Very happy we are winning...

[BostonOrange]

...kind of concerned that we haven't played our best basketball in 6 weeks. Vaunted bench has largely disappeared ex dion (cj is a starter). Triche is lousy almost every night lately. Getting nothing offensively or defensively out of BMK. Js...yikes. Also felt we just got out hustled a bunch of times today which is annoying. 27-1 is awesome but we are going to have to raise it up a level to make the ff, in my opinion.

 

[samspann1]

Good points, all.

Seems to me that, save the St. John's game, since the Pitt game, SU has played down to the level of its competition.

 

[dasher]

League road games are tough. Any win is very good. You are what your record says you are. We are 27-1 and have played a difficult schedule. we are #1 in the rpi. We aren't so talented that we are going to blow teams out the rest of the season. Think of it this way, if fab was out, we very easily could be unbeaten.

 

[orangefan13]

Southerland, Xmas, and Keita don't bring alot of offense.
That being said we really have three solid scores in teh backline and we try to get all three out there together and hope for southerland to be the 4th at times.

 

[Ghost]

We do look pretty lackadaisical at times - especially out of the gate. It would be nice to have another Seton Hall game, or first half like we played against Marquette where we just come out and dominate someone early.

A lot of our problems though seem to be that nobody is hitting shots from outside consistently with the exception of Kris, and our rebounding seems to come and go without much predictability.

If BT and Dirty start hitting shots things wouldn't look so bad - or if Dion reverted to the player we saw a couple months ago. He's not hitting shots or finishing well any more.

Would also be nice if we could turn Rak into a rebounding specialist - not gonna happen though. Weird that he played so well against Cincy, but otherwise has been so ineffective. Although he doesn't get much PT, barely any tbh, so it's hard to really get any clue as to how he really is progressing. Even if he plays well in the opening minute he's coming out immediately.

 

[LennX6]

That, if I remember right, was one of the criticisms of the 2003 team, though for different reasons. We climbed back from near 20 pt deficitsits multiple times and blew double digit leads multiple times. That turned out well.
This game and the last few , though nervewracking, it always felt like we had control of the game. Road game at Rutgers I'll take it.

 

[DNABB5]

That, if I remember right, was one of the criticisms of the 2003 team, though for different reasons. We climbed back from near 20 pt deficitsits multiple times and blew double digit leads multiple times. That turned out well.
This game and the last few , though nervewracking, it always felt like we had control of the game. Road game at Rutgers I'll take it.

Good Point on 2003, OK St. ring any bells?

How many times in today's game did we answer a score to always keep a 1-2 possession lead? It was like the whole second half.

Let's go to the play by play.

 

[BostonOrange]

League road games are tough. Any win is very good. You are what your record says you are. We are 27-1 and have played a difficult schedule. we are #1 in the rpi. We aren't so talented that we are going to blow teams out the rest of the season. Think of it this way, if fab was out, we very easily could be unbeaten.

I don't disagree...but do you really think we are playing our best basketball? It isn't just the road games, wvu and gtown were home games. I don't expect us to blow everyone out, but I do want to see our A game sometimes. And, moreover, I think one of the things that made us a unique team was that we had soo many answers, and several of those answers are consistently non factors. Again..I don't mean to overreact we are27-1. But I'm ready to see a couple whuppings

 

[Section 314 Row C]

...kind of concerned that we haven't played our best basketball in 6 weeks. Vaunted bench has largely disappeared ex dion (cj is a starter). Triche is lousy almost every night lately. Getting nothing offensively or defensively out of BMK. Js...yikes. Also felt we just got out hustled a bunch of times today which is annoying. 27-1 is awesome but we are going to have to raise it up a level to make the ff, in my opinion.

Agree with you on almost everything with the exception of Triche being "lousy almost every night lately." I think, in his limited PT, he has played rather well...especially on defense. I don't think he is being given the opportunity to get into a rhythm offensively.

 

[HoustonCuse]

...kind of concerned that we haven't played our best basketball in 6 weeks. Vaunted bench has largely disappeared ex dion (cj is a starter). Triche is lousy almost every night lately. Getting nothing offensively or defensively out of BMK. Js...yikes. Also felt we just got out hustled a bunch of times today which is annoying. 27-1 is awesome but we are going to have to raise it up a level to make the ff, in my opinion.

Sorry but this is crap. Triche has been ok in recent games. JB is sitting him while he gets minutes for Dion to recover his game. Southerland was outstanding in the Louisville game. We lose that game when KJo goes out with 4th foul if not for South. We are not doing a good job on the defensive boards and we are shooting inconsistently. If you want to say we are playing poorly go ahead. I'd argue the team has improved significantly in half-court offense. We aren't getting nearly the turnover production or fast break scoring we did earlier in the season, but we are winning these half-court grinders anyway. We had two away games this week where we got about 35 dunks/layups between them. This team can win when not firing on all cylinders. I call that a strength.

 

[BostonOrange]

Agree with you on almost everything with the exception of Triche being "lousy almost every night lately." I think, in his limited PT, he has played rather well...especially on defense. I don't think he is being given the opportunity to get into a rhythm offensively.

Well you might be right about the playing time but he isn't playing because he is 11-32' and 2-15 from 3, over the last 5 games.

 

[BostonOrange]

Sorry but this is crap. Triche has been ok in recent games. JB is sitting him while he gets minutes for Dion to recover his game. Southerland was outstanding in the Louisville game. We lose that game when KJo goes out with 4th foul if not for South. We are not doing a good job on the defensive boards and we are shooting inconsistently. If you want to say we are playing poorly go ahead. I'd argue the team has improved significantly in half-court offense. We aren't getting nearly the turnover production or fast break scoring we did earlier in the season, but we are winning these half-court grinders anyway. We had two away games this week where we got about 35 dunks/layups between them. This team can win when not firing on all cylinders. I call that a strength.

triche and js are 17-52 from the field, and 3-24 from 3, over the last 5 games. Those are the facts. I like them both but we aren't getting much from them recently. It certainly is a strength that we are winning anyway I agree.

 

[omniorange]

I blame the poster who a while back wanted more "close games". Ever since then, we've had too many close calls.

Cheers,
Neil

 

[rrlbees]

Well you might be right about the playing time but he isn't playing because he is 11-32' and 2-15 from 3, over the last 5 games.

And 7-12, 2-4 just the game prior to that. Triche has been huge in 2 of our last 6 wins, WVU and LVille. Dion's not lighting it up either being 5-23 the last 6 on 3's and 22-57 overall. Plus Dion has gotten back into the habit of playing little defense and just going for steals.

 

[JackBauer44]

My prediction, Southerland will find his stroke in March. He helps is advance in one game in the tournament. Just a feeling...and I'm never wrong...

 

[44cuse]

My prediction, Southerland will find his stroke in March. He helps is advance in one game in the tournament. Just a feeling...and I'm never wrong...

Funny, I had that same feeling and was just telling someone that last night. And I'm not a Southerland fan. Don't dislike him, just think he gas the exact opposite court presence of CJ.

44cuse