Game Thread: Xavier vs. St. John's (February 17, 2020) Big East Conference Game

[D-West & PO-Z]

Sometimes it’s better to wait than to rush. I go to Bills games and my favorite crowd just waits while cooking wings and watching late games on TV. I get that waiting inside Cintas is far from that, but you just wait and expect to wait.....like getting off a plane. It will happen, eventually, and you can NOT make it go any faster.

Same, my dad has NY Giants season tickets. Now that is traffic! We just tailgate after when we go because you are waiting 2 hours to get on the highway that you can see from the parking lot.

[X-band '01]

It is utterly amazing that Xavier could commit eighteen more turnovers than St. John's and still find a way to win that game. Eighteen extra possessions fpr the Johnnies and they could not take advantage.

Yes, Xavier had 12 more rebounds and a better shooting percentage, but it also felt like St. John's couldn't miss anything in between the first four minutes of the game and the final four minutes of the game. Credit to these guys for not folding up and putting themselves in position to get back to .500 in the conference come Saturday.

[jhelmes37]

My brother in law (who hosted Zion W to a pool party at his house after the prom a couple years ago) is texting me about how much he loves Freemantle. He doesn’t even follow X, but just happened to tune in.

Weird flex, but ok

[Smails]

I don't post during the games (i'm completely incapable) and I find fewer things more enjoying than going through the game thread after a close or sloppy win. I basically relive my emotions the night before in a much more relaxed state.

[xu82]

Weird flex, but ok

He’s very into his college hoops and he was mentioning the Zion night in his texts, so it came out. I don’t hear from him that much, but he kept going on and on about Zach. It was unusual.

[xudash]

Per a post on HolyLandofHoops, 14,000+ paid attendance last night at MSG.

Not bad at all.

Somewhere, in a parallel universe, Xavier still does not have to play at Rose Hill Gym in front of 12 people when we travel to New York.

[Masterofreality]

Per a post on HolyLandofHoops, 14,000+ paid attendance last night at MSG.

Not bad at all.

Somewhere, in a parallel universe, Xavier still does not have to play at Rose Hill Gym in front of 12 people when we travel to New York.

All 12 of those people used to be Xavier fans- including Luther Rackley!

By the way.. I can't stop smiling. I was screaming at the TV at 15 minutes to go for a Zone defense, and finally at the under 8, probably out of desperation at that point, we finally went zone.
Better late than never. And, yeah. Good teams win. Great ones beat the spread.

I also can't contain my excitement for seeing Zach Freemantle and KyKy Tandy for 3 more years after this one. Showing up HUGE in the World's Most Famous Arena.
KyKy is becoming Tu2. Ohhhhhh, Baby!!

[IM4X]

I was at MSG for the game. My takeaway.

1. Always awesome to watch X play at MSG - the absolute best venue for college basketball.

2. Still amazed that X came back and got the W after playing like crap for much of the game. The team certainly didn’t look like they were on a mission to
make sure they didn’t miss the dance for a second year in a row... at least not for the first 36+ min. The light finally turned on with about 3:50 left.

3. I don’t know how much of it you could see on TV, but man did Naji piss off the SJ fans. He kept jawing with some dude under the basket. I’m surprised Steele didn’t say something to him. I don’t mind a little bit of this stuff but it got out of control and ultimately cost the team a few times. I do have to admit it was quite amusing hearing the crowd boo him every time he touched the ball. Maybe a reminiscent of JP - The difference is that JP never seemed to let the crowd distract him from what was going on in the game.

4. 22 turnovers. So many were “grade school level” bad. Naji, Scruggs, Tandy, Jones all had bad ones and even Jason’s only TO was really, really dumb. When you hear your sister and nephew (who were also at the game with me cheering hard for X) commenting on how bad the turnovers are, you realize you are not just being an overly critical alum.

5. It is amazing how mediocre our ball handling is. Naji and Scruggs, driving in the lane and getting stripped again and again is just brutal to watch. Q and Kyky are the best ball handlers we have available- Unfortunately Q can’t make a layup or an outside shot and Kyky, well at least Kyky can get to the rim, make a layup and draw a foul.

6. We still struggle miserably when pressed. Moore especially.

7. It felt a bit strange that the two freshmen looked like the most poised and mature players on the floor last night- and at MSG no less.

8. Frustrating to see SJ get easy buckets because Jones, Marshall, and Scruggs each stopped and moped or complained about a steal or foul not being called on the offensive end, instead of hustling back on defense. Coach????

9. 3 point shooting woes continue... Freemantle and Scruggs shot well. Tandy 0-3. Q 0-2. Naji 0-5... Apparently the SJ fans got in his head.

10. Sad that Q is back to being a complete liability. What the heck is going on with him? What the heck is Steele doing about this situation? Got to try and something coach! Shock therapy? I kid- sort of. How is a senior playing worse than he was when he was a freshmen.

11. Hard to excuse Steele for much of this mess. Players are undisciplined. Not getting to the line enough (only 15 foul shots last night) and continue to shoot worse from the line than their average from previous years. Not getting better with their decision making/passing. Still struggle to break the press. Players still miss easy bunnies. Players continue to dribble into traffic and get stripped. You can see the players are running their own show much of the time, not Steele. This is a serious issue at times. If Travis is finding Q and Naji and Scruggs are not easily coachable, then he had better make sure his future recruits are... and he better make sure he has a better balance of shooters, rebounders and ball handlers. Odom should help with the ball handling and Wilcher should help with the shooting and hopeful Miles can help with rebounding, but it just feels like next year’s team might be in for a rude awakening with rebounding without Jones... and it feels like we need even more shooters than just Wilcher.

12. Ugh, this team has so many damn issues... but at least they pulled out the win.

[JTG]

All 12 of those people used to be Xavier fans- including Luther Rackley!

By the way.. I can't stop smiling. I was screaming at the TV at 15 minutes to go for a Zone defense, and finally at the under 8, probably out of desperation at that point, we finally went zone.
Better late than never. And, yeah. Good teams win. Great ones beat the spread.

I also can't contain my excitement for seeing Zach Freemantle and KyKy Tandy for 3 more years after this one. Showing up HUGE in the World's Most Famous Arena.
KyKy is becoming Tu2. Ohhhhhh, Baby!!

Should we start calling Tandy K2 or TuK ?

[Muskeagle]

I'm not really complaining about the reffing (a little bit obviously), but can we be any unluckier than we've been with Goaltending calls lately? Pretty clear missed offensive goaltending last night. Then the missed defensive goaltending. Last game, Tyrique got called for one that the commentators didn't think was a goaltend. Then there was the halftime heave which probably SHOULD have been called, but I think they sort of felt...well, yeah, but it's a full court heave. Anyway, I think most calls end sort of end up even...but dang, it's a bad run against us on goaltends