Big East Tournament - St. John's

So this is it. We are less than an hour away from the beginning of the so-called “second season” . . . the Big East tournament. The beginning of our first season (the regular season) started off with a bang. We were predicted to finish 7^th in the league (wouldn’t that be nice right now?) but we played like one of the top teams in the league and ended up beating two of the top teams in the country – one on the road. We beat Syracuse soundly at home and played Duke tough and after that the wheels came off.

Why that was we will never know for sure. There are many explanations but the bottom line is that we never looked the same after that game. Rumors abound (maybe not so much but there were some rumors) of internal discord on the team: an argument between Jessie Sapp and Chris Wright on the court – the senior leader who had his worst season as a Hoya or certainly the season during which his play fell the furthest behind how well he was expected to play and the sophomore PG with freshman level of experience who will presumably be the leader of the Hoyas in the future. If those two actually don’t get along, that would create huge problems for the team. Was it some selfish bad apple of a player who didn’t know how to play nice or play at all with his teammates? Summers? Monroe? Who knows.

One this is for sure Monroe did not recover from that technical foul called on him while he was on the bench and I don’t know that he ever played consistently well from the Duke game forward like he did at the beginning of the season. Another thing is sure, we never were able to play consistently since then. Players seemed to be trying to do too much at the wrong time (jacking up 3’s, driving overly aggressively to the hole and passing up open teammates) or doing too little at the wrong time (passing up lay-ups or easy inside baskets to make an extra pass). If you think about those kinds of mistakes, you forget more about the players-don’t-get-along-chemistry theory of the downfall and just think more about a young team that just couldn’t figure out a system having players who were used to taking over games themselves. Now that those guys were in leadership roles, their tendency was to try to take a game over rather than play within a system. Whereas last year, Freeman, Wright, Summers and even Sapp were never asked to take over games because they weren’t leaders on the team or the primary go-to-guy, they would have been more likely to stick to the system and make big plays within the system. This season, when they were supposed to lead, they forgot the system and went outside it when it came down to crunch time whether in the game or even within one 35 second possession. Then you add in Monroe who is just learning the system and you have a total mess when it comes to how the team is going to play when it really counts.

So then the theory is more that this is a young team whose senior leader did a disappearing act leaving a huge void in leadership and knowledge of the system on the floor leading to players thinking too much at times and the when being told they were thinking too much (or realizing they were thinking too much) swinging in the other direction and reacting too much. But then why do so well at the beginning of the year when they would know even less about the system? My only explanation for that (if you are scrapping the idea that something happened during or right after the Duke game and the players do not get along) is that a young team when faced with expectations has a harder time living up to them then when there are no expectations, and/or young teams are likely to believe their hype and think they can just show up on the floor or in practice and just win games because they beat Uconn on the road.

Either way, as much as I would like to see everything click and have these Hoyas get it together and put together a nice string of wins, we have all been waiting for something to click all year and it has not. It is March Madness and anything can happen but it is not likely that anything will click this year. There will be no magical ending to this season. Hopefully, though, if nobody goes to the NBA and nobody transfers, this will be the year that all of our players chalk up to a learning experience; JTIII shows any doubters out there that he still has it; and this same team does something special next year. I think we all got caught up in the possibility of this year being the year given how good they looked early on, but the reality is that we won’t know until the end of next season what this season really meant. That being said, I’ve got my fingers crossed and hope that we at least show some level of manhood and get ourselves to the semis of the BET. That’s a lot to ask but it would be enough to end the season on a high note and increase the possibility of next year being the real thing.

Monroe's "Technical"

Absolutely brutal call. Here is Bilas' take which i agree with completely. People are going nuts in that stadium and Coach K is known for going crazy cursing even at his own players so even if Monroe said something ( and it looks like he didn't), that T should never have been killed.

http://sports.chronicleblogs.com/2009/01/18/what-did-greg-monroe-say-and-how-do-we-know/

UPDATE: ESPN analyst (and Duke alumnus) Jay Bilas, who was sitting on press row, weighs in:

I didn't hear the warning given to the Georgetown bench in the first five minutes of the second half with Duke leading 46-42. But I did see the reaction of Hoya freshman Greg Monroe when official John Cahill whistled Monroe for a technical foul (his fourth personal). Cahill's back was turned to the Georgetown bench, then he turned around and called the technical on Monroe. Monroe reacted immediately, protesting that he said nothing, and pointed behind him to a fan. If Monroe was acting, he certainly fooled me. Georgetown didn't lose because of that technical foul, but it was certainly a major factor in the game. I am not saying Monroe didn't say anything because I don't know. All I know is, if the official had ignored what he had heard behind his back and the technical foul call had not been made, nobody in the building or watching the game on television would have noticed a thing.

The technical foul call raises a couple of questions. First, was that technical call really necessary? To me, the answer is no, even though it may have been justifiable. The official's back was to the bench, and he could not reasonably be expected to identify the culprit in that loud atmosphere. In my judgment, the official should have ignored it and moved on. Both benches were demonstrative and reacted to calls all game long. In my judgment, that was not the right place to draw the line.

Providence

Sorry for the delay but here it goes as far as the victory over the Friars.

Clearly a tale of two halves. I don't know if it was the lay-off in between games, Dajuan Summers foul trouble in the first half and maybe even Monroe's foul trouble in the first half (can't remember but I think he picked up two early fouls), but we looked flat and weak and were making Providence look really good. Having watched the game four days ago, I can't tell you much about the first half but frankly I remember thinking right after the game that I didn't remember much about the first half. I pretty much blocked it out then and there is no real need to dwell on it now, other than to point out that we cannot start off games like that. We can't play that badly and expect to get back into games against better teams. We are young and that is going to happen. We were at home so early mistakes can be made up more easily, and we didn't get down by too much so our mistakes were recoverable. For all I know, it could have been some adjustment that JTIII made. He did switch to a zone in the second half that really did give Providence problems but I can't remember if that happened in the first half or not.

Dajuan getting in foul trouble is killing us but it opened the door for Henry Sims to have a break out game – if playing 15 minutes and scoring like 5 points can be a break-out. I do think that when Sims was in the game on the defensive side of the court, he was anchoring one of the back-sides of the zone we were in and doing a great job. He battled for rebounds even when he didn't get them. Ran the floor well for one of his baskets and had a really nice long outlet chest-pass that he flipped all the way down the court that ended up in a basket. Big thing too was he recognized one of our guards going down court the second he got the rebound on the defensive side which is something you can't teach. He has good instincts and as he gets more confident, he will contribute more and more. He is one of the goofier looking players we have had in a long time with his big ole head and the way he runs the floor barely lifting his feet but he will develop more and more as the year goes on (and we clearly need him because we cannot rely on Julian Vaughn alone for depth in the post) and really contribute. He does have good hands catching an assist from Monroe inside once and when he gets more confidence, he will start to show that he can shoot well for a guy his height. He has to be more aggressive and he will be. He held his own against the big white guy Providence had, and that guy wasn't skinny but realistically he will still get manhandled inside by bigger, older players until he gets his sea legs about him.

Jason Clark with his Inspector Gadget arms and his yo-yo dribble a la John Jacques is starting to show more and more what he can do. He is going to be a factor on the offensive glass all the time and in passing lanes and in transition on defense because he is all over the place with relentless energy and his long arms really throw people off. I just don't think people think he will get to the ball sometimes because of where he is standing or how tall he is and it takes too long for people to adjust to that. 24 minutes for him is huge as is the fact that he was on the floor with the ball in his hands during key stretches in the second half during the big 21-2 run we made on them and when the game got close at the end. Until Jessie Sapp gets out of his shooting slump, Clark might be more effective to have on the floor with Wright than Jessie but I have to believe Sapp will come around. (Jessie was 1-6 and as a team we shot over 50%. When Jessie gets his shot back and Dajuan Summers stops fouling and whining, things could really start taking off for us. In the meantime, Clark and Sims benefit with playing time and will hopefully continue to respond. We can't always count on the freshman though).

Wright and Freeman broke out of their slumps. They shot a combine 14-21 with Wright going 2-3 from behind the arc. That was great to see and was key to our victory. The reality is that all of that was made possible by Greg Monroe having 13 points 11 rebounds 5 steals and 2 blocks. Most importantly though, he had 8 assists as a center which is ridiculous (I am the master of the obvious). Wright and Freeman don't shoot like that if they aren't being set up by Greg directly or by the fact that he is drawing so much attention and setting up his teammates. Monroe put together most of that stat line in second half which makes what he did even more amazing. You all saw what he did. Any one of the things he does is amazing but what makes him incredible is that he can do all of the things he does. A 6'11" freshman center playing in the Thompson style offense that makes the kinds of passes that he does within the offense in the middle of January is incredible. That he can play as polished and as poised and as in control to fake a pass, see nobody is around him about 15 feet from the hoop, and then just shoot a jumper and drain is calmly is nice. That he breaks down big, strong post defenders with smooth back to the basket post moves spinning and faking and finishing off the glass with his left (are people going to figure out he is a lefty or can they just now stop him? Not sure). And obviously the take your defender off the dribble and dunk on his head and yell and get fouled and complete the three point play is tremendous. And then getting 5 steals? He is all over the floor on both sides of the floor doing everything. The rest of the team better catch up to him fast because nobody should expect the "we have next year" with Monroe and we better have a sense of urgency to get as far with this kid as we can. Monroe as a sophomore at G-town would be a huge gift but we cannot count on it in the least.

It was pretty nice (to say the least) to see freshman Monroe, Sims, Clark with sophomores Freeman and Wright taking control of the game and dominating Providence in the second half. They all huddled together after some foul one of our guys committed and I had visions of those five being our starters next year (assuming Summers is gone to pros and Sapp to graduation) and man did that feel like a team that could really be special. Since that is not likely to be what our starting 5 looks like in 2009-10, we better take advantage of Monroe now. No better time than tonight against the Jonny Flynn show with whiny Boeheim and shady Devendorf and Harris (that kid could kill us tonight by the way) to make a statement building off that second half against the Friars. Go Hoyas. Get it done!

Notre Dame

Coming off the heels of getting crushed by Pitt, this loss to Notre Dame was even harder to swallow. The reality is that in the JTIII era victories for us on a Monday after playing on Saturday have been few and far between and I can almost guarantee that we have not won a road game on Monday in Big East play after playing the previous Saturday. Notre Dame had a 43 game winning streak at home going into tonight's game and had won 18 Big East home games in a row. As a team we did not look very good at all. All of that being said, if we shot by our normal standards from the line (75%) and Notre Dame shot by theirs (65%) instead of us shooting 59% and them shooting 93%, we probably win the game. Tory Jackson, ND's point guard, is a 50% FT shooter but he went 4-4. (missing FT's is a sign of fatigue and since we have no depth and just played on Monday, it is not unexpected that we would shoot worse from the line than normal)

Dajuan Summers getting into early foul trouble did not help. He has also started to show signs of getting way too whiny in games and he seems to get caught up complaining with the refs which would seem to mean that he is being easily distracted and taken out of his game. When he was in the game though, he was extremely effective. He was 5-5 from the line and was taking the ball to the basket with authority. I think two of his fouls were offensive and they were both the result of him being too aggressive. I would hate for him to lose the edge he has gained to his game and his attitude and some players risk that happening if they don't play very amped up, but he has to find a balance. We are not going to beat a good BE team - which is what Notre Dame is, as painful as that is to admit, if we aren't shooting the ball well and missing FT's and not having Dajuan on the floor. The kid played 22 minutes and had 11 points. If he had kept his head in the game and his a$$ on the floor, he would have put up 18 if not more. They were not stopping him.

Chris Wright had another sub-par game. He can't go 5-14 from the floor and 1-6 from three point land. I don't know if people have figured him out already or what but he seemed to force things at times. That being said, when he was on, he was really on and they couldn't stop him either. He seemed to get too excited and emotional during the game and he does not seem to be able to play well that way.

It was very disappointing that we wasted two good bench contributions. Jason Clark played 24 minutes and had 5 points, 2 blocks, 3 assists and 4 rebounds and made his presence felt on the defensive end. He even goal-tended one of Hangody's shots (don't even get me started on that pig. I think I have to give some relectant and overdue props to Hibbert because Harangody never, ever was able to do what he did last night against us when Roy was around, clearly can't have somebody go for 30+ points and 10+ rebounds against us and expect to win either.) He will continue to develop as the season goes on and will help us a lot. More importantly was that Henry Sims was on the floor for over ten minutes and didn't look completely lost. His follow-up dunk was nice. He needs to get his confidence up and go ahead and take some of the shots the defense was giving him. He can hit the mid-range jumper. If only we could get Sims to think he is as good offensively as Vaughn thinks he is, then we might have something. . . The stat line shows Sims only getting two rebounds but I seem to remember them being pretty nice rebounds because they stood out to me. Maybe it was just those two. Can we say that he should get a little star next to each rebound he got at least? They were good boards. Anyway, good to see that he and Clark were on the court and contributing.

Freeman was a non-factor. We could have used some help from him tonight and God bless Jessie Sapp but 7 points on 2-7 shooting isn't going to cut it either from our senior leader. All of this leads me to Monroe . . . .

You all saw what he can do. He is a multi-dimensional player on both sides of the court. So many things to point out but one thing that really stood out to me was that no look, back-to- the- basket(may not have been back to the basket but whatever) kind of wrap-around interior bounce pass he threw to Summers who threw it down hard. That was a sick play. He is really good. He needs to stay another year or we need to grow up around him really fast because he is the kind of guy you can win something with.

We now have to beat Providence.

Where will the Hoyas be ranked after losing to Pitt?

Hard to say. I think we kind of stay put where we are. None of it will matter that much unless Pitt or Uconn drop really far in the rankings. I just hope we step up tonight against Notre Dame and if we do we will cure any drop we have in the standings.

Last few years we have done terribly on Mondays after Saturday games. Notre Dame played on Saturday too and lost to St. John's and apparently got outrebounded bad by the Johnnies. Not as bad as we did by PItt but then again St. John's is not nearly as good as the Panthers so that is kind of a wash as to who had a worse rebounding performance.

Fact of the matter is that Pitt matches up extremely well against us and we have matched up extremely well against Notre Dame. They do not have big athletic, strong people inside and are a perimeter shooting team so we should do well against them rebounding-wise and if we can do that, we should beat them.

As to our depth, we don't have much of it but our biggest depth problem is lack of big men which kills us against Pitt. Our depth is not nearly as bad at the guard position and doesn't hurt us as badly against teams with slower big guys (Dajuan Blair is the prototypical big man to kill us; Notre Dame does not have Dajuan Blair)

Wattad will be much more effective in a game against slower players like Notre Dame has and Jason Clark should be able to contribute as well off the bench. In a game where we are getting killed on the boards, bringing in Wattad and Clark is useless (obviously) but against a perimeter team, our depth problems are not as exposed.

Also, as bad as Julian Vaughn looked against Pitt, he played well against a slower less athletic Thabeet so I think he should be effective against Harangoody. Vaughn is just an inconsistent player right now. He was that way even in the summer league with his effectiveness rising and falling depending on the pace of the game and the type of player he was against.

By the way, anybody else notice that Pitt did a great job against Chris Wright? He was not getting in the lane and was not putting any kind of pressure on Pitt's defense as he has done in the past. That should not happen against Notre Dame. Levance Fields was getting around Chris pretty routinely as well. It will be interesting to see how Wright bounces back. You take away Wright's penetration and you pretty much neuter a big part of our offense and it is always better to have a full pair . . . especially against a team like Pitt. Anyway, go Hoyas! let's spank Notre Dame the way we just got beat by Pitt. We have their number like Pitt has ours. Hopefully we can get Pitt at the end of the year . . . .

DC Basektball Challenge

Kind of a misnomer since neither installment was a challenge for our Hoyas. Maryland was destroyed by our balanced, perfectly executed JTIII offense (improved version of the Pete Carril Princeton offense) and our stifling defense. Gervaise Vasquez went 1-7 with 4 turnovers and 0 assists. He was averaging 20 points a game before playing us and scored 20 against Michigan after playing us. Maryland looked overwhelmed and lost on the court. They were either completely unprepared for our offense or just incapable of stopping it. Either way it was the final proof needed for me that our program is on the rise and theirs is a mess. Had the Terps won against us, they would have at the very least been able to jump start their local recruiting - a battle they are losing against us every year. And if those fools try to act like they aren't after the guys we recruit locally, it is common knowledge that the Terps went hard after Freeman and Wright which must have made the beating we put on them hurt even more.

As for Part II of the DC Basketball Challenge, we were up 40-12 over American. I only started taping the game at 2:00, forgetting that we started playing at 1:00. Needless to say, when I saw that American outscored us by a few points in the second half, it was clear to me that we had to have taken our collective foot off the pedal. It didn't seem worth watching the second half of that game so I didn't. I would be promising to give you a more detailed review of tonight's game against Savannah State but it is not on TV at all. We can expect to beat this team pretty badly too and to get some minutes for our back-ups. These games would be pretty worthless for the development of our young team but since they are mixed in with some tough games, I think they do serve a purpose because we need all the experience playing together as a team that we can get.

Tennessee (L 90-78)

Game was much closer than the score indicates.

It was a punch/counter-punch game between two solid, athletic teams playing at a high level. 20 and 25 turnovers is a lot for both teams, but the turnovers were much more a function of good defense than sloppy play. Looking at the numbers from the box score, the game was evenly matched. Tennessee did not out-rebound us by that much; but they seemed to dominate the boards during that final run that erased our 6-8 point lead and gave them the lead they held onto for the win.

At the beginning of the game when we got early lead and were in zone defense we were limiting them one shot. They simply shot over the zone and kept themselves in the game. But we probably built a small rebounding edge at the beginning of the first half. In the end though, they out-rebounded us. It was their length at the guard and small forward position (something that was striking and immediately obvious at the beginning of the game) and their three-point shooting that got us. They hit a lot of threes off second opportunities. We shot the ball very well too, but really had trouble in-bounding the ball off their made shots coming out from under our basket. All of that, plus the freakish 17-point performance from Tatum (that freshman phucker!), who shot 5-6 from three-point land in sixteen minutes of play did us in. Just like Wattad's 9 points on 3-3 threes got us a lead, Tatum's 17-point performance caught us equally off guard. They got in the last punch.

Another number that jumps out is Monroe playing only 27 minutes despite being 5-6 from field. There was a stretch for Tennessee's final run when we had the lead and Monroe was on the bench. They had no answer for him. He should have been in. An extra push when we were up with Monroe in the game could have been the backbreaker for Tennessee. Maybe Tennessee's defense took Monroe away from us, but we got away from him too early and if Wattad is that hot, you have to have him shoot at least 6-8 threes or run more plays for him. It is clear now why Wattad is on the floor. He can shoot but he can't hang defensively or ball handle that well so if he is out there, you must go to him. Otherwise his possible contributions to the team are wasted and all you get is a guy who can't defend or ball handle that well on the floor.

Four out of five of the Tennessee starters are juniors and at least two if not three of them were significant contributors last year. They are a much more finished product than we are right now. At least we rose to the occasion and played our best game of the year against the best team we have played so far. I found myself thinking that each of our guys played good defense - - yet they scored 90 points and shot over 50% so that can't really be the case. We also had no blocked shots. I would love to catch them in March though.

Now we must beat Maryland. We are winning the recruiting battle locally and their program is on the ropes. A win for them over us can jumpstart things for them, even if it is just with local recruits.