(3) Wednesday Big East Games 1/22/20

[gtmoBlue]

Still a ways out folks...to be declaring locks. SH and Nova... Too many of you have blindspots and can't see your own nose.

SH has 6 home /5 road in the meat of their schedule.
Nova has 8 of last 12 on the road.
Prov has 6 home /5 road in the meat of their schedule.
Butler has 7 home /5 on the road.

It'll probably come down to Butler and lil' Creighton for the Champeenship!
SH & Nova ...Not this season, bud, not this season!

...youse guys have tunnel vision and a big blind spot... Sitting in 3rd is lil' Creighton.
We're playin' small ball and we're coming to take u out. We've got 11 games left, all at home...
regardless of the venue. I can smell the champeenship - (smells like linguini alfredo w clam sauce,
with cheese sticks, salad, and a good Riesling.) - Nice!

Sorry Chesty and the fellas in Radnor, but the times they are a changin'. Looks to be a battle 'tween Masterguns (KMacker69) and ol' git.

As the Poet Laureat of Philly says: "Only the strong survive, only the strong survive. and the weak shall fall by the wayside." - Paul Williams

Looks like "my boy" Coach Mac will get a pass (damnit), cause his team is gonna bring home the bacon and the BE trophy.
I really, really like Coach Matta coming out of "retirement" to Creighton. Oh well, maybe next year.

[Novachap]

Still a ways out folks...to be declaring locks. SH and Nova... Too many of you have blindspots and can't see your own nose.

SH has 6 home /5 road in the meat of their schedule.
Nova has 8 of last 12 on the road.
Prov has 6 home /5 road in the meat of their schedule.
Butler has 7 home /5 on the road.

It'll probably come down to Butler and lil' Creighton for the Champeenship!
SH & Nova ...Not this season, bud, not this season!

...youse guys have tunnel vision and a big blind spot... Sitting in 3rd is lil' Creighton.
We're playin' small ball and we're coming to take u out. We've got 11 games left, all at home...
regardless of the venue. I can smell the champeenship - (smells like linguini alfredo w clam sauce,
with cheese sticks, salad, and a good Riesling.) - Nice!

Sorry Chesty and the fellas in Radnor, but the times they are a changin'. Looks to be a battle 'tween Masterguns (KMacker69) and ol' git.

As the Poet Laureat of Philly says: "Only the strong survive, only the strong survive. and the weak shall fall by the wayside." - Paul Williams

Looks like "my boy" Coach Mac will get a pass (damnit), cause his team is gonna bring home the bacon and the BE trophy.
I really, really like Coach Matta coming out of "retirement" to Creighton. Oh well, maybe next year.

GTMO, my man! 11 games, all at home? Could've swore we stole that one from you in Omaha!

[billyjack]

For providence, their at large chances are shot due to a terrible non conf as we all know.

For them, their goal is clear, find a way to finish top 6 in conference and get that first round bye in BET. And then win the whole damn thing. Cause they are certainly good enough

Are they good enough though? They've won 4 conference games. The combined conference record of those 4 teams is 8-19, with only Marquette better than 2-5. The big OOC vs Texas doesn't look so great. Plus with where they would be (likely 6 seed) would quite possibly have to beat in 3 straight days the 3,2,1 seeds.

I think so. Nobody said it would be easy, but they were impressive last night even in the loss. There's a reason the Friars were picked by some to win this league. They have the talent, it just took a little longer than expected to put it all together.

We have talent, but some huge holes that we've been able to hide a little better recently.

In order for us to have won big this season, we needed Pipkins to be solid, run the offense competently, and play with a high basketball-IQ.

When his weaknesses became apparent, we were slow to cut bait on his full-time PG responsibilities. The easier or only path to a great year was to hope he snapped out of his funk.

Unfortunately, after our lost weekend in Anaheim, then especially the URI game and Florida blowout, we were completely cooked.

Recently solid play can be attributed to playing Pipkins at the 2, and scaling back his minutes. i'm guessing he doesn't read HLOH posts so i'll be a little honest: He's horrible. Low basketball-IQ. Can't keep guys in front of him on D and guards just blow by him easily. He guards agressively 40 feet from the hoop, usually fouling people. He takes contested 30 foot shots with 20 seconds on the shot clock. He's good for a couple-few passes each game to no one, or even worse directly at our opponent or referee.

Occasionally he goes off for 8 minutes, maybe every 5 games. Unfortunately, some poor team gets torched by him. This year it was Sacred Heart, Texas, and DePaul. Last two years it was us... made worse for us vs UMass cuz when he gets hot, the refs think it's cute and they f-ck over his opponent.

He now has to be used in the manner of 1989 Pokey Wigginton-- get limited minutes to give the starting PG a breather, and try not to screw things up too bad.

Last night, we were still within 5 with maybe 4 to play. He decided to guard McKnight (i think McKnight?) aggressively up in his mug, which led to a 7th foul, and 2 Seton Hall made free throws. Then immediately on our possession, he decided it was time to jack up a 30 footer with 18 on the shot clock, and bricked it or hit backboard only... the Hall got the board and scored down the other end. The last 4 minutes played out as a 9 point game. Just asinine decision-making

The best PG lineup for PC right now is Duke or Maliek White at the point for a combined 30+ minutes. White is best in short chunks of time, otherwise fatigue or something sets in, so Pipkins is going to have to get 8 to 10 tortuous minutes. Duke is competent at PG.

We have other holes in our frontcourt which i don't feel.like talking about.

For all of us here at HLOH, we pretty much know what we need-- Villanova and Butler and Seton Hall should get in with 8 wins. PC needs 12. The other six need 9. Plus 9 total wins will be distributed in the BET so more can be grabbed.

The likelihood of PC getting to 12 was always very low, even after we stole a couple of games in Chic-Milw. So the season as a fan has been relatively relaxing... no NCAA... i can enjoy watching players develop like Duke, Reeves, and Gantt. It's like watching August-September baseball when i was a kid... each game is an individual event, not a string of games where we need to take 3 of 4 here, or 2 of 3 there... you know?

Anyhoo, that's my take at this point, still very similar to a month ago pre-Texas.

[stever20]

Seton Hall needed more than 8 wins. If they had gone 8-10 in conference play, they would be 16-14. Loss in the BET and 16-15. Yeah, I don't think that gets in at all... Hasn't in 20 years at all, and really 30 years.

While yes there are 9 BET wins....
2 will go to teams in the 7-10 boat. While it's possible those are bubble teams, very possible if not likely not.
3 will go to champion. So out of the bubble entirely.

Leaves really 4 that could help the bubble teams. If there are any.

[Hall2012]

Well at this point if Seton Hall manages to only get 8 conference wins they don't belong anywhere near the tournament...

[stever20]

Well at this point if Seton Hall manages to only get 8 conference wins they don't belong anywhere near the tournament...

Isn't that the truth.... Seton Hall always needed 9 conference wins to get in with the 4 OOC losses...

[DanofXav76]

The absolute best Xavier has looked all season IMHO. The ball was moving, team consistently making the extra pass all night long. Balanced scoring which has not been the usual the last season+ . Basketball IQ also went up several points last night and oh yeah KyKy got unleashed a bit, excited for what's to come from him down the road. Best advice here is those knees can be tricky things. I highly suggest resting Goodin at least one more game in that madhouse in Omaha on Sunday.

[OmahaGuy]

Hall fans,
What is the opinion of Willard up there in NJ?

Great player development, improving Xs and Os, iffy recruiter. Most importantly, his players love him. There's still haters in our fan base that only show up when we lose to bash him, but overall I'd say he's got a pretty good approval rating. Unfortunately, I think a lot of our fans won't truly appreciate how good he is until he leaves.

Have to agree with this. He ain't amazing but he's become one of the better coaches in the league. If he can start recruiting a bit better, SHU will be a monster for years to come

[kmacker69]

Still a ways out folks...to be declaring locks. SH and Nova... Too many of you have blindspots and can't see your own nose.

SH has 6 home /5 road in the meat of their schedule.
Nova has 8 of last 12 on the road.
Prov has 6 home /5 road in the meat of their schedule.
Butler has 7 home /5 on the road.

It'll probably come down to Butler and lil' Creighton for the Champeenship!
SH & Nova ...Not this season, bud, not this season!

...youse guys have tunnel vision and a big blind spot... Sitting in 3rd is lil' Creighton.
We're playin' small ball and we're coming to take u out. We've got 11 games left, all at home...
regardless of the venue. I can smell the champeenship - (smells like linguini alfredo w clam sauce,
with cheese sticks, salad, and a good Riesling.) - Nice!

Sorry Chesty and the fellas in Radnor, but the times they are a changin'. Looks to be a battle 'tween Masterguns (KMacker69) and ol' git.

As the Poet Laureat of Philly says: "Only the strong survive, only the strong survive. and the weak shall fall by the wayside." - Paul Williams

Looks like "my boy" Coach Mac will get a pass (damnit), cause his team is gonna bring home the bacon and the BE trophy.
I really, really like Coach Matta coming out of "retirement" to Creighton. Oh well, maybe next year.

I like your style gtmo, but you cray cray! Maybe crazy like a fox the way y'all been playing lately... But one crazy Doc! \m/ \m/

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BbygiTho70Q

[gtmoBlue]

Novachap, my man. I did say "regardless of venue." When you're rollin - they're all home games!
Luv me some WF, Dunk, Carneseca, Fiserv, and Prudential arenas. Big arenas (except Carnesecca) with
great sight lines and solid rims.

Roll Jays!