the officials to smooth things over.   I kid you not, honest to goodness leadership was shown!
Maybe Dave was right when he said Dom was a leader on this team.

By the way, I haven't had a chance to say this yet, but bravo to Dom.

Earlier in the year I said his rep as a very good defender was all myth and bs. But, the last few games he's lived up to his rep; he's blocked shots, picked people's pockets, and just generally has played tight D without fouling. 

That's some legit, concrete, progress right there; and he's doing it against Big East competition, not the cupcakes. 

Plus, I don't know if anybody else noticed but when Balamou got called for a hard foul and started jawing at the gtown player, and then with the ref, Dom pulled Felix away, calmed him down, and then went to talk to the officials to smooth things over.   I kid you not, honest to goodness leadership was shown!
Maybe Dave was right when he said Dom was a leader on this team.

Quote from: Chilleb on January 14, 2013, 05:41:08 AM

Quote from: DoodyNY33 on January 13, 2013, 09:08:03 AM

Quote from: Chilleb on January 12, 2013, 09:10:03 PM

I'm sorry but I don't see 30 nba GM's passing on d'lo. He's a one man show right now, imagine how good he can be if you put some talent around him. He handles, can shoot and defends well ( dosent get enough credit for his defense). He has flaws but he has a nba skill ( shooting) and he's very crafty. Anybody complaining about d'lo should really get there head checked, without him were 2-15 right now

D'Angelo is the most skilled player on the court for St. John's.  But is he ready for the NBA?  Absolutely not

When he is hot, he can be unconscious out there.  Look no further than the Villanova game.  We would've been blown out of that building w/o him.  But he has also had some games this season that he's been ice cold and not adjusted his game accordingly.  However, the big issue with him right now is his handle.  He's obviously a right handed dominant player and the fact that he cannot drive to his left at all limits him offensively.  He gets away with it in college because the fact is he's better than most of the players out there.  But the NBA is a different ball game.  If you as a PG/SG cannot handle the ball on your left side, you are going to be significantly limited out there.  If he wants to have a pro career, which he definitely has the potential to do, he needs to improve that and make himself a more dangerous weapon out there.

When has "being ready" for the NBA been a factor for kids in the past 2 and a half decades. Is he ready to get major minutes from day one .. No. But if he declares would he be in the top 60 talent wise . Hell fricken yes and unquestionably yes. It's all about projection and potential this kid is 19 and scores like its nobodys business. And he has a legit nba skill in his shooting. He's only gonna get better. Nobody's asking him to give a team 20 minutes from day 1. But one thing he will give you from day 1 is effort and passion. You can't teach character and heart. If he can turn into a Steve Kerr/Jamal tinsley blend he will be fine. He has all the foundational tools to build upon. And As I said Before he has one definite nba skill already , you can't leave him open, unlike Scott machado, marquise Teague,tony wroten,Kendall marshall

I disagree that he would be in the top 60. There are many people that can shoot lights out (better than D'lo) that don't get drafted. He is no where near the likes of Kerr or tinsley and there is nothing that would indicate he would be. Kerr shot 57% from three in college! D'lo shoots 35-36% from three, not only is that's not eye shattering that's not a good 3 point shooter in the NBA. Tinsley has/had a sick handle, he was a true PG who could run an offense and get his players the ball and defend. D'lo can't pass or create for anyone. Heck he struggles to create for himself. I'm a D'lo fan, for his sake I hope someone see's something in him to draft him, I just don't kno what that would be. He is a will be a great college player.

Quote from: STJFAN on January 14, 2013, 05:34:11 PM

Quote from: Chilleb on January 14, 2013, 05:41:08 AM

Quote from: DoodyNY33 on January 13, 2013, 09:08:03 AM

Quote from: Chilleb on January 12, 2013, 09:10:03 PM

I'm sorry but I don't see 30 nba GM's passing on d'lo. He's a one man show right now, imagine how good he can be if you put some talent around him. He handles, can shoot and defends well ( dosent get enough credit for his defense). He has flaws but he has a nba skill ( shooting) and he's very crafty. Anybody complaining about d'lo should really get there head checked, without him were 2-15 right now

D'Angelo is the most skilled player on the court for St. John's.  But is he ready for the NBA?  Absolutely not

When he is hot, he can be unconscious out there.  Look no further than the Villanova game.  We would've been blown out of that building w/o him.  But he has also had some games this season that he's been ice cold and not adjusted his game accordingly.  However, the big issue with him right now is his handle.  He's obviously a right handed dominant player and the fact that he cannot drive to his left at all limits him offensively.  He gets away with it in college because the fact is he's better than most of the players out there.  But the NBA is a different ball game.  If you as a PG/SG cannot handle the ball on your left side, you are going to be significantly limited out there.  If he wants to have a pro career, which he definitely has the potential to do, he needs to improve that and make himself a more dangerous weapon out there.

When has "being ready" for the NBA been a factor for kids in the past 2 and a half decades. Is he ready to get major minutes from day one .. No. But if he declares would he be in the top 60 talent wise . Hell fricken yes and unquestionably yes. It's all about projection and potential this kid is 19 and scores like its nobodys business. And he has a legit nba skill in his shooting. He's only gonna get better. Nobody's asking him to give a team 20 minutes from day 1. But one thing he will give you from day 1 is effort and passion. You can't teach character and heart. If he can turn into a Steve Kerr/Jamal tinsley blend he will be fine. He has all the foundational tools to build upon. And As I said Before he has one definite nba skill already , you can't leave him open, unlike Scott machado, marquise Teague,tony wroten,Kendall marshall

I disagree that he would be in the top 60. There are many people that can shoot lights out (better than D'lo) that don't get drafted. He is no where near the likes of Kerr or tinsley and there is nothing that would indicate he would be. Kerr shot 57% from three in college! D'lo shoots 35-36% from three, not only is that's not eye shattering that's not a good 3 point shooter in the NBA. Tinsley has/had a sick handle, he was a true PG who could run an offense and get his players the ball and defend. D'lo can't pass or create for anyone. Heck he struggles to create for himself. I'm a D'lo fan, for his sake I hope someone see's something in him to draft him, I just don't kno what that would be. He is a will be a great college player.

Name 30 better college players right now.. And those numbers are skewed . Steve Kerr never saw a double team or was his teams main guy. D'lo is doing this while having to force bad shots because of the lack of his teammates. And nobody said he possessed handle or court vision of tinsley now but he's 19 with a great foundation to build upon and he's just as physical with a better jumpshot . Put d'lo with equally talented guys I think you see his whole arsenal but on St. John's hes only showed glimpses of how well he can pass. And the d'lo I watch comes up with at least 2 steals a game with about 5 or 6 deflections don't know which one your watching. Don't let his surroundings take away from how talented he is. I've said this before if you were to open up his recruitment again right now all the big boys are getting involved immediately. But to say he's not a top 60 talent is blasphemous.

Name 30 better college players right now.. And those numbers are skewed . Steve Kerr never saw a double team or was his teams main guy. D'lo is doing this while having to force bad shots because of the lack of his teammates. And nobody said he possessed handle or court vision of tinsley now but he's 19 with a great foundation to build upon and he's just as physical with a better jumpshot . Put d'lo with equally talented guys I think you see his whole arsenal but on St. John's hes only showed glimpses of how well he can pass. And the d'lo I watch comes up with at least 2 steals a game with about 5 or 6 deflections don't know which one your watching. Don't let his surroundings take away from how talented he is. I've said this before if you were to open up his recruitment again right now all the big boys are getting involved immediately. But to say he's not a top 60 talent is blasphemous.

It bears keeping in mind that we got shellacked twice against Georgetown last season with the great Mike Dunlap on the sidelines...just sayin..

nail biters.... sorry