Georgetown-Seton Hall Pre-Game Thread

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Seton Hall Game Notes


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[TrueHoyaBlue]

Let's get/keep rolling!

Seton HAll will aim to press our guards, and they've been a good team at forcing turnovers (while taking care of the ball themselves). The drawback for them is lack of depth. They've been playing a 6 or seven man rotation due to injuries, and their two top players, Eugene Harvey and Brian Laing, have been logging 38-40 per game, which is probably starting to wear, given that this will be their fourth game in nine days (St. Johns, @ Notre Dame, Providence, us).


The run that Rivers has gotten in the past few games could prove to be clutch (both in terms of building up his own confidence and in being able to rest Wallace and Jessie). But the keys in this one are gonna be:

1) Break that press. The Hall just doesn't have the depth to keep it going all game, but if we can run off a few easy baskets early, it'll definitely help usher them out of it.

2) Feed the bigs. The SHU frontline consists of 6-11 Grant Billmeier, and 6-7 Brian Laing (with only 6-9 John Garcia off the bench at taller than 6-6, and he only played nine minutes last night, coming off an injury). Getting ROy and Jeff, and PE Jr and Ticket, involved early will rack up the fouls on a team that can't afford to have players in foul trouble.

Other than those two things, it's tough to find fault with what the Hoyas have been doing -- shooting well over 50%, while holding opponents well under 40% (and under 30% from 3).

[TrueHoyaBlue]

So apparently in last night's game w/ Providence, Billmeier went out with a bad knee injury (ACL tear?) -- he seems doubtful for tomorrow night (and the season).

Garcia played, but his time seems limited by conditioning. Chances are the Pirates will not have anyone over 6'7" on the court for most of the game... we're going to need to be really careful about ball-handling, but we should be able to score pretty much every time we get the ball into the frontcourt.

This game is gonna be ugly.

[prhoya]

Take care of the ball, keep them under 40% FGs and make the FTs... we win.

[aggypryd]

Did the team stay in New Jersey or did they come back after the game last night?

[TrueHoyaBlue]

They usually travel to away games the day before, so I can't imagine they would come back for a few hours and then turn right back around and hit the road.

... wonder if they're sneaking a practice at Princeton.

[HealyHoya]

This game may be harder than it looks. SHU forced Providence into 20 turnovers last night and all five starters were in double-figures. While SHU doesn't have great depth, their guards aren't bad. Against Providence, Nutter (10pts), Harvey (13), Davis (12), and Gause (14) ran the show. SHU is freshman-heavy but if we'r sloppy with the ball and start against SHU like we did against RU we could find ourselves in an early hole.

Agree with the above, Wallace, Sapp and Rivers need to protect the ball and dictate tempo. On defense, our guards need to show improvement in stopping ball penetration. Unlike Pitt, there is no Gray or Kendall for them to dish to but this team is all perimeter and guard play.

[SFHoya99]

I'm pretty shocked by all the blowout predictions in the prediction thread. It's only been one and a half weeks since we last faced an undersized team that plays aggressively and presses. And we got beat on our own home court.

The Pirates are 9th in Steal % and 37th in overall Turnover Rate (forcing opponents' TOs). That's remarkable similar to Villanova.

I know people say they are tiring, but I bet they don't tire mid-January. Gonzo is going to run them until they are dead.

So, is one and a half weeks enough time to "fix" our press break so we punish the press? Does our coaching staff even see it as broken? Will our guards act as scared around Paul Gause and Eugene Harvey as they did for Scottie Reynolds and Mike Nardi (Gause and Harvey are better at pressure D, IMO)?

Seton Hall has their weaknesses. I don't think Gaines and Laing are as good as Clark and Cunningham defensively. We'll have a huge height advantage again. But will we be able to get the ball inside? Having Billmeier hurt hurts us -- I'd rather Roy get the ball and have to face 6'11" than watch another Villanova.

To combat all this, we'll need to dominate the boards. With Billmeier hurt, we may see a three guard lineup with 6'7" Stan Gaines playing center. We must win this big.

And on offense, Seton Hall is not a good shooting team despite some recent improvement. They struggle in the halfcourt. In fact, their highest correlation with offensive efficiency is PACE. Playing slow may be our best defense. We know we can do that, as long as we don't turn the ball over.

This is a very risky game because their guards are going to throw us off our game some. But will it be the panic of this year's Nova game? We've played better guard tandems and done better than that before -- we'll need to do it again Friday.

Overall, I think we still win because I think, despite their quickness edge, they will likely struggle to score because they aren't good outside shooters as a team and we're big inside. That said, if they get hot from three, I'm not sure we'll play well enough to keep up.

[williambraskyiii]

i know you cant make these type comparisons, but nova smoked ND, ND smoked seton hall, we smoked ND, we got beat by Nova. Take from that what you will

additionally, Nova is a better team than Seton Hall - similarly situated in terms of style of play, but younger and rawer. we lost to Nova by 2 pts after playing one of the most disgusting games i have seen under the JTIII dynasty (up there with at BC and 1st half IL)

if we havent made improvements on how we deal with this type of team after a damaging 2 pt loss to Nova, I will be terribly disappointed. otherwise i agree with all the issues that SF brings up in his post above.

Roy has got to demand the ball inside and get position and the guards MUST deliver the ball on time and recognize when that passing lane is closing up - avoid those type of turnovers...Hibbs will often be facing smaller, more athletic defenders at the next level, so he really needs to be able to establish himself inside in these types of situations...also he needs to keep the ball high and swipe that ball off the boards instead of letting the rebounds come to him - more likely for him to get stripped or outmuscled if he isnt assertive and smart on the boards.

[FOTP]

Dead on SFHoya. I've seen SHU play and we will have more problems than people think.

They have very good guards who will pester us everywhere. Roy will have a tough time getting up and down the floor (look for more Ticket in this one).

If we don't break the press and SCORE off of it we'll be in the same game as Nova.

Gonzales can coach and I'm sure he's seen the Nova tape.

[StPetersburgHoya (Inactive)]

The two times Rutgers pressed I noticed something odd.

1) We passed the ball crisply and quickly.
2) We dribbled with a sense of urgency.
3) The persons catching passes and in charge of breaking the press were competent ball-handlers and not our center.

I think that we may have worked on that just a little bit during practice. And by a little bit I mean the sort of thing a coach tells you to do "until we get it right".

[AustinHoya03]

fotp said:

Gonzales can coach and I'm sure he's seen the Nova tape.

That's really the X factor for me. I don't know enough about Gonzales to say whether he's on the same level as JTIII, but I think coaching will be a key to this game.

FWIW, Seton Hall hasn't won two games in a row since December 4th/9th. Since then the Pirates' record has been L, W, L, W, L, W, L, W, L, W. Perhaps we're lucky the Pirates pulled it out against PC last night?

BTW, here are the updated stats for each team:

SHU Stats

Hoya Stats

[RockawayHoya]

stpetersburghoya said:

The two times Rutgers pressed I noticed something odd.

1) We passed the ball crisply and quickly.
2) We dribbled with a sense of urgency.
3) The persons catching passes and in charge of breaking the press were competent ball-handlers and not our center.

I think that we may have worked on that just a little bit during practice. And by a little bit I mean the sort of thing a coach tells you to do "until we get it right".

Rutgers press was not nearly as effective as Nova's, so it's hard to compare the two. Rutgers' overall team speed pales in comparison to Nova, and any backcourt pressure they threw at us was more along the lines of token pressure rather than trying to force turnovers. But, I agree with your observations nevertheless.

BTW, nice post SF. Agree on all points. SHU will be a much tougher out on the road than most people expect.

[coloradohoya]

This should be a tough game, but it is a game a think we can win. It's more important to me that we keep improving at improving our already strong offensive efficiency, and play good, tough defense.

Let's go Hoyas

[GULaw]

The couple of times RU pressed, it looked like Green inbounded to one of the two guards, each on one side of the court, and then Green ran straight down the middle of the court to near midcourt and got a pass back from the guard with the ball. At that point, Green was able to cross mid-court easily.

[bmartin]

I feel sure that the next time Georgetown is pressed, we will push it for layups/dunks after the press break. I would bet that almost everyone JTIII has talked to since the Villanova game has told him he should have attacked against the press.

[vcjack]

When Rutgers started to press out of desperation, I was happy that we (by we I especially mean butter hands Rivers) had the chance to break the press against a bad team. We didn't get a lot of fast breaks, but there were no costly TO's in the backcourt and DaJuan and Jessie got some good drives to the basket. I garuntee that we won't be suprised by the press again after Nova and if we can beat it, we win.

[kghoya]

did everybody get the call that the hoya hoop club bus trip is leaving at 1 instead of 130?

i hope we have decent seats

[PopeJohn2]

i dont know what everyone is freaking out about. we are gonna cream these guys.

[GIGAFAN99]

sfhoya99 said:

The Pirates are 9th in Steal % and 37th in overall Turnover Rate (forcing opponents' TOs). That's remarkable similar to Villanova.

I know people say they are tiring, but I bet they don't tire mid-January. Gonzo is going to run them until they are dead.

So, is one and a half weeks enough time to "fix" our press break so we punish the press? Does our coaching staff even see it as broken? Will our guards act as scared around Paul Gause and Eugene Harvey as they did for Scottie Reynolds and Mike Nardi (Gause and Harvey are better at pressure D, IMO)?

Seton Hall has their weaknesses.

Well until you hit their weaknesses, I was laughing. I mean yeah Steal %, cool, but they can't shoot...at all. That's a pretty big part of the game. Their press might be like 'Nova but their offense is more like Rutgers.

I don't think we'll kill them, but I have to say if you have trouble shooting the rock, the Hoyas aren't the team you want to face to pad your stats. That is the thing we do well right now.