Chief’s Briefs - St John’s Edition

[RuffRuff]

I completely disagree. They play a high voltage version of Big East Basketball that travels, is hard to prepare for, creates fouls and turnovers, collects rebounds, and includes a swagger that has propelled past UConn teams to great heights. Not letting sour grapes taint my appreciation for what they are doing. They're a Big East brother, so I'll be cheering for them in the tournament. I'm a fan of great coaching, and Pittino has done a helluva job, he deserves his due.

I'm super excited to see how they matchup against some of the top teams out there because they are so different.

Games against Houston & Tennessee would be brawls. They were a point away from squaring away with Tenn in the early season, but this StJ team has come light years since then. I'd be of particular interest to see them play Houston, because they'd go toe to toe on defensive ferocity, but have so much more size on the perimeter and Houston has little guards that shoot threes.

Would be wild to see them play a Kentucky or Bama and see how those two teams respond to long defenders in their players shirts.

I also like their potential in the tourney. That is a group of men and they have versatility based on matchups, and Pitino can outcoach just about anyone. They run into a Duke, a kid like Smith would be a nightmare matchup for them as a hyper fast rocket ship. Duke got manhandled by Tennessee a couple tourneys ago and would be wild to see how freshmen respond to what they do. StJ will absolutely be the team I watch most closely outside of Uconn. Michigan next, as dying to see how that two big man offense works in the post season. I actually think we'd match up well with them.

 

[jibsey]

It’s very difficult to predict how our team matches up against anyone at this point. We certainly are capable of losing to bad teams and we can hang with the good ones for the most part.