SaltySeawolf

As a McAlister apologist you have zero credibility. He has had one good game this season and you are hanging an awful lot on that one game. Not sure why you feel the need to pigeon hole Mayo into being only a 5. He can shoot a bit and is athletic enough to defend away from the basket a bit. Don't see why you think he has to be by the basket all the time. The time out call - you are entitled to your opinion. SB had numbers and getting a crappy shot off is better then the alternative - getting no shot off.

In a vacuum the loss is not that bad at all. When you take every big game over the past three years and group them all together then there is a problem. BU final two years ago. Vermont final a year ago. NIT last year. UConn, Maryland, Seton Hall this year. You shouldnt win them all, you have to win ONE of them!

Patriot - your problem is your expectations are too low. SB nation thumps its chest that SB is good and contender's to go the NCAA's. Well if we are going to talk the talk then it's time to walk the walk.

nycwolf

Nevermind... I posted a mean spirited attack on McAlister and realized it wasnt very nice after posting it. the bottom line is he gets out rebounded by dave coley, continues to try and play outside himself(shooting 3s and dribbling up the court like we saw last night), doesnt score, drops passes and misses alley-ops every game.


There is a reason Pikiell kept him on the bench for the last 16 minutes last night. If Pikiell wants to win this year he will keep mcalister on the bench in favor of Rouse, Bracey and mayo. McAlister give you nothing. one game doesnt change the entire time he has been at SBU.

McAlister is a great kid, but he shouldnt be starting on this basketball team he should be coming in off the bench.

DougFromLI

I think you have isolated the problem very well. To me, you have one person who has to take responsibility for this, like him or not, good guy or bad. Unfortunately, this theme is becoming repetitive.

SB patriot

To say that he has had one good game is inaccurate. I have as much credibility as you do. I have an opinion, I know the game, and I know what I see. Not sure why the personal attack from you, but that's on you. I'm not pigeonholing Mayo at all. He is what he is. McAlister, King and even Warney have better lateral movement than he does, which is why they are the 4 when any combo of them plays together. The threesome of Mayo, Warney and McAlister give them unique size shotblocking and athleticism. Check out the stats from last year. They give the defense another dimension and alter or inhibit many more than the stats indicate. I've never touted his value as some sort of juggernaut, simply an interesting piece that has a particular value. Its funny that you never dwell on some of the wild shots and bricks that Mayo throws up. i know not alone in seeing that, but i temper it knowing that it's part of the limitation of an AE big man.

My expectations are high, I just try not to let my emotion or judgement come forth on a game by game basis but on the season as a whole.

__________________
"For when the One Great Scorer comes to mark against your name, He writes, not whether you won or lost, but how you played the game" Grantland Rice

nycwolf

Doug and salty you have a right to be angry but looking back we have been pretty good the past 4 or 5 years.

2009/2010- SBU lost to BU in the semi's. We had the #1 seed but BU had arguably the most talent with Lowe, Stron, morris and holland. It took a huge effort from and a couple 3s from half court from corey lowe(see Sams article on Lowe last year) to win the game.

2009/2010 - lost by 7 or 8 to a Illinois team who had an NBA player and a team that was bigger, faster and stronger than us. A game that should have been at illinois and a 20 point blow out.

2010/2011- lost our best player and first team all conference player before the year even started. Lenny Hayes put us on his back and got us to the finals. Yeah the same Lenny hayes who hasnt been good enough to play the past 2 years for us. as a #5 see we also destroyed Vermont in the semis and lost to BU at BU in the finals after a herculean effort from conference player of the year John Holland.

2011/2012 - lost to vermont at home in finals. terrible. two of our most consistent shooters/players(Dougher and Coley) went 9-41 for the game and the team shot an all time low 29% for the game. Not sure i can put that all on pikiel's back.

2011/2012 - lost to seton hall in front of a sold out crowd and rec league gym. We were a last second 3 away from winning and a put back away from tieing. Once again Seton hall was better than us. Coley was also fouled out on a T from a ref who called it from the other side of the court with 5 minutes left.

2012 - lost to Seton hall, uconn and maryland on the the road. It took 8 consecutive 3s from uconn to win the game, against maryland we were one rebound away from having a chance to tie under a minute left not to mention our bigs played great but guards were bad, and seton hall we were one shot away from the win. We also did the exact opposite of maryland. our guards played good and bigs not so much. To think we should win any would be silly

There are certainly arguments to why we shouldn't have won those games. call them excuses but albany last year in the semis was a big win, the year before against vermont in the semis was a big win, vermont at home el amin's year was big. i am not ready to give up on Pikiel and exile him to stony brook forever. his first year he had 4 wins and now we are a consistent 15+ win team and hopefully after this year a consistently 20+ win team. this year we may have the best talent in the league, if we could get all guys to play good at the same time we could run the table. Hopefully pikiel is taking all of these experiences and is using them to be a better coach. I just look back when roy williams and Bill self were criticized for not winning the "big one"

SaltySeawolf

Ive been pretty careful to not say that I blame Pikiell. To make that assumption is to guess at my intent. There is a disconnect somewhere. Im not implying it's the coach. I think it's a combination of things. By tuesday this will all be forgotten.

nycwolf

i know salty. I think we have a good chance to win it this year. Again thinking about criticism of pikiell by some posters including myself, he has to be considered a top 3 coach in the league. if he can finally win the big one he maybe considered the best. Alot of people knock him but he has done a pretty good job considering there has been no year where posters have ever said stony brook has been the best team. not pre tommy Brenton, not El Amin's year, definitely not the next year and well last year we got very lucky with a vermont lose to the worst team in the country to get us the #1 seed.

nycwolf

and for all the people who thought the 17.4 second timeout was TERRIBLE please re-watch the play. At 3/4 court Coley wasnt full speed and it was at best a 3 on 3, at the time right before the timeout it was a 4 on 3 at best with the ball ahead of both warney and brenton and Edwin trailing the play hard to make it a 4 on 4. Pikiell called a timeout on what he saw at the time which was a 4 on 3 with a seton hall man trailing.

people are making it seem like a textbook 4 on 2 with all the seawolves filling the proper lanes. it wasnt. every seawolf fan knows coley has a tendency to lose control.