I’m a little out of pocket—out of town for work—so these will be short. I hope to have a Notre Dame preview up later.
St. John’s (11-17, 5-11 Big East) beat Seton Hall (17-12, 7-9), 65-62 on Senior Night for St. John’s walk-ons Otaja Abit and Liam Biesty, and 4-year starter Eugene Lawrence.
It’s funny that for all the woofing that Bobby Gonzalez does, his team still got beat by a St. John’s team that seemed to do everything possible to lose the game. The scoring droughts were not really brought on by John Garcia’s shot blocking—it was a bunch of guys who don’t know how to score near the rim, a bunch of guy who couldn’t hit a shot clock. No matter what they tell you, this game was a dog for 30 minutes, until St. john’s got it into high gear.
Speaking of which, I hope an assistant coach is hired at St. John’s who has gotten near the rim once. These guys have little shooting skill and no touch.
Nice game by DJ Kennedy. His defense was decent (but not worth all the time he gets) but the stand still, wide open 3 pointer is what he needs to do. That’s the offense I expect from him; I imagine him as a kind of Bruce Bowen type, a guy who plays tall, who plays defense, gets steals, rebounds, and knows when he has a n easy shot to score. High percentage, lower offensive usage kind of guy.
Nicer game by Anthony Mason Jr. I know people scoff at the idea of the man being picked in any NBA draft, but he has a package of skills that, with work, could be comparable to Kareem Rush. He shoots well from the outside at times (that needs to improve, and may with a full year of health, and he’ll never be Rush in that regard), he can slash, even if it isn’t pretty, and he can get above the rim (better than Rush). Rush was underwhelming in college at times and was drafted 28th, if I remember correctly.
Coker has some skill and no idea how to use it. And he’s developing Jasiulionis Butter Hands.
Boothe made some plays, and shows some athleticism around the rim.
What, Larry Wright and Mason on the court together? Shut your mouth. Look at what happened, coach! The world didn’t explode, the other team didn’t score 80 points, wow. Gosh. For a team that struggles to get above 50 points, one would think that the offensive capabilities of a second outside scorer—and the increased opportunities that Burrell would have inside—would warrant playing Larry Wright. What do I know, I just watch basketball and read about it.
Best of all, Bobby Gonzalez started whining about playing at Carneseca Arena, not Madison Square Garden:
But playing the game on the Johnnies' campus for the first time in 18 years, as opposed to the Garden, irked him.
"We are not Cincinnati. We are not DePaul. We are not Providence," he said. "We are Seton Hall. We're a metropolitan area team. (St. John's has) a winning record here and they don't have a winning record anywhere else, so this is the smart move to put the game here, (but) we have to play this game in Madison Square Garden, plain and simple."
Roberts' responded by saying, "This is a good venue, right here."
Bobby, you minor, not major. You play the game but haven’t earned the right to be a player, to paraphrase Mobb Deep.