MBB Game 13 @ St. John's (UBS Arena), Dec 30 (Sat), 12 Noon

[mikey75]

Sick? Really? I mean Willis Reed he ain't.

[EvanJ]

Announcers said he is sick.

I thought they said he had a back injury.

ESPN has a line of 8.5 and over/under of 150.5, which makes 79.5-71. KenPom predicts 79-69.

https://defiantlydutch.blogspot.com/202 ... johns.html is Jerry Beach's "I'll Be Quirky: Hofstra vs. St. John's." Sunday was Jerry's third star for the first time. He makes a 3-2-1 point system, and Sunday and Robinson with 1 point each are our only subs he awarded. Thomas has 25, Dubar has 23, Carlos has 13, Fritz has 6, and Washington has 3. The UNLV game was the first game we had one lead in since January 25, 2018. At halftime, we had nine players with 1 field goal without anybody with more than 1.

Rick Pitino has the first coach to coach four teams against Hofstra. They are Providence, Louisville, Iona, and St. John's.

https://stats.statbroadcast.com/broadcast/?id=487574 has statistics.

St. John's had 1 three until there was 6:38 left and then made 4 in 3:29. We trail 36-32 at halftime. We have 3 more field goal attempts, and 1 more rebound without Fritz. We did not make a free throw, as Sunday missed our only attempt with 13:56 left. After that, St. John's shot free throws 2-2. Each team committed 6 fouls, with nobody reaching the bonus. It must be rare for the last 13:56 of a half to have only 2 free throw attempts combined.

The CAA is underdogs in six of seven Division I games today. The only home game is Delaware hosting 11-1 Princeton, and the only favorite is Campbell. At halftime, W&M trails 29-28 at Navy. UNCW is at Arkansas on SEC Network at 5:00 P.M., which is the last CAA game of the day.

[dutchPride86]

Hope he's sick and it's not a back injury. Charleston might be bigger than St John's coming up next week. But yeah kid is on the bench and not playing is not a great look if he's just sick, back injury would make more sense.

Not sure how this game is close if im being honest. Halfcourt offense seems about as broken as i can remember in their recent history and got the size of a high school team with all the guys out.

Concerned for the 2nd half if St John's takes it seriously

[Pride97]

So 6 fouls called on Hofstra in the first 2:30 of the second half. Just leaving that here - infer as you please.


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[dutchPride86]

So 6 fouls called on Hofstra in the first 2:30 of the second half. Just leaving that here - infer as you please.


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Playing 5 on 8 in the 2nd half vs a high major team. Where have we seen that before???

[dutchPride86]

What a shame, with the effort level (or lack thereof) St John's came out with today Hofstra actually might have stolen that game with Fritz. Just too undersized the 2nd chance pts and fouls did them in.

Not really seeing any moral victories off this one, just playing st johns tough is not up to my expectation level for where Speedy should have this program.

Better hope Fritz's back heals up fast (they did say back injury during 2nd half). Charleston plays with more size than St John's had out there today and can guarantee they'll play harder than St John's did today.

Also Bryce Washington.... 2 TOTAL pts in the 3 games against Duke, Unlv and St John's. That ain't gonna cut it. What could have been if Wilmoth was healthy and actually good..... oh well

No truly bad losses in the non conf, but no real good wins either. Think it's probably a C+/B- grade for me for the season so far

[EvanJ]

Thomas shot threes 6-8 and twos 2-10. He led us with 9 rebounds. We had 9 rebounds, 17 fouls, and 1 turnover in the second half. Carlos had his second consecutive game with only 4 assists.

[Jojogunne]

Hope he's sick and it's not a back injury. Charleston might be bigger than St John's coming up next week. But yeah kid is on the bench and not playing is not a great look if he's just sick, back injury would make more sense.

Not sure how this game is close if im being honest. Halfcourt offense seems about as broken as i can remember in their recent history and got the size of a high school team with all the guys out.

Concerned for the 2nd half if St John's takes it seriously

Maybe he has a sick back.

[triplec2195]

In spite of ourselves we keep this game close. Amazing they got 25 points from the foul line to our 3 . We get out rebounded by 18 rebounds even though we were up by 2 at the half. I like our resolve in this game and both Dubar and Thomas playing good games. Dubar has been playing at a high level most of this season. Early fouls in the second half killed us with Sunday picking up 2 quick ones on really dumb fouls. Nothing to hang our heads about on this one.

[Pride97]

Agreed - played good enough to win but fell short. Happy to see they finally hung with a better team. Real season starts in January with a tough test in Charleston. Then we can see where the team really is.


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[Pride97]

Just watched both post game pressers…

Speedy said Fritz has a back issue and is day to day and thinks he’ll be ready for Charleston. Hopefully that is true. When asked about the negatives of the game he said he has to be careful of what he says - clearly unhappy with the officiating .From the stands it looked to me like he was right to feel that way - not sure if it looked the same on TV.

For the those that are really down on Speedy as a coach, take a listen to Pitino’s thoughts - as high praise as you will hear. It’s on this page :

https://redstormsports.com/news/2023/12 ... er-hofstra


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[dutchPride86]

Very funny to hear how impressed Pitino, the local cbb writers who don't normally watch us, and St John's fans seem to be with how well we're coached and mismatches we create, etc

I dunno after watching the St John's Uconn game last week and today's game, just can't shake feeling that everything today had to do with St John's not taking us seriously at all, and we were still basically losing the whole way even with that

[triplec2195]

Well if you buy into gohofstra recap we supposedly almost took down St Johns today. I would like to know at what point in the game we almost took them down considering we were playing from behind almost the entire game!!

[Wags]

I'm wondering where all of the online doctors here who didn't examine Fritz in person got their medical degrees from. Since he's been here, he's never seemed like a guy who avoided wanting to play when he could. I think he deserved the benefit of the doubt.

As for the game, SJU led for 33:08 and Hofstra for 2:12. So yes, HU was playing from behind for most of the game. However, they did almost win this game. I thought, given three key things (rebounding, FTs, and second-chance points), they hung in extremely well. Five different times in the second half, down 13 once (game-high lead) and down 11 four other times, I thought it was at that dangerous point where the game was going to go how it went during the second half at Duke, and I kind of expected it. Speedy seemed to feel it too, the first time, calling a quick timeout less than two minutes into the second half. But I was impressed and pleasantly surprised that they managed to hang in and even almost pull it out.

Given that it was 45-27, SJU on the glass (I like saying "glass" for rebounds here because it reminds me of SJU's Willie Glass - I know some of you remember), that FTs were 3/7 for HU vs. 25/31 for SJU, and that it was 23-6, SJU in second-chance points, who here with those stats wouldn't have thought SJU would win by at least 25? So to actually have a chance to win late despite those two categories significantly in SJU's favor, I thought, said a lot of good about HU today.

Part of that 3/7 was Thomas going 2/5 even though he was 6/8 from 3. That's uncharacteristic from him. Give him even 4/5 (instead of 5/5) at the line and then two shots late that were both halfway down and out -- that's six more points in a five-point loss -- and we could very well be talking about a nice win today. Down 75-72, right before Plotnikov fouled out, Thomas had a strong take to the hoop but had one that went in and out with 1:32 left. And with :18 left, Dubar had a floater that could have made it 79-76 go in and out.

The big 3 stepped up in the second half though: Thomas 16 of his 24 pts, Dubar 15 of his 23 pts, and Carlos all 10 of his pts (they combined for 41 of HU's 47 second-half pts).

Maybe this team won't do in the CAA regular season what last year's team did. We'll see, it's a different team and other CAA teams are different. But much of the groaning about last year's team during CAA play was the same groaning as this year. But it seems there were no lessons learned about patience and letting things play out after last year. They enter CAA play on Thursday at 7-6, losing 4 of their last 5. Guess what they were after OOC play last year: yup, 7-6, losing 4 of their last 5 in OOC play (with the lone win over Old Westbury). Let's see what happens.

Nice place to cover a game by the way (was my first time in the building). Good sightlines. Example (wasn't a second-chance bucket though lol):
https://twitter.com/JonathanJWagner/sta ... 3963030926
Would be nice if HU can be the home team there once or twice a season since it's literally up the road from campus.
Was disappointed (not that I didn't expect it) that the crowd was basically all SJU. There just aren't that many true HU hoops fans out there unless HU creates the buzz first and then casual fans hop on the bandwagon for something (until they later disappear anyway). I guess the only thing that can change that is sustained winning at a high level, like repeated NCAAT trips and some marquee OOC wins.

[stuball888]

wags your last paragraph sounded like it was written by Polito
But I must agree winning once every few years does not create a buzz
Conference play begins. This is where it gets real.
No excuses it’s time to get down and dirty and show the grit that last year team had

[Wags]

wags your last paragraph sounded like it was written by Polito

I guess I agree then. It's not Hofstra's fault, it's just the unfortunate way it is. I think people are missing out and should come, whether it's at UBS or The Mack. The Mack is a nice arena, it's not college football where games can take 3 1/2 hours (most home games are under two hours), it's always a good experience there for fans who do show up. But like I always say, it's unfortunate that people in the area are more interested in spending the day at Roosevelt Field. HU just has to do its part and win, and market, but beyond that, not much they can control there. Nassau County is not exactly a hotbed of college hoops like other areas in the country. It also doesn't help that the students are away for much of the season and don't come back until there are only a few home games left each season, but that's just another unfortunate thing out of their control (tough break, but the Lion's Den will be empty against Charleston and Delaware next week when HU needs it full), but it's just how it is with Winter break.

It's also a shame, but winning a November tourney in Estero, FL, though good for the team in its growth, does nothing to attract new fans. If they could instead get the local type of tourney (that we've been talking about for ages) with all local teams and play it annually at UBS or the Coliseum, maybe that could help. Plenty of local programs in the area and now, not one, but two arenas - one basically still new and another still newly refurbished - in the area. So, why not?

[daHUPride]

wags your last paragraph sounded like it was written by Polito

If they could instead get the local type of tourney (that we've been talking about for ages) with all local teams and play it annually at UBS or the Coliseum, maybe that could help. Plenty of local programs in the area and now, not one, but two arenas - one basically still new and another still newly refurbished - in the area. So, why not?

Ive said this in past years and now believe that UBS - is terrific option to host a local type tourny that WAGS suggests now.

My thought was 8 local NY teams - played this time of year - allowing teams to play good ball and stay local - during the holiday break.
Id suggest a team from all 5 NYC Bouroughs - and 3 from the surrounding counties.
Staten Island - WAGNER/ Manhattan - MANHATTAN
Brooklyn - LIU/ Bronx - FORDHAM
Queens - St JOHNS/ Westchester - IONA
Nassau - "The U" HOFSTRA/ Suffolk - STONEY BROOK

You could do all 4 - 1st round games on the Saturday (split into 2 seperate entry an AM and PM)
The AM would start at 1030am and the 2nd game at 1pm -
The PM would be at 5 pm and 730pm.
Sunday the Losers of AM games play at 1030am Losers of PM play at 1pm..and the Saturday winners would play at 5pm and 730pm.

Or a thought doing this said tourny - over three days - in three months - Round 1 in Early November (at the Barclays) Round 2 in Late November/ Early December (at UBS) and Round 3 in Late December / Early January (MSG)

Obviously there is more background work and thought needed then I can provide - but the starting premise is a local/8 team tourny. I believe PITNO is the catalyst of getting this done - he is respected in the local community-revered in the coaching world and isnt affraid of playing local teams (even at the risk of being upset by a "David")

[The Shadow]

Columbia is located in northern Manhattan and Manhattan College is located in the Bronx. If you look at the Big 5 Tournament held this year in Philadelphia which had SIX teams (finally allowing Drexel) over a few days. It might be more of the model you could actually get scheduled. It had seedings and multiple games at the Palestra. Most of these local colleges want the flexibility to schedule buy games at larger schools to support the high expenses of their individual programs. I think it is a great idea that is long overdue. The later games you mentioned will run into the conference schedules. Remember St.John's has already played a few Big East ganmes before playing HU.

[triplec2195]

This of course is a great idea but this should be a resurrection of the "Holiday Festival" we use to play at MSG. Keep it in December and see how many schools would get on board. Nice food for thought!!

[triplec2195]

Just watched both post game pressers…

Speedy said Fritz has a back issue and is day to day and thinks he’ll be ready for Charleston. Hopefully that is true. When asked about the negatives of the game he said he has to be careful of what he says - clearly unhappy with the officiating .From the stands it looked to me like he was right to feel that way - not sure if it looked the same on TV.

For the those that are really down on Speedy as a coach, take a listen to Pitino’s thoughts - as high praise as you will hear. It’s on this page :

https://redstormsports.com/news/2023/12 ... er-hofstra


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Thanks for posting this Pride a really nice post presser with Pitino. Of course how much of this is coach talk but it all sounded very sincere. I really like the way Pitino poses questions to his players during the presser. He actually said during that his Iona team was better then this St John's team. A real motivation tool for them to get better.