Best I can tell, on a quick perusal of the Interwebz, St. John's is to the Big East as Pitt is to the ACC.
Meet the St. John’s Red Storm!
Duke takes a brief trip out of Atlantic Coast Conference play to face a local New York City team in Madison Square Garden on Saturday night. It’s also an opportunity to continue practicing improved defense and allowing the guards to get into rhythm against a struggling team. St. John’s enters the game on 10-game losing streak that will likely grow to 11 when they face Xavier this evening. The Red Storm are without second-leading scorer, guard Marcus Lovett, lost to an injury in November. Without him, the team has really scuffled to a record of 10-12.
Where do the Red Storm struggles? When they have the ball. They are 309th in the nation in 3-point shooting at 32.2%. This is in large part due to leading scorer Sophomore guard Shamorie Ponds. While he has an impressive stat line of 19.1 pts/5.1 reb/4.7 ast per game, he shoots 6 3’s a game at a rate that would make Trevon Duval blush (20.3%). Overall, the Red Storm have an effective FG% of 47.6%, 296th in the nation. And when they miss, the undersized team doesn’t generate many additional looks. Their offensive rebounding rate is 24.9% (238th). In sum, they are a pretty bad rebounding team.
It’s a small team, lacking a wide-body in the starting lineup. They have length, but not a lot of heft. Starters include:
Sophomore G Shamorie Ponds (6’1”, 170 lbs.)
Sophomore G Justin Simon (6’5”, 185 lbs.)
Senior G Bashir Ahmed (6’7”, 210 lbs.)
Junior F Marvin Clark (6’6”, 225 lbs.)
Junior F Tariq Owens (6’10”, 205 lbs.)
Coming off the bench are freshman guard Bryan Trimble, Jr. (6’3”, 220 lbs.), Junior forward Kassoum Yakwe (6’7”, 200 lbs.) from Mali, and Senior forward Amar Alibeqovic (6’9”, 230 bls.) from Italy. The forwards are going to struggle to guard Duke’s duo of Marvin Bagley III, who has about 5” in height on Marvin Clark, and Wendell Carter, Jr., who has about 50 pounds on Tariq Owens.
On the defensive end, the Red Storm are pretty good. Let’s focus first on their weakest area. They allow 38.7% shooting for 3, which is 322nd in that nation. Once teams get inside the arc, things are a little different. St. Johns is surprisingly stout (15th) in 2-point defense. They are in the top 10 in the nation in block % (10.4%/7th), and steal % (10.7%). Their identity is clearly on the defensive end. Expect an ugly game.
In the end, I think Duke’s overwhelming size up front and the bright lights of Madison Square Garden will propel Duke to victory. I hope to see strong play from Grayson and Gary, building off of the game against Notre Dame. The ability to get easy baskets near the rim will negate the Red Storm advantages on defense. I am concerned about their ability to generate steals and blocks, getting easy brackets.
Best I can tell, on a quick perusal of the Interwebz, St. John's is to the Big East as Pitt is to the ACC.
"Amazing what a minute can do."
How ironic that a team coached by Chris Mullin can’t shoot from outside!
Last edited by MChambers; 01-30-2018 at 12:08 PM. Reason: Mispelling
As some know, I am a prof at St. John's. So far, no buzz on campus about the matchup, other when folks see my Duke stuff in my office.
St. john’s Now has lost 5 single-digit games to Nova, Xavier, and Creighton. We don’t need to overlook them.
St. John's was within 1 point of Xavier with under a minute left (after missing 1 of 2 free throws).
Let's hope a bootsy don't show up
And hopefully we get to hear gus Johnson!
There's obviously an important game next thursday. Hope the team isn't looking to that one yet -- though it's pretty hard to 'overlook' playing a game in Madison Square Garden.. a first, I assume, for many of these young kids but definitely not the last. Though I would be disappointed with anything less than a convincing win against a mediocre-at-best opponent, I will be watching two things: Grayson's shot and Duke's defense.
A strong showing from G, a strong showing from the D, and a comfortable win will make me feel pretty good going into the big week ahead.
Yup, it is easy to look at 0-11 in the BEast and just assume they are trash. Doing that would be a big mistake. They are a pretty good team, just one that cannot seem to close out close games. As the Xavier coach said last night, "That's the best 0-11 team I have ever seen."
Why are you wasting time here when you could be wasting it by listening to the latest episode of the DBR Podcast?
Right, St. John's is ranked in the 75 to 100 range, just like BC and NCSU (before Markell Johnson returned) were when Duke lost on the road to those two teams.
Beating the Johnnies comfortably would further show that Duke is now a different team.
I watched the last 5 minutes of the St. John's/Xavier game last night, and SJU absolutely had a chance to win that game. As mentioned in this thread, they are pesky on defense, and have a great scorer in Ponds. That said, they only played 7 players and really faltered down the stretch. There was one atrocious foul call on SJU that led to free throws to Xavier, but aside from that, SJU displayed some horrible decision making in the final minute. What was a winnable game turned into one that they deserved to lose, just based on their late-game execution.
They are absolutely not a pushover. In fact, they are the second best team with a losing record in KenPom's rankings, just one spot behind Vanderbilt. They are also 328th in KenPom's luck metric, another indication that they are much better than their 0-11 conference record would suggest.
From my limited scouting report, our bigs should be able to dominate the paint. The question will be if we can keep our turnovers to a minimum and not let Ponds abuse us on the other end of the floor. He's a good test for our recently improved defense.