The Holy Land of Hoops

1 game tonight in the Big East.

8pm, Xavier at St John's, FS1.

Great matchup of 2 NCAA teams.
SJU won a great contest at Xavier earlier this month.
XU coming off great wins vs Cincinnati and Butler.

Joe Lunardi said with much confidence that if St. John's wins both games this week (Xavier, Georgetown) they will dance. So tonight is step 1.

Go St. John's! They need to win this game to make the NCAA tournament with out making noise in the BET.

RedStormHoops wrote:Joe Lunardi said with much confidence that if St. John's wins both games this week (Xavier, Georgetown) they will dance. So tonight is step 1.

I'd be curious to see his thoughts should they split and then beat Marquette.

I think tonight is the big game for St John's. I do not think Georgetown is the best matchup this year for St John's. So a loss tonight, and just not seeing them winning on Saturday either. That pushes them into a situation where they would probably need 1 if not 2 wins to make the tourney.

1 thing that is interesting just looking at the updated RPI forecast now with the conference tourney. 19-12 which would be 19-11 regular season(so 2 more wins), and then a 1st rd BET loss- has them down to a 62.5 RPI. That seems unbelievably low quite frankly- 19-11 end of regular season is a 44.8. A loss in the BET to one of the top 5 other teams would not push the RPI that low IMO at all.

hoyahooligan wrote:Go St. John's! They need to win this game to make the NCAA tournament with out making noise in the BET.

I suppose we're supposed to root for St John's because they are closer to the bubble than Xavier, but it's sort of a lose-lose because X then nears the bubble.

Dew wrote:

hoyahooligan wrote:Go St. John's! They need to win this game to make the NCAA tournament with out making noise in the BET.

I suppose we're supposed to root for St John's because they are closer to the bubble than Xavier, but it's sort of a lose-lose because X then nears the bubble.

To me, this game for X is interesting. A win and you would think they are guaranteed in. But then again, if they lose to Nova, Creighton, and then 1st rd BET, they are 19-13 but with 5 sub 100 losses- and maybe a 6th if Seton Hall loses out(they are projected 1-2, but the 1 win is the Creighton game while Gibbs is suspended.

So I think for us rooting for 6 spots- a St John's win means far more.

It's going to be interesting, because Xavier just beat Cincy and #19 Butler, so they are kinda due for a loss. But at the same time we just beat them in their house, so they are kinda due to beat us again. Something has to give tonight.

St. John's has made an identity under Lavin as a team that will never make you 100% sure they will be a tourney team. They are maddeningly inconsistent. One game we nearly knock off Duke, then we lose to Creighton. We dominate Cuse at the Dome, then we lose to DePaul. St. John's is clearly not one of those programs at the moment that will clearly be in the NCAA's with a cushion.

Whenever an analyst like Lunardi or big fans say "ok, win the next 2 and they are definitely in", they seem to fail. I can't remember a time SJU was actually up to the task of taking care of business early, instilling confidence in its fans. We seem to be a team of "catch up". Fast OOC starts, awful conference beginnings, then scrambling at the end. Knowing this, I'm not confident in the least that we will win these next 2. I can't see MSG being that packed, since many fans would get home around midnight having to get up for work the next day. So likely not much of a home court advantage. And G'Town slaughtered us and looked like the G'Town of old we almost never beat.

I know there will be comments "what a negative fan" or "what a disgrace to SJU fans", but look at the track record. We have been to what 1 tournament in 14 years? The team doesn't do anything to instill confidence, so don't blame me. And other teams use the BET as a way to collect late W's. I think we won 1 BET game in like 10+ years. So I don't want to hear the people if we go 0-2 here saying "Just beat Marquette and win 2 BET games and you can still get in!".

Don't blame me for my anxiety and negativity. Blame SJU for being consistent in only one thing: falling short of expectations.

Joe Davis & Donny Marshall on FS1.

stever20 wrote:

RedStormHoops wrote:Joe Lunardi said with much confidence that if St. John's wins both games this week (Xavier, Georgetown) they will dance. So tonight is step 1.

I'd be curious to see his thoughts should they split and then beat Marquette.

I think tonight is the big game for St John's. I do not think Georgetown is the best matchup this year for St John's. So a loss tonight, and just not seeing them winning on Saturday either. That pushes them into a situation where they would probably need 1 if not 2 wins to make the tourney.

1 thing that is interesting just looking at the updated RPI forecast now with the conference tourney. 19-12 which would be 19-11 regular season(so 2 more wins), and then a 1st rd BET loss- has them down to a 62.5 RPI. That seems unbelievably low quite frankly- 19-11 end of regular season is a 44.8. A loss in the BET to one of the top 5 other teams would not push the RPI that low IMO at all.

You may want to double check that, Steve. RPI Forecast has St. John's at 58.0 RPI with the BE tournament factored in, but that's only a statistical mean. It's actually the 50th ranked RPI.

Bill Marsh wrote:

stever20 wrote:

RedStormHoops wrote:Joe Lunardi said with much confidence that if St. John's wins both games this week (Xavier, Georgetown) they will dance. So tonight is step 1.

I'd be curious to see his thoughts should they split and then beat Marquette.

I think tonight is the big game for St John's. I do not think Georgetown is the best matchup this year for St John's. So a loss tonight, and just not seeing them winning on Saturday either. That pushes them into a situation where they would probably need 1 if not 2 wins to make the tourney.

1 thing that is interesting just looking at the updated RPI forecast now with the conference tourney. 19-12 which would be 19-11 regular season(so 2 more wins), and then a 1st rd BET loss- has them down to a 62.5 RPI. That seems unbelievably low quite frankly- 19-11 end of regular season is a 44.8. A loss in the BET to one of the top 5 other teams would not push the RPI that low IMO at all.

You may want to double check that, Steve. RPI Forecast has St. John's at 58.0 RPI with the BE tournament factored in, but that's only a statistical mean. It's actually the 50th ranked RPI.

I don't look at that column because to me it's bogus. If you can explain to me how Woffard at #51 with a statistical mean RPI of 43 could be below St John's at #50- with a statistical mean of 58. That just doesn't compute at all.