Exhibition Games

[stever20]

Ugly for sju but it was the "first" for more than half the pieces. 4/8 never played a D1 game before. 2 of the other 4 didnt play at all last year. The last 2 played sparingly last season. Missing their best player in Lovett (fingers crossed). Mullin's first game on the sidelines, anyone who has coached before will tell you that it is a big adjustment. You dont just come out with the ability to control a huddle or to work the refs. Should we have lost by 30 pts? Absolutely not. Should we have lost at all. Probably not. Should we just give up now. No way.

yeah, like I said, your biggest improvement as a team is between game 1 and game 2.

[Jet915]

Only cause for concern is if SJU and SHU really suck this bad, they will be anchors to the Big East RPI which might affect conference bids.

[stever20]

Only cause for concern is if SJU and SHU really suck this bad, they will be anchors to the Big East RPI which might affect conference bids.

I don't think that'll happen. I mean, look at DePaul last year. They were what 275 RPI ooc and that didn't stop the Big East from getting 6.

[Jet915]

Just noticed that SJU loss is on the front page of Yahoo....

[Hall2012]

Only cause for concern is if SJU and SHU really suck this bad, they will be anchors to the Big East RPI which might affect conference bids.

Come on now, I get that SHU wasn't exactly convincing, but at least they won their exhibition. Offensively they looked fine, defensively, their inexperienced bigs struggled to contain a small, quick team. It certainly needs to be addressed- or else the book on Seton Hall is gonna be play them small and you'll score at will- but it's not a cause for panic yet. I don't expect this to be a tournament team, but I also highly doubt they'll be an "anchor" weighing down the conference. I expect they'll have a strong starting 5, but they'll struggle with depth. They'll also likely improve significantly as they get further into the season and Whitehead gets more used to playing the point.

[GumbyDamnit!]

Agree Hall. We often see players take big steps forward between Frosh and Soph years. You have 4 Sophiswho can all play.

I think the two things that will really hurt SHU is the lack of a true PG. Gibbs sticking around makes SHU a bubble team. Also just not sold on Willard as an X&O guy. Hope I'm wrong because coaching instability really hurts a program long term. Hope he proves to be an above average guy. They def have some pieces.

[DudeAnon]

Agree Hall. We often see players take big steps forward between Frosh and Soph years. You have 4 Sophiswho can all play.

I think the two things that will really hurt SHU is the lack of a true PG. Gibbs sticking around makes SHU a bubble team. Also just not sold on Willard as an X&O guy. Hope I'm wrong because coaching instability really hurts a program long term. Hope he proves to be an above average guy. They def have some pieces.

I don't know what to think about Seton Hall. They looked amazing for the 1st half of last season then fell off a cliff. So who knows.

[stever20]

1 thing that could hurt Seton Hall is their OOC schedule. They have just first 3 weeks of the season games with Virginia, Oklahoma St or Ole Miss, Georgia, and GW. They could be 3-4 pretty easily after just 7 games. Then add in Wichita St and that could be 5 OOC losses. Would mean that for them to have any real shot at the tourney, they would need to go at least 10-8- to get to 17-13 entering the Big East tourney.. Even there, would probably need at least 1 if not 2 wins in the tourney to get any real shot.

I think they're going to by the end of the season like Hall said be much better than at the start of the season- but that start of the season could kill them this year. Think if they could win 3/4 between Oklahoma St/Ole Miss, Georgia, GW, and Wichita St- they could be really good- but that is a huge ask.

[SJHooper]

Haha this Cincy fan is just screaming for attention. You know little Bearcat, a few years ago I remember our all freshmen team beat your #16 squad while we were unranked with minimal expectations. I believe the last 2 times we played Cincy, they were ranked 16 and 23 (or something like that). Guess who won both as an unranked bad team? St. John's. So what does that say about your program?

Tulane, UCF, East Carolina, Houston, USF, Navy, Tulsa (good lately but terrible program), and SMU (without Brown who is gone either way any day now) will always be major anchors to water down Cincy, UConn, Memphis, and Temple. Even our 3 worst teams probably have more NCAA appearances than those 8 combined. If and when UConn leaves there will be no dominant team to even consistently be in the rankings.

Your conference added football schools totally ignoring the basketball impact, and now you are reaping what you sowed. Enjoy!

[Omaha1]

Jays win 113-77 over Upper Iowa. Not much to say other than that.