Positives?

[zebnatto]

okay, we were soundly beaten, but any positives?

1) the classic learning experience;
2) more bullish on MM—plays aggressively and with attitude, he was the only one to really attack the rim which down the road is his game;
3) see a ton of upside in Harper and Johnson.

 

[kcg88]

I honestly don't think we got outplayed badly for the first 25-28 minutes. We need to hit free throws obviously but it was an 8-point game with like 14:00 left and that was with them outshooting us by a good margin.

SJU beat Nebraska by 23 exactly one year prior (November 16 2017) when the Huskers shot poorly. It happens.

 

[RU82]

Agree with OP. I think we saw some reasons to be bullish on the three freshman. Johnson especially is just scratching the surface of the player he can become.

 

[Jim_from_RU]

We’re gonna be fine.

 

[bac2therac]

Harper Jr and Johnson....showed that they belonged...huge

 

[RUTrack94]

Team fought to get the loss under 20 when it could have been 30 or more

 

[BellyFullOfWhiteDogCrap]

Mathis is going to be a beast attacking the basket in years to come. His outside shot is good, and will improve. Scoring machine in the making.

Harper is going to be a star. So smooth and poised for a freshman. We'll be able to play him at the 2, 3, or 4. Defense is better than advertised and will continue to improve.

Myles will become a dominant big man on both ends of the floor.

How's that for positives?
Lastly....patience. We won't see all of the above this season, but we will eventually see it.

 

[BigEastPhil]

Zeb - Pleasure meeting you last night. Phil

 

[Mr. Magoo1]

Mathis is going to be a beast attacking the basket in years to come. His outside shot is good, and will improve. Scoring machine in the making.

Harper is going to be a star. So smooth and poised for a freshman. We'll be able to play him at the 2, 3, or 4. Defense is better than advertised and will continue to improve.

Myles will become a dominant big man on both ends of the floor.

How's that for positives?
Lastly....patience. We won't see all of the above this season, but we will eventually see it.

Totally agree with you on Harper and Johnson. Both could easily start but I kind of like Harper off the bench right now. I think Mathis will be fine but will take longer than I expected. I had thought he would be the type of player who could have started from day 1 on this team but that’s not the case.

 

[zebnatto]

Zeb - Pleasure meeting you last night. Phil

Likewise, Phil. Hope you saw my thanks in a different thread. And again thanks for the square deal on the ticket.

 

[satnom]

Kudos to the Johnnies. They shot their brains out and more than deserved the W. What has me optimistic about RU is that we missed a ton of shots from 3 range and the charity stripe and scored 65 pts. Our defense needs to improve but not many teams are going to have their 5 offensive players stand outside the 3 pt line during sets looking to shoot 3s and then hit 50% of those shots. That’s like Golden St Warriors good. Don’t think many teams will have the personnel to do this again to RU but I think Pike will respond differently with the lineup if it’s tried again by an opponent. I actually feel pretty good about RU averaging in the low 70s in pts per game and that will get RU a good amount of wins. Interested to see how the team responds tomorrow.

GO RU

 

[RUBigFrank]

We will be fine - expectation and goal should be a winning season.

Johnnies are a top twenty team (maybe top 15).

 

[bowlgoal]

Nothing to worry about. Bounce back against EMU. Keep coming back. There will be losses but a few surprise wins. This is the beginning of the rebuild

 

[G- RUnit]

St. Johns looked Sweet 16 good and we hung in there despite shooting poorly.

Good learning experience. Move on. We'll be fine.

 

[Greene Rice FIG]

POSITIVES....Johnson, Mathis, and Harper Jr.

My biggest fear coming in to the season were newcomers not ready to give minutes. These 3 put the light on at the end of the tunnel.

 

[RUChoppin]

- We likely won't see a 1-2-3 as talented as that the rest of the way
- We won't see a team that runs their sets with five guys outside the arc the rest of the way, either
- Mathis looked a bit more comfortable, and Harper looks like he belongs
- Doorson looked more mobile than he has in the past
- Managed to keep it a game for most of the first half despite an extremely cold start shooting. With 2 minutes left before halftime, we were 2-15 (13%) from three and 1-8 (13%) from the line, and only down 5 points.

 

[Greene Rice FIG]

- Managed to keep it a game for most of the first half despite an extremely cold start shooting. With 2 minutes left before halftime, we were 2-15 (13%) from three and 1-8 (13%) from the line, and only down 5 points.

We looked at the board at the same time. I said 5-15 and 6-8 had us up by 9. Similar math had the game even pretty late when we were down 18.

We could/should have done better with our perimeter defense, but many of those shots were contested.