St. John's Post Game Thread

[Scrutineer]

If Darling is going to play like that it changes everything. My knock on them was lack of pg play. He’s been great since the new yea

Darling was ridiculed bere at the start of the year as someone unable to play at this level, but maybe Pitino is a better judge of talent....at least in their biggest win of the year.

It's hard to criticize MS because he saved the team in the biggest wins of the year, but he's gone off the rails (except for one game) in the past month and a half. We got lots of easy baskets off his penetration early but now it's like he's a freshman at Stony Brook.

 

[RitzLuce1]

Malachi played 4 minutes tonight.

He was -12.

We are gonna play Silas into the ground.

Huge huge miss by Dan in the portal.

 

[Kowalski]

I was worried early in the second half about the amount of energy Silas was exerting on every inbound play. It wore him out causing him to miss free throws. He left everything on the floor.

That may have been part of it. Uconn didn’t make them pay for pressuring the inbounds so Pitino had no reason to let up. Our guards never attacked the pressure to try to find easy shots and just looked too content to run half court sets. Maybe it’s fine since the offense was efficient overall but St Johns clearly looked was more aggressive team all night.

 

[RuffRuff]

This St. John's team is better equipped than last year's squad to make a tournament run.

Agree - Mitchell is a better defensive piece than anyone they had last year and Pitino knows how to use him right. That Dylan Darling is a ballsy little dude. He's not a full game guy, but Pitino played him when it mattered and he showed up. Sanon and Jackson are kind of empty jerseys.

 

[Donyell 360]

I’m not saying he played bad. He just wasn’t as impactful as we’ve grown to expect

We certainly needed someone to step up but we couldn't make clutch plays when it counted. Mullins missed shots. Reed missed shots in the paint. Silas missed FT's. Reibe was a non-factor. Ross and Stew disappeared. And SJ hit shots. Pretty simple. Hopefully Ball has his best great game when it counts most.

 

[uconnfan68]

Pitino showed why he's a Top 5 GOAT coach tonight. He knew all our weaknesses and his team exploited them.

He still has a losing record vs Danny.

 

[AdamaNation]

Ross is just intimidated by any team who presses. It's like a hand grenade for him. He is overwhelmed. Neither he nor Stewart has really progressed this year. I would like to have seen at least one of them play solidly tonight. Neither gave us much.

Ross last 4 games have been good. Stewart has become a turnover machine.

 

[Lefty2one]

They have punked us 3 times in a row. People are saying they are a bad matchup for us because they are physical and athletic. Well they will still be more physical and athletic when we play them at home. So what’s the solution? I see nothing other than Big East ref conspiracy theories.

Same story with Pitt 20-25 years ago. They can enjoy Big East success and then flame out early in the tourney.

 

[Kolumbo]

Why will it be much different?

Why wasn’t it UConn’s biggest game of the season seeing it was our first game against them since they embarrassed us last year?

Home game. 18 in a row. over-confident? maybe they didn't watch tape of SJU's defense. I don't know.

 

[uconngb]

All of the nonsense that they can get away with against the rest of the conference came back to bite them.

That's a preview of how our season ends if they don't off the nonsense. And maybe get a lil tougher.

This pretty much sums it up

 

[RuffRuff]

Duke and Michigan play eachother in a couple of weeks

Michigan also plays Illinois and Nebraska again

So a 1 seed is still very much in play.

I think we'll have to run the rest of the season to have a chance at the 1. We aren't going to get a lot of credit beating up on the sludge of the BE if we can't beat StJ 2x and @ Nova. Still in play, but we have to be perfect. If we lose anymore to StJ, I do think it will be a suggestion that we have a capped ceiling in the tourney too. There are much better teams than them out there that are just as big and physical.

 

[Donyell 360]

He wasn’t really impactful at all. I understand the gravity he attracts, but good-to-great players deal with it better. AK was great ij the second half and he attracts similar gravity. It’s hard to not be somewhat disappointed in Solo right now.

I think everyone is disappointed with Solo, especially his biggest fans. We thought he would be competing for Big East POY and headed to the first round NBA draft. The good news is he has the rest of this year and next to put it all together. Rooting for him!

 

[FearThePups]

Unfortunately this is literally Malachi’s nightmare matchup. He just really struggles with this kind of pressure and physicality.

Unfortunately we are now seeing Smith isn’t a high end D1 player. Neither was Mahaney. Better for them to stay in a mid major environment.

 

[RashadRay11]

And at least he had fight in him! He was a dog! Some of our other players want to be gentlemen. Frick that, man! Show some fight. AK no show and look scared.

A “no show” with 17 points? You’re incorrect.

 

[superjohn]

Agree - Mitchell is a better defensive piece than anyone they had last year and Pitino knows how to use him right. That Dylan Darling is a ballsy little dude. He's not a full game guy, but Pitino played him when it mattered and he showed up. Sanon and Jackson are kind of empty jerseys.

They're way better than they were early in the season. Last year's team just blitzed you with pressure but they were small and couldn't shoot. They don't blitz you quite the same this season but they're a lot bigger and they can shoot pretty good now.

 

[Hurleyman216]

I’m genuinely curious to know whether UConn basketball has ever lost a game where they shot 55%. I asked Gemini and ChatGPT, but they’re both too stupid/lazy to be able to pull box scores to search.

 

[sdglast]

I think everyone is disappointed with Solo, especially his biggest fans. We thought he would be competing for Big East POY and headed to the first round NBA draft. The good news is he has the rest of this year and next to put it all together. Rooting for him!

I think everyone is rooting for Solo, he is a good kid, but we have to face facts....All he has shown he can do is shoot the 3. Not a good ball handler, not a great passer, bad rebounder, struggles to defend, and refuses to put the ball on the deck and attack the rim. He's an average player right now and plays poorly in big games. He needs to get tougher and play tougher.

 

[uconngb]

Do you not look at box scores of BE games vs tournament games?

It’s absolutely a thing with the refs in this conference. St John’s doesn’t defend with their hands?????

Idk if it’s just a boomer thing to never blame the refs or what but 31-12 FTs is a problem with the refs. It’s also consistent in this league vs when we play non league games in the last 3-4 years.

It’s just whining to blame the refs. Plain and simple. And not a good look. Refs did not decide this game. This, poor FT shooting and just some very low basketball IQ basketball plays. I don’t know what the hell Tarris is thinking half the time but he makes so many dumb plays per game it’s silly.

 

[AdamaNation]

We certainly needed someone to step up but we couldn't make clutch plays when it counted. Mullins missed shots. Reed missed shots in the paint. Silas missed FT's. Reibe was a non-factor. Ross and Stew disappeared. And SJ hit shots. Pretty simple. Hopefully Ball has his best great game when it counts most.

We shot better than SJ. Ft disparity crushed us and the early turnovers hurt. I thought we played tough. Alex wasn’t as scared of Hopkins like days past. Reed Zuby was good until it wasn’t. Mullins has brass ba!!s. Silas had that fire!!!! The real issues to me were smith again being a non factor vs bigger guards, Stewart continues to turn the ball over and may have the worst +\- on the team by a lot, the 15 stumbles slips and falls.. what the heck was that? And odd turnovers with minimal pressure. In all, we hung with a team with 2 big east POY and played good but not great. We played tough and I feel we still had some gas. We win in OT. Danny avoids a tech that was waiting for him and this was the wirst officiated game of the year. Another reason why we will thrive in the tourney and SJ will get dumped early. Bad both ways early but a pulled jersey. Trip on Silas. Lane violation. Travel on the pg and another on zuby. All that and we lose by essentially a possession. I feel good and that was a good test.

 

[RuffRuff]

They have punked us 3 times in a row. People are saying they are a bad matchup for us because they are physical and athletic. Well they will still be more physical and athletic when we play them at home. So what’s the solution? I see nothing other than Big East ref conspiracy theories.

I think Pitino owns Hurley's jock if you give them both equally matched up teams. Pitino also recruits teams that he knows will be able to shut the water off on Dan Hurley's actions with lenght and athletecism and the ability to switch 1-5. I'm honestly not even feeling that great about the next matchup - it felt like StJ could have won by more if they hit a couple of their open threes.

 

[DCKembaFan]

My takeaway from this game isn't that UConn isn't that good, but that St. John's has seriously improved. St. John's beat a team that has beaten really good opponents. It just sucks that they dropped the ball in non-conference to become a top-25 team now instead of top-10.

 

[superjohn]

It’s just whining to blame the refs. Plain and simple. And not a good look. Refs did not decide this game. This, poor FT shooting and just some very low basketball IQ basketball plays. I don’t know what the hell Tarris is thinking half the time but he makes so many dumb plays per game it’s silly.

We get grabbed more than any other team in the league and it hurts us because of the way we play but St. John's flat out deserved to beat us.

They were the tougher team tonight.

 

[RuffRuff]

They're way better than they were early in the season. Last year's team just blitzed you with pressure but they were small and couldn't shoot. They don't blitz you quite the same this season but they're a lot bigger and they can shoot pretty good now.

Biggest different is Mitchell - I think he might be the best pure athlete in CBB. Kid was a top ten McD AA that could just never figure out how to shoot a basketball. Mitchell is Pitino's swiss army knife - the put back offensive rebound there in the final minutes was really impressive. He's everywhere, really disruptive. Would love to start finding guys like him once in awhile for the same reason. A kid like Ross has nothing on him, Mitchell so much bigger, stronger and more athletic.

 

[Kemba15]

I think Pitino owns Hurley's jock if you give them both equally matched up teams. Pitino also recruits teams that he knows will be able to shut the water off on Dan Hurley's actions with lenght and athletecism and the ability to switch 1-5. I'm honestly not even feeling that great about the next matchup - it felt like StJ could have won by more if they hit a couple of their open threes.

People said that about McDermott vs Hurley for years. Maybe Pitino can win a few tourney games, no? Hurley has won 13 in the last 3 years 😁

 

[MuchoDogYears]

Smith is essentially unplayable against good competition.

except, of course, for his excellent games against BYU, Texas, Illinois, and Arizona.

Lots of recency bias gets posted here but Smith is the only player on the Boneyard who consistently gets “past” bias.