Sights and sounds on a Saturday afternoon
The crowd was loud but sparse. Very disappointing considering the teams involved, especially when one is the home town Pirates.
The weather might have been a slight factor, but that's just a minor excuse. 2-3 inches of snow is not that difficult to traverse.
The play was sloppy early on as is usually the case in tournament settings. More so from the visiting team who played their first true 'road' game of the year.
VCU stayed in the game early on despite a slew of turnovers because of the usual Seton Hall bugaboo, dribble penetration. Williams got inside the Hall's defense repeatedly dishing off or taking it to the hole.
It was no coincidence that VCU stopped scoring when Ish entered the game. That's when the separation occurred.
Injured or not Sanogo is incredibly valuable to the Pirates even when he doesn't score a point. Yesterday was no different. He only played 13 minutes and it seemed in that short time span VCU didn't score a point with him on the court.
Totally bottled Tillman up as the Ram's top scorer put up most of his points in the second half with Ish watching from the bench.
Loved Carrington's play yesterday. The stats don't tell the story (4 assists, 3 turnovers). He ran the offense to near perfection and had little trouble coping with the VCU press.
Two of his turnovers were more the result of happenstance than anything else. One a retaliatory elbow on a play that Carrington felt he was being pushed by multiple defenders and another a near perfect bounce pass to a cutting Rodriquez that just missed being a spectacular play coming out of a time out.
Kudos to his back up Eron Gordon who once again played to his abilities and didn't hurt the Pirates when Deeno had to take a blow.
Speaking of kudos...I was critical early in the year regarding the use of the bench by Kevin Willard. No more. The last few games I have not seen a better job of using the rotation players to give the starters a blow.
And on that note does anyone see similarities between Myles Cale and the Tasmanian Devil?
Not sure which one has a higher metabolism.
Because of Sanogo's tweaked ankle Mike Nzei got the start. Initially he did a nice job on Tillman but in the second half he struggled guarding the Ram's star player. That said he more than made up for it on the other end of the court hitting all but one of his 8 shots, with the miss being blocked out of bounds.
Nice to see Walker on the bench without the cast on his right hand.
Yesterday I saw the best ball and player movement from the Hall that I have seen in a very long time. Players were looking for each other as much as they were focusing on the basket. The result was 20 assists with many of them leading to very easy baskets.
Jay Wright would have been proud.
To start the second half the Hall's defense was very spotty (where have you gone Ish) but fortunately for the Pirates Desi put on his Magic Johnson cape making pass after pass leading to a slew of easy SHU buckets.
So nice when your leading scorer is not worrying about stats and the reason 5 SHU players totaled between 13 and 17 points.
Myles Powell's BB IQ is big time. He's so much more than just a shooter. He hustles (his save in the second half flying out of bounds to stop a VCU rush and get the ball to a teammate was a thing of beauty), he sees teammates all over the court (5 assists), he understands offensive court balance (where to go to give the passer the best angle possible) and he knows when to take it to the hole (instead of shooting from range when a defender is flying at him).
The team took a page out of the NJ Devils playbook yesterday head manning the puck, I mean ball, often leading to easy run outs or odd man breaks. And they did this in transition not just off fefensive rebounds.
SHU still needs to work on its own transition defense. Not terrible yesterday but not good either.
Nice to see the players giving total effort from the opening tip. With exams coming up and after playing two emotionally charged games against top 25 competition some (me) feared a letdown. It didn't happen.
The staff had the players prepared and the roster responded in kind.
The atmosphere yesterday thanks to various Geico's gimmicks during time outs and during the halftime break was excellent. Geico kept the fans entertained with their emoji bit, Simon Sez competition, heartfelt tribute to those that lost loved ones back in 9/11, the battle of the bands and other such distractions.
Much better job than what usually occurs at SHU home games.
Bottom line, not the most impressive win this season but IMO the Hall showed its potential more so yesterday than in any other game to date.
After the game I saw and talked to John Paquette of the Big East. He just wanted to converse about the league and knew everything that happened regarding the conference teams. Was disappointed that Providence lost but proud that everyone else went home with Ws.
Also shared with Jerry Carino and myself that he thinks this is the best SHU team since Terry Dehere's senior season.
The crowd was loud but sparse. Very disappointing considering the teams involved, especially when one is the home town Pirates.
The weather might have been a slight factor, but that's just a minor excuse. 2-3 inches of snow is not that difficult to traverse.
The play was sloppy early on as is usually the case in tournament settings. More so from the visiting team who played their first true 'road' game of the year.
VCU stayed in the game early on despite a slew of turnovers because of the usual Seton Hall bugaboo, dribble penetration. Williams got inside the Hall's defense repeatedly dishing off or taking it to the hole.
It was no coincidence that VCU stopped scoring when Ish entered the game. That's when the separation occurred.
Injured or not Sanogo is incredibly valuable to the Pirates even when he doesn't score a point. Yesterday was no different. He only played 13 minutes and it seemed in that short time span VCU didn't score a point with him on the court.
Totally bottled Tillman up as the Ram's top scorer put up most of his points in the second half with Ish watching from the bench.
Loved Carrington's play yesterday. The stats don't tell the story (4 assists, 3 turnovers). He ran the offense to near perfection and had little trouble coping with the VCU press.
Two of his turnovers were more the result of happenstance than anything else. One a retaliatory elbow on a play that Carrington felt he was being pushed by multiple defenders and another a near perfect bounce pass to a cutting Rodriquez that just missed being a spectacular play coming out of a time out.
Kudos to his back up Eron Gordon who once again played to his abilities and didn't hurt the Pirates when Deeno had to take a blow.
Speaking of kudos...I was critical early in the year regarding the use of the bench by Kevin Willard. No more. The last few games I have not seen a better job of using the rotation players to give the starters a blow.
And on that note does anyone see similarities between Myles Cale and the Tasmanian Devil?
Not sure which one has a higher metabolism.
Because of Sanogo's tweaked ankle Mike Nzei got the start. Initially he did a nice job on Tillman but in the second half he struggled guarding the Ram's star player. That said he more than made up for it on the other end of the court hitting all but one of his 8 shots, with the miss being blocked out of bounds.
Nice to see Walker on the bench without the cast on his right hand.
Yesterday I saw the best ball and player movement from the Hall that I have seen in a very long time. Players were looking for each other as much as they were focusing on the basket. The result was 20 assists with many of them leading to very easy baskets.
Jay Wright would have been proud.
To start the second half the Hall's defense was very spotty (where have you gone Ish) but fortunately for the Pirates Desi put on his Magic Johnson cape making pass after pass leading to a slew of easy SHU buckets.
So nice when your leading scorer is not worrying about stats and the reason 5 SHU players totaled between 13 and 17 points.
Myles Powell's BB IQ is big time. He's so much more than just a shooter. He hustles (his save in the second half flying out of bounds to stop a VCU rush and get the ball to a teammate was a thing of beauty), he sees teammates all over the court (5 assists), he understands offensive court balance (where to go to give the passer the best angle possible) and he knows when to take it to the hole (instead of shooting from range when a defender is flying at him).
The team took a page out of the NJ Devils playbook yesterday head manning the puck, I mean ball, often leading to easy run outs or odd man breaks. And they did this in transition not just off fefensive rebounds.
SHU still needs to work on its own transition defense. Not terrible yesterday but not good either.
Nice to see the players giving total effort from the opening tip. With exams coming up and after playing two emotionally charged games against top 25 competition some (me) feared a letdown. It didn't happen.
The staff had the players prepared and the roster responded in kind.
The atmosphere yesterday thanks to various Geico's gimmicks during time outs and during the halftime break was excellent. Geico kept the fans entertained with their emoji bit, Simon Sez competition, heartfelt tribute to those that lost loved ones back in 9/11, the battle of the bands and other such distractions.
Much better job than what usually occurs at SHU home games.
Bottom line, not the most impressive win this season but IMO the Hall showed its potential more so yesterday than in any other game to date.
After the game I saw and talked to John Paquette of the Big East. He just wanted to converse about the league and knew everything that happened regarding the conference teams. Was disappointed that Providence lost but proud that everyone else went home with Ws.
Also shared with Jerry Carino and myself that he thinks this is the best SHU team since Terry Dehere's senior season.
