The Holy Land of Hoops

http://collegebasketball.nbcsports.com/ ... ng-guards/

BEast has 5 in the top 20 (25% of all of College Basketball) in a 10 team league!!!!

4) Marcus Foster Creighton
12) Khyri Thomas Creighton
15) Markus Howard Marquette
17) Shamorie Ponds St. John's
20) Donte DiVincenzo Villanova

They should just admit in these polls that it's not about talent, it's mostly about 1) success of the program recently 2) are they a JR/SR? If not they can't be that good apparently unless they play for Kentucky. There are probably some polls saying SJ has the 150th best guards in the country. On the bright side, sleeping on us will only allow us to sneak up on people. I'd hang these "polls" up in the locker room.

MullinMayhem wrote:They should just admit in these polls that it's not about talent, it's mostly about 1) success of the program recently 2) are they a JR/SR? If not they can't be that good apparently unless they play for Kentucky. There are probably some polls saying SJ has the 150th best guards in the country. On the bright side, sleeping on us will only allow us to sneak up on people. I'd hang these "polls" up in the locker room.

They rated your back court as the 18th best in the country and said you had the 17th best shooting guard in the country.

I'm not sure who is sleeping on St. John's, but I'm glad to know that you'll be there to wake them up.

I agree with you IrishDawg... MullinMayhem, they did give you props. Are you saying Ponds should be higher than the other BE shooting guards on the list? I don't buy that. Heck, one could make a case (albeit a weak one) that Donte should be higher than Shamorie--heck, if he played against you guys more than 3 times last year, he might have been an All American! That by the way was a joke.... clearly, he played very well against SJU and the matchup worked for him.

The kudos will come with the wins. Obviously, there is talent in that backcourt, but I think people need to see some wins and defense too...

No surprise that he isn't there now, but come the end of the season I think you'll see Myles Powell on this list too.

Many people don't even know that Ponds just set the ALL TIME scoring record for freshmen at St. John's. All time. That's including guys like Mullin, Artest, Jackson, Harkless, Harrison, etc. He is ranked as if he's a solid but not great player. He gets some respect but still not enough. If this kid was 6'5 he would be a lottery pick 1 and done. That's the only reason he hasn't jumped immediately to the NBA...his lack of size. I think it's pretty clear that the fact SJ has been down for several years now has hurt his prestige in polls. Not fair to the kid IMO. But I guess it only helps keep his draft stock just low enough so he may stay longer. I do agree though that eventually the rubber has to meet the road with the program and finally have the results match the hype. We came out of nowhere in the old Big East ranked in the top 25 picked as a darkhorse Elite 8 team by ESPN in 2011 with no expectations. We have a better team now.

MullinMayhem wrote:Many people don't even know that Ponds just set the ALL TIME scoring record for freshmen at St. John's. All time. That's including guys like Mullin, Artest, Jackson, Harkless, Harrison, etc. He is ranked as if he's a solid but not great player. He gets some respect but still not enough. If this kid was 6'5 he would be a lottery pick 1 and done. That's the only reason he hasn't jumped immediately to the NBA...his lack of size. I think it's pretty clear that the fact SJ has been down for several years now has hurt his prestige in polls. Not fair to the kid IMO. But I guess it only helps keep his draft stock just low enough so he may stay longer. I do agree though that eventually the rubber has to meet the road with the program and finally have the results match the hype. We came out of nowhere in the old Big East ranked in the top 25 picked as a darkhorse Elite 8 team by ESPN in 2011 with no expectations. We have a better team now.

It wasn’t really out of nowhere in 2011. That team had like 9 seniors and was fairly tough the prior year just the wrong end of the close games.

Markus Howard may be one of the more underrated players in the country. Remember the kid was 17 last year as he reclassified to the class above him. For his class he was a 5 Star and well on his way to being an all American, I’m very interested to see how he does this year now that he’s actually playing people in his age group.

https://www.si.com/college-basketball/2 ... t-shooting

MUBoxer wrote:

MullinMayhem wrote:Many people don't even know that Ponds just set the ALL TIME scoring record for freshmen at St. John's. All time. That's including guys like Mullin, Artest, Jackson, Harkless, Harrison, etc. He is ranked as if he's a solid but not great player. He gets some respect but still not enough. If this kid was 6'5 he would be a lottery pick 1 and done. That's the only reason he hasn't jumped immediately to the NBA...his lack of size. I think it's pretty clear that the fact SJ has been down for several years now has hurt his prestige in polls. Not fair to the kid IMO. But I guess it only helps keep his draft stock just low enough so he may stay longer. I do agree though that eventually the rubber has to meet the road with the program and finally have the results match the hype. We came out of nowhere in the old Big East ranked in the top 25 picked as a darkhorse Elite 8 team by ESPN in 2011 with no expectations. We have a better team now.

It wasn’t really out of nowhere in 2011. That team had like 9 seniors and was fairly tough the prior year just the wrong end of the close games.

I don't think anyone including fans and experts expected the team to be ranked and knock off what was it, 3 or 4 top 15 teams? I remember watching PTI on ESPN and Wilbon picked them as a darkhorse to reach the Elite 8 leading up to March Madness. No one expected that level prior to the season. Had we not suffered a major injury, he might have been right.

MullinMayhem wrote:

MUBoxer wrote:

MullinMayhem wrote:Many people don't even know that Ponds just set the ALL TIME scoring record for freshmen at St. John's. All time. That's including guys like Mullin, Artest, Jackson, Harkless, Harrison, etc. He is ranked as if he's a solid but not great player. He gets some respect but still not enough. If this kid was 6'5 he would be a lottery pick 1 and done. That's the only reason he hasn't jumped immediately to the NBA...his lack of size. I think it's pretty clear that the fact SJ has been down for several years now has hurt his prestige in polls. Not fair to the kid IMO. But I guess it only helps keep his draft stock just low enough so he may stay longer. I do agree though that eventually the rubber has to meet the road with the program and finally have the results match the hype. We came out of nowhere in the old Big East ranked in the top 25 picked as a darkhorse Elite 8 team by ESPN in 2011 with no expectations. We have a better team now.

It wasn’t really out of nowhere in 2011. That team had like 9 seniors and was fairly tough the prior year just the wrong end of the close games.

I don't think anyone including fans and experts expected the team to be ranked and knock off what was it, 3 or 4 top 15 teams? I remember watching PTI on ESPN and Wilbon picked them as a darkhorse to reach the Elite 8 leading up to March Madness. No one expected that level prior to the season. Had we not suffered a major injury, he might have been right.

I guess I just am a better analyst than all the “experts” lol because my cousin was a sophomore at SJU that year and I remember after the 09-10 season I told him that I expect SJU to be real good next year with the unreal amount of experience returning and fully expect them to be 15-25 range