Ramble On ... Starting Over

Click on the Ramble On headline above to see the play-by-play of the DePaul at St. John's game played Saturday, Jan. 12th at Carnesecca Arena (formerly Alumni Hall). It shows the fact that the Johnnies were up by nine with about 16 minutes left. It shows the Johnnies up 41-35 with 9:25 left.

Then, it shows the DePaul Blue Demons up 51-41 at the 4:43 mark.

St. John's cut it to 51-48 when Larry Wright made a 3-pointer with 2:07 left. but DePaul took control down the stretch, hit their free throws and won, 60-54, to a sparse crowd of boo-birds in Queens.

It was far worse than the play-by-play indicates.

The St. John's faithful is calling for coach Norm Roberts' head.

To his credit in a post game interview on radio, Roberts spoke frankly and admitted the obvious team falts to strong, pointed questions from Tarik Turner.

Too many turnovers.
Forcing the ball into people that St. John's should not be forcing the ball into (Gene Lawrence into Tomas Jasilionis).
Soft, lazy passes.
Missing easy close-range shots - over and over again.

Roberts, now mid-way in January and in the BIG EAST season, is searching for combinations in his lineup. No shooting. Nof offensive fluidity. Poor defense.

If he plays Larry Wright (decent, not great shooter), he loses size and defense. Wright can't guard anyone at Div I level, never mind the BIG EAST.

If he goes with size and added rebounding with Jasilionis, he allows the offense to be stagnated by the presence of the big Lithuanian who can't shoot or pass at all.

Malik Boothe certainly ran the team far better than Eugene Lawrence can, but Boothe can't shoot at all.

Here is the sentiment, copied/psted from a St. John's fan bulletin board on Redmen.com:

Usually we stay til the bitter end, but this game..

I don't know..

I've had season tickets with my buddy the last 5 years, and we've sat through some horrible, dreadful, basketball.

And yet this is the angriest I've ever been. And you could sense it from everyone in the crowd. If someone wants to challenge my point, feel free, but I can't remember an Alumni Hall crowd as fed up and more importantly, "NYC sarcastic" as this one was. The cheers during a couple of the substitions at the end - by the way Norm, 16-0 run and NO SUBS???????? - said it all.

I always want the "W" obviously. I really wanted it today watching those fans behind the DePaul bench.

Whatever.

I'm the idiot who continues buying the season tickets.

The St. John's loss was underscored when I headed home to watch ND at Marquette in a BIG EAST matchup and I watched with amazement as a sold out Rupp Arena in Lexington helped Kentucky upset previously undefeated Vanderbilt in double OT.

I long for the days when St. John's would (could) sell-out at their 6,000-seat disgrace of an arena in Queens -- nevermind a sellout at the 19,500+ seat Garden. What happened?

Can it all be blamed on Mike Jarvis?

Yes.