SJU thoughts

[tower912]

1.  Made it tougher than it had to be.
2.  SJU competed their ass off.
3.  Henry played soft most of the game.  And yet he STILL had ANOTHER double-double.
4.  Glad that JJ is going to be OK.
5.  Needed more Wally in the second half. 
6.  Need to stop digging early holes.
7.  Too many careless turnovers. 
8.  But in the end, enough plays and enough stops down the stretch.
9.  Not a work of art, but got the one MU had to have.   

[GGGG]

I think Wojo rolled the dice sitting both Luke and Henry so long at the end of the first half.  Could have made the deficit too big to overcome, but they did. 

[MarquetteDano]

Love that Wojo and coaches teach players to go hard to basket but we need to keep defenses honest with pump fakes and pull ups every so often.

Too many drives to basket right into a shot block.

[Oldgym]

I think Wojo rolled the dice sitting both Luke and Henry so long at the end of the first half.  Could have made the deficit too big to overcome, but they did.

Nice to see Heldt's progress. I missed his minutes in the PC game.

[Vander Blue Man Group]

My thought: phew.

[brandx]

Love that Wojo and coaches teach players to go hard to basket but we need to keep defenses honest with pump fakes and pull ups every so often.

Too many drives to basket right into a shot block.

I've said this many times. It was nice to see Cohen make the fake on his big basket down the stretch.

[tower912]

I think Wojo rolled the dice sitting both Luke and Henry so long at the end of the first half.  Could have made the deficit too big to overcome, but they did.

I honestly don't mind Heldt getting those last 3-5 minutes.   He didn't drag the team down, had a nice putback, was active and awkward.    He held(t) up his end. 

[brandx]

10. Excellent 2nd half (50-36).

This team is starting to show some fight at crunch time. Two games in a row.

[Lennys Tap]

Too many drives to basket right into a shot block.

Their 6'7" guy had (I think) 6 blocks. Thank God their 6'11" true shot blocker didn't play.

[brandx]

11. Buck it up, Tower. You failed US in crunch time today - your thoughts were 45 minutes late.

[NickelDimer]

Glad we won...it's so obvious this team is a year away

[brewcity77]

St John's had a block party and we were the guests. Henry looked scared to shoot late in the game. Needed to use shot fakes to take advantage of the Johnnies' tendency to go on the airborne swat attack.

[rocky_warrior]

St John's had a block party and we were the guests. Henry looked scared to shoot late in the game. Needed to use shot fakes to take advantage of the Johnnies' tendency to go on the airborne swat attack.

Henry was scared to shoot, because every time he touched a defender it was an offensive foul for him. 

[Sir Lawrence]

Turnovers are graying my hair.

[PGsHeroes32]

I honestly don't mind Heldt getting those last 3-5 minutes.   He didn't drag the team down, had a nice putback, was active and awkward.    He held(t) up his end.

Yeah like I said during that game the issue was Matt and Wally were our best guys on the floor at that time. They should be pitching in. Not the only guys competent.

JJJ didn't do anything then got hurt. Duane and Traci both looked horrid.

Definitely wasn't on Matt that stretch.

[tower912]

11. Buck it up, Tower. You failed US in crunch time today - your thoughts were 45 minutes late.

A poorly timed car fire will do that.  Citizenry is so inconsiderate.

[brandx]

A poorly timed car fire will do that.  Citizenry is so inconsiderate.

Hope all is well.

[tower912]

Not my car.  But it was my paperwork.

[The Lens]

Henry was scared to shoot, because every time he touched a defender it was an offensive foul for him.

I think Henry deserves everyone of his charge calls.  He needs to tighten up his moves. Everything is telegraphed right now.

2 charges
2 shots blocked (at least)

[tower912]

Marquette struggled again with athletic forwards.

[mileskishnish72]

I think today's game shows how hard it is to produce a good effort repeatedly. Maybe they were too psyched after the Prov win maybe they thought SJU (missing an important contributor) would be easy - who knows? It seemed like they came out thinking Hey, we just beat the #8 team in the country at their place, this should be easy. The Big East (even the new Big East) is going to be a grind, game after game. We got a lotta kids just a dozen or so games out of high school - consistency is not to be expected. Here's hoping they develop the mind set to put out a great effort game after game.

[dgies9156]

Some additional thoughts:

A) From Section 214, this looked like one of the worst officiated games in a long time. It wasn't that the refs were bad, it was that they were inconsistent and at times looked like they were waiting for a peer to blow a whistle.

B) If there is such a thing as a bad win, this was it. The guys tried hard, yes. But the defense was suspect and the  failure to adjust by Luke especially was galling. The fifth foul on Luke was just, sorry Luke, nothing personal, but the foul was a stupid foul. The three point shooting in the first half drove me batty!

C) I kept saying, "they are still freshmen... they are still freshmen!" The sloppiness on the floor was appalling.

D) As Wojo said in the post game, when the team gets into its offense, good things happen. Our guys are quick and our best possessions came when we whipped the ball around the defense and found the open guy.

E) Beginning to see Wojo's fingerprints on this team. Love the hustle and willingness to get dirty chasing and diving for loose balls. These guys are scrappy and I really liked Traci Carter's defense.

F) The team would drive Al crazy, but he would see the potential in it.

G) Were we looking past St. John's given who is coming Wednesday?

H) Is it possible this team just plays better on the road than at home? Do we have a group of Road Warriors?  We'll find out Wednesday!

[brewcity77]

Not my car.  But it was my paperwork.

LOL. I feel your pain.

[mug644]

Some additional thoughts:

B) If there is such a thing as a bad win, this was it. The guys tried hard, yes. But the defense was suspect and the  failure to adjust by Luke especially was galling. The fifth foul on Luke was just, sorry Luke, nothing personal, but the foul was a stupid foul. The three point shooting in the first half drove me batty!

G) Were we looking past St. John's given who is coming Wednesday?

B) I felt like it was Luke's 3rd (or 4th?) foul was especially unwise, when he stepped out from behind a pick way out beyond the 3-pt line. He needed to play smarter.

G) I think Wednesday's game is AT Villanova, right? There's no way this team is good enough to look beyond even St. John's at home to going on the road at Villanova. Have we ever won in Philly?

[brewcity77]

G) I think Wednesday's game is AT Villanova, right? There's no way this team is good enough to look beyond even St. John's at home to going on the road at Villanova. Have we ever won in Philly?

2012 was the last time. They play in two facilities, the on campus one is a house of horrors, but I believe we may actually have a winning record at the other (Wells Fargo).