(3) Saturday Big East Games 1/13/18

[Omaha1]

Creighton just didn't show up today. Crappy effort, shooting, defense, coaching.

[Xudash]

Creighton just didn't show up today. Crappy effort, shooting, defense, coaching.

So, it's your belief that Xavier had nothing to do with that outcome?

Xavier got boat raced in Philly, and that had a lot to do with Nova stepping on our throats and exhausting our will to compete.

[MUPanther]

Anyone know why the #1 team in the country is playing on Fox Business Network while simultaneously something called Monster Energy Supercross is on FS1?

I was wondering the same damn thing, wtf?

Monster Energy Supercross draws much better ratings (346k last week) than Big East basketball. FS2 is in only 50 million homes. So, FBN was best slot.

[NJRedman]

Villanova turning into the Duke of the Big East. Bridges climbs up Ponds back and they call the foul on Ponds and ends St. John's rally.

BTW if anyone thinks that Mullin doesn't have SJU playing at a much higher level than prior to his arrival I have a bridge to sell you.

[Irishdawg]

Villanova turning into the Duke of the Big East. Bridges climbs up Ponds back and they call the foul on Ponds and ends St. John's rally.

BTW if anyone thinks that Mullin doesn't have SJU playing at a much higher level than prior to his arrival I have a bridge to sell you.

JK, St. John's was competing hard - if they continue to do that, they're going to have an impact on the conference race.

[SJUBBALL]

That was a poor performance from nova tonight. And we still couldn’t win. Nova beat us and they didn’t bring their A game, they brought their D- game tonight. Their leprechaun looking dude is the only one who really showed up tonight.

It’s sad they can play that bad and still win, St. John’s is not in a good place right now

[GumbyDamnit!]

That was a poor performance from nova tonight. And we still couldn’t win. Nova beat us and they didn’t bring their A game, they brought their D- game tonight. Their leprechaun looking dude is the only one who really showed up tonight.

It’s sad they can play that bad and still win, St. John’s is not in a good place right now

I don’t think you are giving your team the credit they deserve. SJU competed really hard on both ends of the floor, and made Nova play uncharateristically sloppy. Give SJU D a lot of credit. They were intense and caused a lot of the turnovers. Ponds was unstoppable, and the game was within reach. I think the difference was that for some reason DiVincenzo just goes off on SJU, and Nova’s veterans have learned how to close out tight games.

[NJRedman]

That was a poor performance from nova tonight. And we still couldn’t win. Nova beat us and they didn’t bring their A game, they brought their D- game tonight. Their leprechaun looking dude is the only one who really showed up tonight.

It’s sad they can play that bad and still win, St. John’s is not in a good place right now

I don’t think you are giving your team the credit they deserve. SJU competed really hard on both ends of the floor, and made Nova play uncharateristically sloppy. Give SJU D a lot of credit. They were intense and caused a lot of the turnovers. Ponds was unstoppable, and the game was within reach. I think the difference was that for some reason DiVincenzo just goes off on SJU, and Nova’s veterans have learned how to close out tight games.

We have a whiney fan base. Ponds goes off for 37 and they still complain.

I would dispute that since Bridges made a boneheaded foul that the refs bailed him out on in what was clearly an over the back against Ponds with a minute left SJU rallying and Nova missing it's last 7 shots. But Nova can drill the FT's and that was that.

[mpwalsh8]

That was a poor performance from nova tonight. And we still couldn’t win. Nova beat us and they didn’t bring their A game, they brought their D- game tonight. Their leprechaun looking dude is the only one who really showed up tonight.

It’s sad they can play that bad and still win, St. John’s is not in a good place right now

I don’t think you are giving your team the credit they deserve. SJU competed really hard on both ends of the floor, and made Nova play uncharateristically sloppy. Give SJU D a lot of credit. They were intense and caused a lot of the turnovers. Ponds was unstoppable, and the game was within reach. I think the difference was that for some reason DiVincenzo just goes off on SJU, and Nova’s veterans have learned how to close out tight games.

We have a whiney fan base. Ponds goes off for 37 and they still complain.

I would dispute that since Bridges made a boneheaded foul that the refs bailed him out on in what was clearly an over the back against Ponds with a minute left SJU rallying and Nova missing it's last 7 shots. But Nova can drill the FT's and that was that.

I agree it was a bad call but it also seemed a bit like a make up call. On the prior play Booth was called for a questionable reach in, at least based on his reaction as they never showed the replay, and Pond hit a couple free throws. Doesn't make it right. Even when VU had an 11 point lead late I didn't feel safe because they had no one who could stay in front of Ponds.

[sciencejay]

Creighton just didn't show up today. Crappy effort, shooting, defense, coaching.

So, it's your belief that Xavier had nothing to do with that outcome?

Xavier got boat raced in Philly, and that had a lot to do with Nova stepping on our throats and exhausting our will to compete.

No need to presume that "we stunk" comment was a slight toward your team Xudash. X outplayed CU in every aspect of the game. You guys are loaded and a terrible matchup for us. But CU fans can't complain about a very lackluster performance (at best) by the Jays? Must every post lavish praise on the victor?

Your length (at all positions), energy and experience were clearly too much for us yesterday. We looked sped up from the get-go. We missed three layups in the first half. We had nearly double the turnovers for the game relative to our season average. Some of that may have been X pressure, but most were due to lazy passes or poor communication. That's on CU. We were terrible from 3-point range on many open looks--without Ballock's hot streak in the second half, that was a sub-30% game from 3 and 30 point loss in the works. Yes, X had something to do with it, but the Jays are a good team who looked scared and unprepared from the beginning.

I thought the two main issues were the inside presence of X (no surprise) and the way X got back on defense which limited our ability to run. X shot very well from distance. Most of those were wide open looks because your big guys were controlling things inside. You could go inside, we'd drop down to help and your big would pass back out for a wide open look. We will have trouble against teams like you all year--unless we can rebound defensively better than we did yesterday and up the tempo to a level where we like that.

So on to hosting SH this week. Hopefully we show up better prepared and with more energy and resilience than we showed yesterday.

One positive note for CU: Ballock brought more energy than he has in conference games to date. Looked more like the non-con Mitch. He has been reluctant to shoot in BEast games (didn't take a shot in the first two). We need him to play with confidence/aggression on the offensive end. When he gets hot, he's a difference maker on both ends of the court.