St. John's / Duke rivalry continuing.

[NJRedman]

Talent wise, I'm not worried about next season. We will finish in the top 3 in the league. We finished tied for third this season with an 0-5 start. The seniors that left were not big losses. Sampson is a loss but we should be OK without him. They just have to make sure they don't start out 0-5...

Wow. Really?

Why not? Did we not just finish in third this season?

[flyerlax06]

Talent wise, I'm not worried about next season. We will finish in the top 3 in the league. We finished tied for third this season with an 0-5 start. The seniors that left were not big losses. Sampson is a loss but we should be OK without him. They just have to make sure they don't start out 0-5...

Wow. Really?

Why not? Did we not just finish in third this season?

If we're going to get technical about it, you finished 5th. You had the 3rd best record in the conference but you finished 5th. Those are the facts. If you didn't start 0-5 maybe you would have finished 3rd but you did start 0-5. The team was very talented last year too and I think Jordan will be a very good player and was the key to the turnaround but until Lavin can prove that he can get the talent to play actual basketball from the start of the season, I wouldn't be pumping my chest and talking about not being worried that you will finish top 3 in the league. If I'm a SJU fan, I'm pretty damn worried with all the nonsense that has gone on this offseason. Obekpa refusing to go into a conference tournament game and then leaving and coming back would have me worried about what he will actually do this season on and off the court. I'd be shocked if they start 0-5 again but I wouldn't be shocked if they ended up anywhere from 3rd through 6th. That's the nature of this new league. The teams in the middle will beat each other to death. But to say you aren't worried and will finish top 3 may be a bit premature.

[ChelseaFriar]

I remember watching Marcus Hatten torch Duke.

[redmen9194]

Why not? Did we not just finish in third this season?[/quote]

If we're going to get technical about it, you finished 5th. You had the 3rd best record in the conference but you finished 5th. Those are the facts. If you didn't start 0-5 maybe you would have finished 3rd but you did start 0-5. The team was very talented last year too and I think Jordan will be a very good player and was the key to the turnaround but until Lavin can prove that he can get the talent to play actual basketball from the start of the season, I wouldn't be pumping my chest and talking about not being worried that you will finish top 3 in the league. If I'm a SJU fan, I'm pretty damn worried with all the nonsense that has gone on this offseason. Obekpa refusing to go into a conference tournament game and then leaving and coming back would have me worried about what he will actually do this season on and off the court. I'd be shocked if they start 0-5 again but I wouldn't be shocked if they ended up anywhere from 3rd through 6th. That's the nature of this new league. The teams in the middle will beat each other to death. But to say you aren't worried and will finish top 3 may be a bit premature.[/quote]

If we are going to be technical about it, we finished tied for third place but were the fifth seed in the Big East tournament. There technically was not a fifth place finisher since three teams tied for third.

[flyerlax06]

Why not? Did we not just finish in third this season?

If we're going to get technical about it, you finished 5th. You had the 3rd best record in the conference but you finished 5th. Those are the facts. If you didn't start 0-5 maybe you would have finished 3rd but you did start 0-5. The team was very talented last year too and I think Jordan will be a very good player and was the key to the turnaround but until Lavin can prove that he can get the talent to play actual basketball from the start of the season, I wouldn't be pumping my chest and talking about not being worried that you will finish top 3 in the league. If I'm a SJU fan, I'm pretty damn worried with all the nonsense that has gone on this offseason. Obekpa refusing to go into a conference tournament game and then leaving and coming back would have me worried about what he will actually do this season on and off the court. I'd be shocked if they start 0-5 again but I wouldn't be shocked if they ended up anywhere from 3rd through 6th. That's the nature of this new league. The teams in the middle will beat each other to death. But to say you aren't worried and will finish top 3 may be a bit premature.[/quote]

If we are going to be technical about it, we finished tied for third place but were the fifth seed in the Big East tournament. There technically was not a fifth place finisher since three teams tied for third.[/quote]

As far as I'm concerned, the tiebreakers that determine BET seeding tell you where you finished. I don't go around saying Providence finished 3rd. They finished 4th.

[SJHooper]

Yes Duke won 15 of the past 18...but they are...Duke. What do you expect? Even a team like Nova would probably lose much more than they win against them. They are one of the best programs in all of sports. A lot of those games were quite close so that number doesn't reflect how tough SJ has been known to play them. As recently as 2011 SJ not only beat Duke at MSG but crushed them. As all freshmen the next year we lost by 7 to a seasoned Duke juggernaut at their house. We gave them a real scare while everyone else was losing to them by 20. You have to remember that SJ hasn't been recruiting at this level since Lavin came here...SJ was dead for a long time and even though Lav is a bad coach he has brought top 100 talent here and in some cases top 25 and 5 star. The SJ program of the past few years is totally different than the SJ program that was dead in the water and was a guaranteed loss for Duke a while ago. At least now we have talent to make it a game if not steal one.

If this team nearly downed Cuse last year, we can beat Duke next year. Some teams just have that one opponent where things seem to get interesting even when one team is much more talented. For us that team is Duke. You just never know what will happen. Harrison will be a SR, Jordan will be a SO and Branch/Green will be up there as well. This will be a team with experienced guards and Obekpa is back now. We just need to land a few more big men for next year and we should be at least decent (bubble team or so).

[hoyahooligan]

I did not realize Duke and St. John's had played each other so much. Still wouldn't call it a rivalry. Duke plays St. John's and Georgetown( we've played them 8 times in recent memory) to get exposure in NY and DC. We just happen to be the best teams in those areas. There's no hatred on Duke's side for St. John's. St. John's is just a means to an end for them. Same thing with Georgetown. There is no Georgetown v. Duke Rivalry as much as fans of other programs would like there to be.

[redmen9194]

Duke can get exposure in NYC without playing St. John's and has played other teams at the Garden in singular game events. It's also a home and home series. But they have been on our schedule since the mid 90's except for the 2012-13 and 2013-14 seasons.

[redmen9194]

Duke fans seem to think its a rivalry of sorts...

http://www.dukebasketballreport.com/201 ... s-renewing


As does Adam Zagoria...

http://zagsblog.com/articles/report-duk ... e-rivalry/

[NJRedman]

Why not? Did we not just finish in third this season?

If we're going to get technical about it, you finished 5th. You had the 3rd best record in the conference but you finished 5th. Those are the facts. If you didn't start 0-5 maybe you would have finished 3rd but you did start 0-5. The team was very talented last year too and I think Jordan will be a very good player and was the key to the turnaround but until Lavin can prove that he can get the talent to play actual basketball from the start of the season, I wouldn't be pumping my chest and talking about not being worried that you will finish top 3 in the league. If I'm a SJU fan, I'm pretty damn worried with all the nonsense that has gone on this offseason. Obekpa refusing to go into a conference tournament game and then leaving and coming back would have me worried about what he will actually do this season on and off the court. I'd be shocked if they start 0-5 again but I wouldn't be shocked if they ended up anywhere from 3rd through 6th. That's the nature of this new league. The teams in the middle will beat each other to death. But to say you aren't worried and will finish top 3 may be a bit premature.

Hahaha do you know what technical means? Also I wasn't pumping my chest and saying I wasn't worried we would finish in the top 3. Someone said there was no way we could finish 3rd and I asked them if we didn't just finish 3rd, which we did. We had the same conference record as the other two teams. We finished in 3rd place, technically.