MBB: Minnesota Intercollegiate Athletic Conference

[bball1122]

I am curious about this (I noticed your "U$T") - in the next five to ten years, are Johnnies fans ready to become known as  "$JU"?   Because now that the Tommies will be moving on, a new school will have to move into the "hated by everyone else because they are so successful" role and, well, it seems like it will be St. John's, at least for football and men's basketball.    I ask this in genuine curiosity - it will be interesting to see how the dynamics change for SJU.

[jamtod]

Tommies win! Onto the elite 8!

[SUMMIT!!!!!]

So much for the Big Match-up. UST was in control nearly the entire game, controlling the tempo of play throughout. The Toms held the lead for nearly 36 minutes of the game (SJ2 lead for 2:59). The inside-outside game was rolling for UST and SJ had little in the way of answers. Anders Nelson had a relatively quiet night - he never put on a string in which he dominated the game; he just methodically made things happen and kept SJ2 off balance. His 23 points led all scorers and, in typical Anders fashion, he hit a couple of key 3s that were daggers to the Johnnies chances. Inside,  Parker Bjorklund was a force, pounding home a pair of thundering dunks over the bewildered Johnnies (and had a third one waved off due to shot clock), He finished with 14 pts & 6 boards.  Riley "Dead-eye" Miller found his stroke in the second half putting in 9 of his 15 points. Will Engel led all players with 9 rebounds as the shorter Tommies held a 35-32 edge off the glass. UST committed just 8 turnovers. The Toms torched the net in the second half at a 58.3% clip and simply outplayed the Js in every aspect.

Sigh. It was a great rivalry, and next week's non-conference game is still scheduled, but tonight was the last battle between the two schools in a game that matters, be it conference play or postseason.  While the end of the rivalry sucks, I' m excited about what the future holds for UST. While the next 2-3 years might not be as loaded with success as the past 20 have been, the move to D1 has me enthused!

[jamtod]

New Top 15 poll is out:
UST up from 7 to 5. St John's falls out. Top 15 on a short season is going to be very unforgiving. No idea what to think about St John's after that brutal loss to Bethel. My first thought was maybe Bethel is pretty good, but they've got losses to Hamline and 2 to St Mary's.

St Thomas has the fewest games played of any team in the poll and tonight's game with St Mary's has been postponed also. Only 2 left, SJU and Bethel.

https://d3hoops.com/top25/men/2020-21/week5

[SUMMIT!!!!!]

New Top 15 poll is out:
UST up from 7 to 5. St John's falls out. Top 15 on a short season is going to be very unforgiving. No idea what to think about St John's after that brutal loss to Bethel. My first thought was maybe Bethel is pretty good, but they've got losses to Hamline and 2 to St Mary's.

St Thomas has the fewest games played of any team in the poll and tonight's game with St Mary's has been postponed also. Only 2 left, SJU and Bethel.

https://d3hoops.com/top25/men/2020-21/week5

5 if the 9 games scheduled for this week have been canceled/postponed.  Taking into account hockey and WBB and WH, a solid majority of scheduled events have been shelved....with Concordia, Hamline & SMU being involved in most of them. Sad end of strange season.

RE: the National rankings---I am shocked that SJU got any votes, much less 17 after last week's nightmare pair of games. Losing soundly to UST was bad enough but to get hammered like they die at home by Bethel is nothing short of embarrassing. bad week? horrible day? over-rated?

[Ryan Scott (Hoops Fan)]

St. John's clearly did not look, this week, like they did earlier in the year.  It's tough to know what to do with that.  I dropped them from 2nd to 15th on my ballot.  For that last spot, it's always between a bunch of teams about whom I'm without confidence - so I decided to go with the team who has actually played well at some point this season over a couple others who I've yet to be overly impressed with.

[Cav-J]

SMU MBB did not have 1 positive Covid test all season.

New Top 15 poll is out:
UST up from 7 to 5. St John's falls out. Top 15 on a short season is going to be very unforgiving. No idea what to think about St John's after that brutal loss to Bethel. My first thought was maybe Bethel is pretty good, but they've got losses to Hamline and 2 to St Mary's.

St Thomas has the fewest games played of any team in the poll and tonight's game with St Mary's has been postponed also. Only 2 left, SJU and Bethel.

https://d3hoops.com/top25/men/2020-21/week5

5 if the 9 games scheduled for this week have been canceled/postponed.  Taking into account hockey and WBB and WH, a solid majority of scheduled events have been shelved....with Concordia, Hamline & SMU being involved in most of them. Sad end of strange season.

RE: the National rankings---I am shocked that SJU got any votes, much less 17 after last week's nightmare pair of games. Losing soundly to UST was bad enough but to get hammered like they die at home by Bethel is nothing short of embarrassing. bad week? horrible day? over-rated?

[bball1122]

St. John's clearly did not look, this week, like they did earlier in the year.  It's tough to know what to do with that.  I dropped them from 2nd to 15th on my ballot.  For that last spot, it's always between a bunch of teams about whom I'm without confidence - so I decided to go with the team who has actually played well at some point this season over a couple others who I've yet to be overly impressed with.

I get that the rankings are difficult, especially in this strange season, but to my eyes, the Johnnies played well in one game this year.   They beat up a very solid Saint Mary's team to open the season and then...won two close games and lost two games handily?   I guess I'm just trying to understand what you are referencing when you say they played well at some point this season.

[Ryan Scott (Hoops Fan)]

St. John's clearly did not look, this week, like they did earlier in the year.  It's tough to know what to do with that.  I dropped them from 2nd to 15th on my ballot.  For that last spot, it's always between a bunch of teams about whom I'm without confidence - so I decided to go with the team who has actually played well at some point this season over a couple others who I've yet to be overly impressed with.

I get that the rankings are difficult, especially in this strange season, but to my eyes, the Johnnies played well in one game this year.   They beat up a very solid Saint Mary's team to open the season and then...won two close games and lost two games handily?   I guess I'm just trying to understand what you are referencing when you say they played well at some point this season.

I watched almost the entirety of both the St. Mary's and GAC games.  Maybe it was a perception issue; I thought they played much better than I'd expect given the circumstances and the losses from last year's team.  They seemed to have a good understanding of what they were trying to do on both ends of the floor and were making pretty good decisions with and without the ball.  They were using all of their weapons in pretty efficient ways and minimizing mistakes.  To me, that's solid play.

Obviously, UST is a good team that's trying very hard to throw an opponent off their game, but St. John's, to me, looked more befuddled than stymied.  They were more hesitant and careless with the basketball.  They were thrown off on defense by the looks they were getting.  Obviously, credit goes to the Tommies and the game plan for a lot of that - but when it then gets repeated in the next outing, it becomes more troubling.

I felt like I was watching two different teams in the same uniforms.  At this point, it's hard to know which one is for real - and there's not much time left to find out, which complicates things even more.  Maybe its just a confidence thing?  I'm much too far away from the situation to know.

[SUMMIT!!!!!]

SMU MBB did not have 1 positive Covid test all season.

New Top 15 poll is out:
UST up from 7 to 5. St John's falls out. Top 15 on a short season is going to be very unforgiving. No idea what to think about St John's after that brutal loss to Bethel. My first thought was maybe Bethel is pretty good, but they've got losses to Hamline and 2 to St Mary's.

St Thomas has the fewest games played of any team in the poll and tonight's game with St Mary's has been postponed also. Only 2 left, SJU and Bethel.

https://d3hoops.com/top25/men/2020-21/week5

5 if the 9 games scheduled for this week have been canceled/postponed.  Taking into account hockey and WBB and WH, a solid majority of scheduled events have been shelved....with Concordia, Hamline & SMU being involved in most of them. Sad end of strange season.

RE: the National rankings---I am shocked that SJU got any votes, much less 17 after last week's nightmare pair of games. Losing soundly to UST was bad enough but to get hammered like they die at home by Bethel is nothing short of embarrassing. bad week? horrible day? over-rated?

Maybe not, but 7 of 12 SMU athletic events scheduled for this week have been canceled or "postponed."

[Cav-J]

That is unfortunate for all those student-athletes at SMU and MIAC wide. I know at SMU [not sure about other schools' policies] teams have been, pretty much, segregated from each other.

I also know that there is two ways to be quarantined via the MIAC, if your team has tested positive OR you have played a team that had players who tested positive. The bummer is that at this point in the season there is no more dates to 'postpone' to.

My kid was happy to be able to play 8 games when it looked like no games would be played [of course bummed that his senior season was a  mess and ended short]. I commend the Presidents, AD's and the MIAC for making this work. A little closure [although incomplete] for our kids.

I feel for all of these young men.

SMU MBB did not have 1 positive Covid test all season.

New Top 15 poll is out:
UST up from 7 to 5. St John's falls out. Top 15 on a short season is going to be very unforgiving. No idea what to think about St John's after that brutal loss to Bethel. My first thought was maybe Bethel is pretty good, but they've got losses to Hamline and 2 to St Mary's.

St Thomas has the fewest games played of any team in the poll and tonight's game with St Mary's has been postponed also. Only 2 left, SJU and Bethel.

https://d3hoops.com/top25/men/2020-21/week5

5 if the 9 games scheduled for this week have been canceled/postponed.  Taking into account hockey and WBB and WH, a solid majority of scheduled events have been shelved....with Concordia, Hamline & SMU being involved in most of them. Sad end of strange season.

RE: the National rankings---I am shocked that SJU got any votes, much less 17 after last week's nightmare pair of games. Losing soundly to UST was bad enough but to get hammered like they die at home by Bethel is nothing short of embarrassing. bad week? horrible day? over-rated?

Maybe not, but 7 of 12 SMU athletic events scheduled for this week have been canceled or "postponed."

[jamtod]

New MIAC guidelines seem to allow for rescheduling some of the cancelled games past March 6th.

[jamtod]

Probably the last MIAC game I will get a chance to listen to and I get the pleasure of a full game of VOJ. Gotta love it.

[faunch]

Probably the last MIAC game I will get a chance to listen to and I get the pleasure of a full game of VOJ. Gotta love it.

Could the officials call the Tommie$ for the body and hand check fouls on the press? Jesus Christ!!!

[SUMMIT!!!!!]

Probably the last MIAC game I will get a chance to listen to and I get the pleasure of a full game of VOJ. Gotta love it.

Could the officials call the Tommie$ for the body and hand check fouls on the press? Jesus Christ!!!

When in doubt, cry and blame the officials. The Johnnies' 14 turnovers (vs 6 by UST) couldn't be a factor-- it had to be bad officiating. The 18 points off those turnovers? Bad refs!  The inability to stop Riley Miller in the first half and the foolish choice of continually fouling Anders Nelson down the stretch? Of course its the refs doing.  Not being able to contain Bjorklund in the paint?  Yup, them dang refs did it again.

For all eternity, UST will have a 2 game win streak over SJU