tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-62842897872712912462024-03-19T01:47:58.877-07:00Brooklyn DigestJason Schotthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11179389315079382362noreply@blogger.comBlogger2683125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6284289787271291246.post-71279765761321723832024-03-17T16:50:00.000-07:002024-03-17T16:50:56.875-07:00St. John's Passed Over For NCAA Tournament; Here's What They Decided On NIT<p> <table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgFwfra4voPNZXNsbE1zApk5gl1gF0AvmxBPUJsexU7110F1A-UC399b03jf-1IHY8lU7iciI8tFtAdsVSFW0HjNngzLz7ZhH9I-cNUXkfNqKMRcvNloYj5p3-DSbfgDsCU6FELfEE5vzgAkMPVxeOeUnpGot5q12FoS845AK4utdFquJZj2nGPLnhyM7M/s4032/IMG_5776%20(1).jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="4032" data-original-width="3024" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgFwfra4voPNZXNsbE1zApk5gl1gF0AvmxBPUJsexU7110F1A-UC399b03jf-1IHY8lU7iciI8tFtAdsVSFW0HjNngzLz7ZhH9I-cNUXkfNqKMRcvNloYj5p3-DSbfgDsCU6FELfEE5vzgAkMPVxeOeUnpGot5q12FoS845AK4utdFquJZj2nGPLnhyM7M/w300-h400/IMG_5776%20(1).jpg" width="300" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">St. John's Head Coach Rick Pitino and players before a game at Carnesecca Arena on December 6. Photo by Jason Schott.</td></tr></tbody></table></p><p><span style="font-family: courier;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-family: courier;">The St. John's Red Storm received the sobering news that they will not be partaking in the NCAA Tournament when the 68 teams competing were announced tonight, Selection Sunday.</span></p><p><span></span></p><a name='more'></a><p></p><p><span style="font-family: courier;">St. John's, in their first season with Rick Pitino as Head Coach, hit the presumed "magic number" for wins to be considered for the Tournament, 20, when they ran out Seton Hall, on Thursday in the Big East Tournament. This came after they closed the regular season with five straight wins to give them an 11-9 record in Big East play. They then gave a hard-fought effort against UConn on Friday, as they lost in the Semifinals, 95-90.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: courier;">This was the fifth time in the last two decades that St. John's had reached the 20-win plateau, and the 11 Big East wins were the most since the 2010-11 season, when they made the Tournament in Steve Lavin's first year at the helm. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: courier;">The Tournament Committee did not just snub St. John's, but fellow Big East schools Seton Hall and Providence, as well. The Big East will be sending just three teams to the tournament, Connecticut, whose quest to repeat will begin in Brooklyn on Friday as the Number 1 seed in the East regional; Marquette, and Creighton.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: courier;">After this was revealed, St. John's informed the National Invitation Tournament (NIT) selection committee that it requests to be removed from consideration for the 2024 NIT, effectively ending their season.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: courier;">Pitino said in a statement, "First and foremost, we have great respect for the National Invitation Tournament and St. John's storied history in the event. After thorough consideration of all that goes into postseason participation, we believe at this time it is best for our team and basketball program to prepare for next season. We remain focused on building a championship-level basketball program here at St. John's. I would like to thank all our fans for their wonderful support this past season and look forward to the bright future ahead for St. John's Basketball."</span></p><p><span style="font-family: courier;">Though this season feels like it had a premature ending, the team advanced so far in one year under Pitino. This in terms of their level of play, as stars like Daniss Jenkins, Joel Soriano, and Chris Ledlum led them to be in consideration for their first NCAA Tournament bid since 2019, and the genuine interest he generated in the team throughout New York City. That will only continue into should be a fascinating summer to see who will fill out Pitino's roster in what is now one of the hottest destinations in college basketball.</span></p><p><br /></p>Jason Schotthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11179389315079382362noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6284289787271291246.post-83329575986062422592024-03-17T12:48:00.000-07:002024-03-17T16:55:59.655-07:00Duquesne Wins A10 Championship In Upset Of VCU<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEighq6d3TGFubfSoJ3xgfEvpMTrenKDCQYj0CMdLKwt6HtD9pBTpyHcCmBv4OT2X1RFteXURaur49PhfX3wk434ZvqwHaVJilKRc4sKSBceyH7hVASIo3GtN1qlmSsKr4JP0QruqZksXIxH19F1-xKnT1sRAeHgOmXGuIjh9Y3npjS0oWX9Bzi774eeTp8/s4032/IMG_9092.jpeg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="4032" data-original-width="3024" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEighq6d3TGFubfSoJ3xgfEvpMTrenKDCQYj0CMdLKwt6HtD9pBTpyHcCmBv4OT2X1RFteXURaur49PhfX3wk434ZvqwHaVJilKRc4sKSBceyH7hVASIo3GtN1qlmSsKr4JP0QruqZksXIxH19F1-xKnT1sRAeHgOmXGuIjh9Y3npjS0oWX9Bzi774eeTp8/s320/IMG_9092.jpeg" width="240" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The celebration was on for Duquesne as the clock hit 0.00. Photos by Jason Schott</td></tr></tbody></table><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj1CeKGB5oocS249Glqi2AslN4bHYrREYKeWplVbPX-R71pGN9HGDRsj8Q-P40823aVaVONLasiSjdEQ7-0kgFGd4fTtgvsuekmslNf_Naku65c5SITJ5hG3PBn7Svk4cYlSSys2FrH-ufZVCpikHMtSVYKK4bqRe9bY0IcmYjBi0bDlgp7COwTzrQ7jmI/s4032/IMG_9097.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="4032" data-original-width="3024" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj1CeKGB5oocS249Glqi2AslN4bHYrREYKeWplVbPX-R71pGN9HGDRsj8Q-P40823aVaVONLasiSjdEQ7-0kgFGd4fTtgvsuekmslNf_Naku65c5SITJ5hG3PBn7Svk4cYlSSys2FrH-ufZVCpikHMtSVYKK4bqRe9bY0IcmYjBi0bDlgp7COwTzrQ7jmI/s320/IMG_9097.jpeg" width="240" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEie-Vt7WYh7Es8fs22v6mAa-VGJXOJw4rw37E_RRtBw_K6uxTwGgmMZqIJik4NvKPH_HP6vtPa7m5VMveXuaiLCAyF8i2FQ8Tyb72FqoBldNDFnZk5zymk1z7UyRx3gwFyeWFJlJi71FMuDsM7kt4pDZXHDLg5KNc6j-64E5kjdZ9JodWBpQZm-n7OZNow/s4032/IMG_9103.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="4032" data-original-width="3024" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEie-Vt7WYh7Es8fs22v6mAa-VGJXOJw4rw37E_RRtBw_K6uxTwGgmMZqIJik4NvKPH_HP6vtPa7m5VMveXuaiLCAyF8i2FQ8Tyb72FqoBldNDFnZk5zymk1z7UyRx3gwFyeWFJlJi71FMuDsM7kt4pDZXHDLg5KNc6j-64E5kjdZ9JodWBpQZm-n7OZNow/s320/IMG_9103.jpeg" width="240" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjHgbS-XU95DG0Ehl8lyUiQKNiyGl0zTbh-hDK3-D0lZjsOb04-CZvAXzSBKoSDS01mCQrm1sa-k8BYNMJh6vv2wvLlAxN5DBik2OiMuUG3prHny0j1OvIlooMdj1Zpq554MrdVWFunwAllnDTCvGvbQAFFj8DqotXhvUJdRHPRn-HEA0mc0Y3u7R_cC3o/s4032/IMG_9104.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="4032" data-original-width="3024" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjHgbS-XU95DG0Ehl8lyUiQKNiyGl0zTbh-hDK3-D0lZjsOb04-CZvAXzSBKoSDS01mCQrm1sa-k8BYNMJh6vv2wvLlAxN5DBik2OiMuUG3prHny0j1OvIlooMdj1Zpq554MrdVWFunwAllnDTCvGvbQAFFj8DqotXhvUJdRHPRn-HEA0mc0Y3u7R_cC3o/s320/IMG_9104.jpeg" width="240" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEicA8rByH4VsMKovBc__SKU3g4obmusUvSsuTUWzXaH83jkNzUiwYwsI-p7Ies2-4jyMaPZ6hKZqW9RNOx31fQo7ma3jcaY4rky8uMXgIWlUXL_4U4ufnnPFDoZrNFVkG-yyEKkV0j_rZVAUf5d8UglPtUuKtlwdW77UVwtZaSSYaysp_LLdnQy3YfTa7M/s4032/IMG_9110.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="4032" data-original-width="3024" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEicA8rByH4VsMKovBc__SKU3g4obmusUvSsuTUWzXaH83jkNzUiwYwsI-p7Ies2-4jyMaPZ6hKZqW9RNOx31fQo7ma3jcaY4rky8uMXgIWlUXL_4U4ufnnPFDoZrNFVkG-yyEKkV0j_rZVAUf5d8UglPtUuKtlwdW77UVwtZaSSYaysp_LLdnQy3YfTa7M/s320/IMG_9110.jpeg" width="240" /></a></div><p><br /></p><p><span style="font-family: courier;">The Duquesne Dukes dominated early, and showed a steely determination late, as they won the A10 Championship Game, 57-51, over VCU on Sunday at Barclays Center.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: courier;">The win assured that Duquesne, which entered the A10 Tournament as a No. 6 seed, will be in the NCAA Tournament for the first time since 1977. VCU was the fifth seed, which shows how topsy-turvy this tournament was, and they just missed their chance at repeating as champions in Brooklyn.</span></p><p></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhMGlWait-4fz5sqSDGe5iaZLyVFCWwiMzWoqxvocIzT0yj-E7oUOi_-XlwSJvyFbrh7uUEF_9T3tbx-x4YcZDNu28RIZzyWaI5Uusn85Dzh0sPo2_kvMKXa7YCFObvNYh3SKuemTUqXejgrD7lXmh3IWC8712wK4pCcHH626CdOn3YzOLrVNoZ7cGgluw/s4032/IMG_9029.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="4032" data-original-width="3024" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhMGlWait-4fz5sqSDGe5iaZLyVFCWwiMzWoqxvocIzT0yj-E7oUOi_-XlwSJvyFbrh7uUEF_9T3tbx-x4YcZDNu28RIZzyWaI5Uusn85Dzh0sPo2_kvMKXa7YCFObvNYh3SKuemTUqXejgrD7lXmh3IWC8712wK4pCcHH626CdOn3YzOLrVNoZ7cGgluw/w300-h400/IMG_9029.jpg" width="300" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The scene during the National Anthem. Photo by Jason Schott.</td></tr></tbody></table><br /><span style="font-family: courier;"><br /></span><p></p><p><span style="font-family: courier;">The Dukes came out firing, and opened up a 24-9 lead, then were up by as many as 18, at 34-16, and they took a 36-22 lead into halftime.</span></p><p></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjD2bZDziKS_3rgPzrg308cWXPb2u1q8rcxfqtGXbcObHYqU4NnoOaUt2u9V1gr_vA5k1kLfDoG0oocXXwp2CZs-Xf4aVgh54lbEVzrTCQksjN79HKKam_zcO8h2trsIL-HGf2jBrSg1p5efKQEF4FjS6nv0rRqOG0NUjTHCoQ59WFPoX5Yuk50XrFwFMs/s4032/IMG_9051.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="4032" data-original-width="3024" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjD2bZDziKS_3rgPzrg308cWXPb2u1q8rcxfqtGXbcObHYqU4NnoOaUt2u9V1gr_vA5k1kLfDoG0oocXXwp2CZs-Xf4aVgh54lbEVzrTCQksjN79HKKam_zcO8h2trsIL-HGf2jBrSg1p5efKQEF4FjS6nv0rRqOG0NUjTHCoQ59WFPoX5Yuk50XrFwFMs/w300-h400/IMG_9051.jpg" width="300" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">David Dixon connecting on a layup that made it 31-16 Duquette with just under four minutes left in the first half. Photo by Jason Schott.</td></tr></tbody></table><br /><span style="font-family: courier;"><br /></span><p></p><p><span style="font-family: courier;">Just as team did throughout this tournament, VCU made a comeback. The Rams pulled to within three, at 42-39, with 6:49 left.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: courier;">Duquesne responded with a 7-2 run to take a 49-41 lead when Jakub Nexaa buried a three-pointer at 4:35. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: courier;">VCU pulled within a point, 49-48, on a pair of Joe Bamisile free throws with 1:36 left, but </span><span style="font-family: courier;">Jake DiMichele then made a layup at 1:07 to restore Duquesne's three-point edge.</span></p><p></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgiwgyFViloiQ3utjk_hJmnCwKt2OoYLQHnv1_BXUzJps-EZcjDSGOab-34MgiDbOd-5NK47vMpHjjwtofk5bs6o6HvU9b9CuzUcKl8G56Xq7LSJwdCLMNwMwscqiaAUD4Al19SXo1cmQw_pqBnKW1EojJejaQTeMBo8aBWgMRzW2kxlqBCOug32Qnf7bU/s3791/IMG_9083.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3791" data-original-width="3024" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgiwgyFViloiQ3utjk_hJmnCwKt2OoYLQHnv1_BXUzJps-EZcjDSGOab-34MgiDbOd-5NK47vMpHjjwtofk5bs6o6HvU9b9CuzUcKl8G56Xq7LSJwdCLMNwMwscqiaAUD4Al19SXo1cmQw_pqBnKW1EojJejaQTeMBo8aBWgMRzW2kxlqBCOug32Qnf7bU/w319-h400/IMG_9083.jpg" width="319" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The reaction to Jake DiMichele's basket going in. Photo by Jason Schott.</td></tr></tbody></table><br /><span style="font-family: courier;"><br /></span><p></p><p><span style="font-family: courier;">Jimmy Clark III then made a pair of free throws with just 21 seconds left that made it 53-48 Duquesne and basically sealed the win.</span></p><p></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEghfJgwcJtj4FYgNdJFwmgTSO4nwzJihaS2OABFo8Af0kSLXVViDcI3MyoWNjWNov7eaXm0aLbVHpOqxZJ0_YeEnsKoW7vVpf-8DPsAuKnIQgwSs5ziCEjm3FOZK8XgO1P_LiMddj_nF5LYNNHS3bUq-iBawCN5m46sxoPwR2rBRMSw18V3TSgDQJ2jFFo/s4032/IMG_9089.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3024" data-original-width="4032" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEghfJgwcJtj4FYgNdJFwmgTSO4nwzJihaS2OABFo8Af0kSLXVViDcI3MyoWNjWNov7eaXm0aLbVHpOqxZJ0_YeEnsKoW7vVpf-8DPsAuKnIQgwSs5ziCEjm3FOZK8XgO1P_LiMddj_nF5LYNNHS3bUq-iBawCN5m46sxoPwR2rBRMSw18V3TSgDQJ2jFFo/s320/IMG_9089.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The Duquesne fans anticipating Clark III taking his spot at the free throw line. Photos by Jason Schott.</td></tr></tbody></table><br /><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjFgffaHHu1HnwhKm70PNB014h1wQqxMs90qF84iCmc6N8hrp1PGOZVRdbyM03aIet13wKnxs3MyAPbeBAROvKHC796QmqawHZmBYN_CGKG8jt9NfoxlyWS0xQQNH15aYanoiq80zziB05gwU9OZoi1_wE5POIJ1USau_cDBmF3K5__GlNXZEf3Ppv5Rrg/s4032/IMG_9091.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="4032" data-original-width="3024" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjFgffaHHu1HnwhKm70PNB014h1wQqxMs90qF84iCmc6N8hrp1PGOZVRdbyM03aIet13wKnxs3MyAPbeBAROvKHC796QmqawHZmBYN_CGKG8jt9NfoxlyWS0xQQNH15aYanoiq80zziB05gwU9OZoi1_wE5POIJ1USau_cDBmF3K5__GlNXZEf3Ppv5Rrg/w300-h400/IMG_9091.jpg" width="300" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Clark III connecting on his second free throw that made it a five-point game. </td></tr></tbody></table><br /><span style="font-family: courier;"><br /></span><p></p><p><span style="font-family: courier;">Duquesne was led by Dae Dae Grant, who had 10 points on 3-12 from the field, including 3-8 from behind the arc, with four steals and two assists. In an incredibly balanced Duquesne scoring attack, he was the only player to put up double figures.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: courier;">Jimmy Clark III had nine points (2-17 FG. 1-7 on threes, 4-4 free throws), with five rebounds, four steals, and two assists. Fousseyni Drame had 6 points (all from the free throw line), 12 rebounds, two assists, and a steal. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: courier;">VCU was led by Joe Bamisile, who had 20 points off the bench, on 7-15 shooting, with four rebounds and two assists.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: courier;"><br /></span></p>Jason Schotthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11179389315079382362noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6284289787271291246.post-56855010563855473622024-03-16T18:19:00.000-07:002024-03-17T11:00:51.870-07:00A10 Semis: VCU & Duquesne To Play For Title Sunday<p> </p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhaQthOSECZknRLK3HxVT2KV-3aRkVBmylMBWn9NoztFbLzC4dwqBN1B0kQR8HZc4JYpNKdZWs_85Jt118gtQws54tlb23xi77KzytsP2H8aSonCH9Tnn5035vXa-ejFHn-z00jFMrrdKJu-43AKRUL-B7RmeZT6pD0FUnmKfAlIRxkcPq98QFW4_bJvBw/s3206/IMG_8958.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3206" data-original-width="3024" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhaQthOSECZknRLK3HxVT2KV-3aRkVBmylMBWn9NoztFbLzC4dwqBN1B0kQR8HZc4JYpNKdZWs_85Jt118gtQws54tlb23xi77KzytsP2H8aSonCH9Tnn5035vXa-ejFHn-z00jFMrrdKJu-43AKRUL-B7RmeZT6pD0FUnmKfAlIRxkcPq98QFW4_bJvBw/w378-h400/IMG_8958.jpg" width="378" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Joe Bamisile of VCU slams down a dunk with just 42 seconds left in their win over Saint Joseph's. Photo by Jason Schott.</td></tr></tbody></table><p></p><p><br /></p><p><span style="font-family: courier;">In the A-10 Semifinals on Saturday at Barclays Center, VCU won the opening game, as they outlasted Saint Joseph’s, 66-60, while Duquesne beat St. Bonaventure, 70-60. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: courier;">VCU, looking to repeat as tournament champion, and Duquesne will meet in the A-10 Championship Game on Sunday at 1:00 P.M. </span></p><p><span></span></p><a name='more'></a><p></p><p><span style="font-family: courier;"><b>No. 5 VCU 66, No. 9 Saint Joseph’s 60: </b>VCU raced out to a 21-12 run, but a Cameron Brown three-pointer at the 3:57 mark of the first half sparked a late surge for Saint Joseph's. Erik Reynolds II followed with a fast break basket off a turnover and a three-pointer, and a hook shot from Chris Essandoko capped a 10-0 run to put them up 22-21, and they took a 25-23 edge into the break.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: courier;">VCU opened the second half on an 8-2 run over the first one minute and 39 seconds capped by a Max Shugla three-pointer that made it 31-27. St. Joseph's would regain the lead, at 39-37, when Lynn Greer III buried a turnaround jumper at 12:54.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: courier;">It was back and forth, to the point that it was tied at 55 with 3:34 left when Saint Joe's forward Rasheer Fleming drained a three-pointer.</span></p><p></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjQTwor4Rl3oJmA_QamBnbWI30_2EXgRV-nfkLr9ej73r_qkxNukx_lrXftxn_xbiaGXJacrHRNAGmBweIw9QqSWLAk9-PRZSFb2dbPUiuQyt7yu0YnyeTKW1jWkaHsXLH6Frl59Wcci0OLFpHz4lJ6YzlAYQ4NIJPrR0uiQKSDO0cARR1s4e31QykEUO8/s4032/IMG_8944.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="4032" data-original-width="3024" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjQTwor4Rl3oJmA_QamBnbWI30_2EXgRV-nfkLr9ej73r_qkxNukx_lrXftxn_xbiaGXJacrHRNAGmBweIw9QqSWLAk9-PRZSFb2dbPUiuQyt7yu0YnyeTKW1jWkaHsXLH6Frl59Wcci0OLFpHz4lJ6YzlAYQ4NIJPrR0uiQKSDO0cARR1s4e31QykEUO8/w300-h400/IMG_8944.jpg" width="300" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Rasheer Fleming of Saint Joseph's taking an open three-pointer from the left side that tied the game at 55. Photo by Jason Schott. </td></tr></tbody></table><br /><span style="font-family: courier;"><br /></span><p></p><p><span style="font-family: courier;"><br />Joe Bamisile responded with a floating jumper in the paint to put VCU ahead, 57-55, at the 3:16 mark and they never trailed the rest of the way. Bamisile had an emphatic dunk that put VCU up 63-60 with 42 seconds left, and Shulga sealed it with a pair of free throws to make it a five-point lead with 12 seconds left.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: courier;">VCU was led by Max Shulga, who had 25 points - with 19 in the second half - on a near-perfect 10-11 from the field, including 3-4 on three-pointers, with four rebounds, three assists, and three steals. Sean Bairstow had 13 points (6-13 FG, 1-4 threes), two rebounds, and an assist. Zeb Jackson had 12 points (6-13 FG), eight rebounds, and an assist.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: courier;">Saint Joseph’s was led by Erik Reynolds II, who had 18 points on 7-13 from the field, including 4-9 on threes, with four assists and two rebounds. Cameron Brown had 13 points (5-13 FG, 3-9 threes), three rebounds, and two steals.</span></p><p></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiJNRICyTmfojAqNNZW5Uk7eh527ReCvWIVszhPmYAuUcW94VH1ND8aVGbrgOHSTeGmhwwueKb0YEPkk0EWBRMwSl3KbbnQRfv0iycHW2ldtmMh_wME0xbXoKIy_UosHM29QvSHT2ZFRZOJfNRJqYvcLROYZRLfGmYW-BbIpM2307lHVNbXKyc2_UKzaRw/s4032/IMG_8943.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3024" data-original-width="4032" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiJNRICyTmfojAqNNZW5Uk7eh527ReCvWIVszhPmYAuUcW94VH1ND8aVGbrgOHSTeGmhwwueKb0YEPkk0EWBRMwSl3KbbnQRfv0iycHW2ldtmMh_wME0xbXoKIy_UosHM29QvSHT2ZFRZOJfNRJqYvcLROYZRLfGmYW-BbIpM2307lHVNbXKyc2_UKzaRw/w400-h300/IMG_8943.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">It was an intense atmosphere with plenty of supporters for both VCU and Saint Joseph's. Photo by Jason Schott.</td></tr></tbody></table><br /><span style="font-family: courier;"><br /></span><p></p><p><span style="font-family: courier;"><b><i>COACH'S COMMENTS: </i></b></span><b style="font-family: courier;">VCU Head Coach Ryan Odom: </b><span style="font-family: courier;">“Really proud of our team. Even before I get into that, I want to congratulate Saint Joe’s, Coach Lange and his staff, his players, on such a great season and a really hard-fought battle each game that they played here in the tournament. They’re really tough. They have a collection of players that competes really hard, that really put a ton of pressure on us in this game. And even the game, obviously, in Richmond. The shot-making, the execution on the offensive end - and then the defensive execution that they had caused us to have some really tough spurts out there where we struggled scoring.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: courier;">“The transition offense in the first half kind of got us. We really botched some plays in and around the rim when we had some advantages. Probably weren’t patient enough to find some more advantages behind us, as opposed to the rim. I thought Saint Joe’s did a nice job of walling up at the rim a few times, where we got out and got ahead. We just couldn’t convert those to create a little bit more separation. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: courier;">“Obviously, the goal-tend changed the score of the game there, and it was a little bit tighter in that timeout than it actually was. Obviously, I know it was a good call. But from a mental perspective, that changed a little bit. They did a nice job going on a run to finish the half and have a two-point lead.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: courier;">“We talked about at halftime that we had been here before. Certainly at home against them; and then obviously, the first game (of the A-10 Tournament) against Fordham, being down two. We have been there plenty of times this season, and we just needed to come out halftime with a better defensive effort and more execution on offense. I think, obviously, we were led by Max’s ability to make timely shots over and over and over again. The guys trusted one another, and the defense really stiffened and tightened up as the game wore on…Really proud of the guys and certainly looking forward to our prep for tomorrow.”</span></p><p><span style="font-family: courier;"><b>Saint Joseph's Head Coach Billy Lange: </b>"A great game. You can't say it's only a blessing when you win, and then you don't have faith if that's the way you look at it. So it's just been a blessing to compete with these guys. I wish we had one more day to grow, one more day to learn, one more day to unite.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: courier;">"I told them in the locker room, like, there's elation in victory when you have a tight group. And then there's joy in suffering when you do it with people that you know love you and care about you, and that's the group that we had. I mean, they fought like crazy, and VCU is great, and it was an amazing second half by both teams, and either team could have won. So give credit to VCU.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: courier;">"Sometimes we put so much emphasis on, like, who won and who lost. This was a great game. Somebody was going to win and somebody was going to lose. We could have been the team that went first in the media, but we're not. (referencing the order of postgame press conferences) We'll learn from it. We had some young guys grow up, but it's been a blessing to compete for the last four days with this group."</span></p><p></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgGQRSdlBWQ-FxpIPFf-tRgSXgeevvEHT_6T6MWHzrKcIHziAXLUphhGu5_uEsQrfXjEVP0i4jOeBUwXXDAZfJLMg4_8orwTH9QGWUTXqmuudGTKMXqt-IuoMkKAXxnxyvpOw12hl6-BkfVHz5Y8ysN_FUn2T3WL9k0G-83cWJ-uPmmPZPbyN1rdWe88js/s4032/IMG_8991.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="4032" data-original-width="3024" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgGQRSdlBWQ-FxpIPFf-tRgSXgeevvEHT_6T6MWHzrKcIHziAXLUphhGu5_uEsQrfXjEVP0i4jOeBUwXXDAZfJLMg4_8orwTH9QGWUTXqmuudGTKMXqt-IuoMkKAXxnxyvpOw12hl6-BkfVHz5Y8ysN_FUn2T3WL9k0G-83cWJ-uPmmPZPbyN1rdWe88js/w300-h400/IMG_8991.jpg" width="300" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Duquesne's Jimmy Clark III slamming one home to give them a 34-22 edge early in the second half. Photo by Jason Schott. </td></tr></tbody></table><br /><span style="font-family: courier;"><br /></span><p></p><p><span style="font-family: courier;"><b>No. 6 Duquesne 70, No. 7 St. Bonaventure 60: </b>Duquesne dominated this one on defense early, as they led 28-22 at the break after holding the Bonnies to just 40 percent, or 10-25 shooting, and 1-8 (12.5%) from behind the arc, in the first half.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: courier;">Duquesne opened the second half with an 8-0 run to buff their lead up to 14, at 36-22, when Jake DiMichele made a jumper at 15:49. St. Bonaventure did make a run, as they pulled to within four, at 50-46 when Charles Pride buried a three-pointer at 6:27. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: courier;">Dae Dae Grant responded with a three at 5:21 that put Duquesne back up seven, 53-46, and eventually, the Dukes took a nine-point lead when Jimmy Clark III converted a three-point play to make it 62-53 with just 1:51 left.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: courier;">Dae Dae Grant led Duquesne with 27 points on 10-15 from the field, including 6-9 on three-pointers, with three assists and two rebounds. Jimmy Clark III had 18 points (8-15 FG, 1-5 threes), with eight rebounds and six assists. Jake DiMichele had 12 points (5-7 FG, 2-3 threes), with two assists and a rebound.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: courier;">St. Bonaventure was led by Daryl Banks III, who had 14 points on 4-12 shooting and 6-6 from the free-throw line, while he missed his four three-point attempts. Assa Essamvous had 10 points (4-7 FG, 2-5 threes), with three rebounds.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: courier;">COACH’S COMMENTS: Duquesne Head Coach Keith Dambrot: “Just upmost respect for St. Bonaventure, Coach Schmidt in particular. It was like a rock fight. A bunch of tough guys out there just competing hard. We just made a few more plays when it mattered than they did. But we’re fortunate to get out of it. We’re happy to get out of it. Hopefully we’ll have enough juice for tomorrow.”</span></p><p><span style="font-family: courier;">St. Bonaventure Head Coach Mark Schmidt: “All the credit goes to Duquesne. I thought Dae Dae Grant and Jimmy Clark played extremely well. That was a concern going into the game. They shoot 18-30 7-14 from threes. It’s hard. Every time we made a run, it just seemed like they made a shot. One was a circus shot. But they scored 39 of the 70 points.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: courier;">“They were a load. And we didn’t play - I thought we got - we went small and I thought it gave us some energy, just like the other night. But we shoot 6-25 from threes. Just, we weren’t good enough and a lot had to do with Duquesne and we wish them luck in the championship tomorrow. But they outplayed us.”</span></p><p><span style="font-family: courier;"><br /></span></p>Jason Schotthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11179389315079382362noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6284289787271291246.post-61045539367442157492024-03-15T18:28:00.000-07:002024-03-15T21:56:49.091-07:00St. John’s Gave The Champs A Battle, & They Now Await Selection Sunday<p> </p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgAFh9zNe1UbocORR84RgofjGEi2isugjtzumfvXNP5JlmAvVuKcx3FMrhRet4oreCtvp-owkloPEKFyX2ohoZk7ujkA5vfOB2y01TDIIrpK1MttPeB2cXFu30ZP6yllmGjG0y2uI5DJAQiLrKbPtpPVfmrEUJ6yWH06NWYNAIBTixr90RxSGtATrC_xqY/s4032/IMG_8874.jpeg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="4032" data-original-width="3024" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgAFh9zNe1UbocORR84RgofjGEi2isugjtzumfvXNP5JlmAvVuKcx3FMrhRet4oreCtvp-owkloPEKFyX2ohoZk7ujkA5vfOB2y01TDIIrpK1MttPeB2cXFu30ZP6yllmGjG0y2uI5DJAQiLrKbPtpPVfmrEUJ6yWH06NWYNAIBTixr90RxSGtATrC_xqY/w300-h400/IMG_8874.jpeg" width="300" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Daniss Jenkins looks to make a play late in the first half. Photo by Jason Schott. <br /><br /></td></tr></tbody></table><p></p><p><span style="font-family: courier;">The St. John’s Red Storm gave the Connecticut Huskies another battle, but as they did twice in the regular season, came up short, as they lost, 95-90, on Friday night in the Big East Tournament Semifinals.</span></p><p><span></span></p><a name='more'></a><p></p><p><span style="font-family: courier;">St. John’s finishes the season with an overall record of 20-13, and they now wait to see their fate when it comes to the NCAA Tournament in two nights on Selection Sunday. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: courier;">St. John’s Head Coach Rick Pitino was asked after the game if he is looking forward to what Sunday brings, and he said, “Yeah, I think - I want to see who we’re going to play, obviously, and prepare and get ready. Jordan (Dingle) came here to play in the Tournament, going to get his wishes. And we’ll see who we play, We’ll see what’s going to go on.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: courier;">“You know, we played a really tough schedule this year, guys. Really tough schedule. You know, we haven’t had too many easy games, and we’ve played Marquette twice, tough. We beat Creighton. Should have beat them on the road. With the exception of Seton Hall at Seton Hall, we’ve played really well in the Big East. Big East is a hell of a conference, as you know.”</span></p><p><span style="font-family: courier;">Connecticut Head Coach Dan Hurley said of St. John’s, “Ultimate respect for, obviously, Coach Pitino, and how good they are in year one (with him at the helm). I don’t know what seed they’ll be, but that’s one of the better teams we’ve played, one of the more talented teams, and clearly an NCAA Tournament team.”</span></p><p><span style="font-family: courier;">The Red Storm opened Friday night’s game looking like a contender, as they raced out to a 10-3 lead, with Daniss Jenkins providing all of their points in the run.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: courier;">Connecticut then settled in, and they took a 17-16 lead when Tristen Newton made a pair of free throws at the 13:43 mark of the first half. The Huskies kept going and opened up a 10-point lead, 34-24, on a Newton layup at 7:46. St. John’s was able to cut that deficit in half, and head into the break down just five, at 52-47.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: courier;">The fact it was only a five-point game was remarkable considering that Connecticut shot 63 percent (17-27) in the first half, to St. John’s making 16 of 38 shot attempts, or 42.1 percent.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: courier;">St. John’s put a scare into UConn early in the second half, as Jenkins buried a deep jumper to make it a two-point game, 56-54, at the 17:19 mark. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: courier;">UConn responded with an 8-0 run over the next two minutes and seven seconds, and an elongated 13-2 run when Samson Johnson buried a hook shot that made it 69-56 at 13:48. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: courier;">From that point on, UConn maintained around a 10-point lead until St. John’s pulled to within six, 91-85, with 35 seconds left. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: courier;">St. John’s was led by Daniss Jenkins, who had 27 points, including 16 in the first half, on 9-22 from the field, including 3-7 from behind the arc, with five assists and a rebound. Jordan Dingle had 19 points on a superb 8-12 shooting, including 3-5 on threes, with three assists and a rebound. RJ Luis Jr. had nine points (3-9 FT) off the bench, with two rebounds and an assist.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: courier;">UConn, who improved to 30-3 and face Marquette in the title game Saturday night, was led by Tristen Newton, who had 25 points on 6-11 shooting, 3-7 from behind the arc, and 10-12 on free throws, with nine assists and six rebounds. Cam Spencer had 20 points (5-10 FG, 4-5 threes, 6-6 FT), with nine assists and four rebounds.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: courier;"><b><i>PITINO POSTGAME</i>: St. John’s Head Coach Rick Pitino addressed the media after the game, and he opened with this statement:</b> “So I want to congratulate Connecticut. They’re very deserving of a defending champion. They’re just a great, great offensive basketball team. Real proud of our guys. I saw some things in Jordan Dingle that I absolutely loved tonight, a competitive fire in him that was great to see. Daniss has always had it. Jordan keeps getting better and better and better. And, unfortunately, we just couldn’t get a run, get over the top.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: courier;">“Biggest problem was our transition defense. They were eight for nine in the first half, and that put us in the box. Sometimes you can’t always go to the offensive glass, you’ve got to get back. But these guys played their tails off, real proud of them. We were hoping for a Big East crown, but the other team was better than us. We’ve played them three times to the wire, and they find a way to win.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: courier;">“Cam Spencer does all the things that are terrific. Newton was great. They have a great basketball team. And somebody said to me, how does it feel to play on your home court where they say - and you’re a road team. I said, well, I coached quite a few years at Kentucky. We were always the home team wherever we went. And they’re the Kentucky of the East. They got the greatest fan base in basketball, and Kentucky had the greatest fan base in that part of the country. Kansas has the greatest fan base in their part of the country. So we’ll get it. We lost a lot of fans in the last 20 years. We gotta get them back. And I think efforts like tonight will get them stimulated and get them back.”</span></p><p><span style="font-family: courier;"><b>On St. John’s being able to fight back for the full 40 minutes:</b> “I thought that was something I was very impressed with. Because one thing about Connecticut, they do it all the time, you think you’re in the game, you’re up one or two at halftime, ten-minute mark, they’re only down four or six and they win by 25. Happens all the time. But it hasn’t happened against us. So I’m real proud of them.”</span></p><p><span style="font-family: courier;"><b>Conclusion of press conference:</b> “One thing I’ll say in closing. We’ve had three turnovers, six turnovers, six turnovers, five turnovers against really good teams. I mean, in coaching some great teams, I had nine turnovers, ten turnovers. But we’re not turning the ball over at all, which is a great sign going into March.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: courier;">“And so we’ve really gotten a lot better over the last three weeks. It’s what you want to see going into March. And I think we could - obviously if we get the right matchup, we could cause some serious damage.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: courier;">“But I want to thank all of you for the coverage this year. It’s been a real interesting experience coaching St. John’s. I don’t say that in a positive or negative way. It’s been interesting from driving over the Throgs Neck Bridge and having people curse and cut me off, it’s been great. Thank you.”</span></p><p><span style="font-family: courier;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-family: courier;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-family: courier;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-family: courier;"><br /></span></p><p><br /></p><p><span style="font-family: courier;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-family: courier;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-family: courier;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-family: courier;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-family: courier;"><br /></span></p>Jason Schotthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11179389315079382362noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6284289787271291246.post-58481820885952958542024-03-14T16:08:00.000-07:002024-03-14T19:27:20.162-07:00St. John’s Stuns Seton Hall, Finally Makes It To Friday At Big East Tournament <p> </p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEidSfVi5gRsZkjB5kEKooSmKp1tCw46NSReJZzMA_9ObtKZxISw9x8Zt-McsIMItxBfQrszKKwRahEX9TntoBAqGx_RKKbho8ttyoVe9zZqhlA1QIALqF6Cr5Wrw-8tM3hUXD0ipFUSl8tzXbD1FjN0A0P-c0HoQSB653XWFHK71Nx358BtoGbUPQvDLwQ/s638/IMG_8796.jpeg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="511" data-original-width="638" height="256" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEidSfVi5gRsZkjB5kEKooSmKp1tCw46NSReJZzMA_9ObtKZxISw9x8Zt-McsIMItxBfQrszKKwRahEX9TntoBAqGx_RKKbho8ttyoVe9zZqhlA1QIALqF6Cr5Wrw-8tM3hUXD0ipFUSl8tzXbD1FjN0A0P-c0HoQSB653XWFHK71Nx358BtoGbUPQvDLwQ/s320/IMG_8796.jpeg" width="320" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">RJ Luis Jr. goes up for a layup. @StJohnsBBall.</td></tr></tbody></table><p></p><p><br /></p><p><span style="font-family: courier;">The third time was the charm for the St. John’s Red Storm against the Seton Hall Pirates, as they earned a 91-72 win in the Big East Tournament quarterfinals at Madison Square Garden on Thursday afternoon.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: courier;">This came after the Red Storm lost two brutal games to Seton Hall in the regular season, the second of which was the Red Storm’s last loss before they concluded the regular season with five straight victories.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: courier;">On a larger point, this was St. John’s 20th win of the season, which should assure them a spot in the NCAA Tournament.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: courier;">It is also the first time St. John’s has made a Big East Tournament semifinal since 2000. They move on to face the top seed in the tournament, Connecticut, the defending National Champion, at 5:30 PM on Friday evening at The Garden.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: courier;">St. John’s took this game over halfway through the first half, when they took a 10-2 lead to take a 33-26 edge on a pair of Joel Soriano free throws at 6:18. The Red Storm took a 45-40 lead into halftime.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: courier;">The start of the second half was really the breakthrough St. John’s was waiting for against The Hall, as they went on an 11-3 run to open up a 56-43 edge. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: courier;">That lead expanded to 15 points when Jordan Dingle buried a three-pointer that made it 71-56 at the 9:11 mark. From that point on, with minor deviations, St. John’s maintained a ten-point edge the rest of the way until a 10-2 run, capped by a Daniss Jenkins steal followed by a basket, gave them a 16-point edge, 85-69, with just 1:52 left.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: courier;">St. John’s was led by RJ Luis Jr., who had 18 points on 5-11 from the field and a perfect 8-8 at the free throw line, nine rebounds, and two assists. Joel Soriano, Nahiem Alleyne, and Jordan Dingle each chipped in 14 points. Chris Ledlum and Daniss Jenkins had 11 points apiece to give the Red Storm six players in double figures.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: courier;">Seton Hall was led by Al-Amir Dawes, who had 22 points on 9-15 from the field and 4-10 on three-pointers, with three rebounds, two assists, and two steals, but he committed five turnovers.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: courier;">For the game, St. John’s shot 51.6 percent, or 32-62, while Seton Hall was held to just 43.1 percent, or 25-58. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: courier;"><b><i>PITINO POSTGAME: </i>St. John's Head Coach Rick Pitino addressed the media after the game, and he opened with this statement:</b> "We're extremely happy for St. John's fans and the university. You know, about three weeks ago, I don't know the exact date, the administration, we were talking and they said, look, Coach, everybody's behind you. But I want to correct that and make sure I say it verbatim, so I don't look back. </span><span style="font-family: courier;">They said, you know, you started so well and I think everybody's expectations were a little too high. And I just kept thinking. And they kept saying, so, you know, it's a good season, and let's just finish up, and it's a good season.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: courier;">"I could sense in their thinking that in their minds it was over. In our minds it was just beginning, because March is what it's all about in college basketball. We told the guys, you gotta play your best basketball going into March. And we knew we had seven now, I think, six or seven, elimination games. Seven. And these guys arose to the occasion on all seven. They knew if they lost to Creighton, lost to Butler, lost to DePaul, lost to Georgetown, it could be over. So we decided to change our whole defensive scheme in terms of pace in three days, because we felt Seton Hall was better from the top of the key to the back board game. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: courier;">"We knew we had our rebound. We knew he had to get in the gaps like they do, because they're really an outstanding basketball team. And we thought that they would play their guys a lot of minutes. And I told our guys, we're going to substitute right away. Run the floor, run the floor, run the floor. And they did a beautiful job. So I'm real proud of them, real happy for St. John's. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: courier;">"They're a terrific team. We beat an outstanding team tonight and we scored 91 points, which leads to what we want to do. Real proud of them. Big fella here did an outstanding job. RJ is getting better and better. Now he's practicing, for the first time, every day. So that's really, really good. Joel told them, he said it's about time to start practicing."</span></p><p><span style="font-family: courier;"><b>Q: Rick, when the administration talked to you guys, why did you think differently? What did you see in this team that you thought? <i>Pitino:</i> </b>"It's not necessarily what I thought at that moment. I just said that there's so many games to be played. I remember one time I was at Louisville, looked like we were down and out and we had to beat Pitt on the road. Another great road game. And we won I think seven out of nine, seven out of ten games to make it. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: courier;">"It's never over if you keep getting better, keep improving, and we were playing really good basketball. We were losing to outstanding teams by one, two, three. All close games. So, you know, I wasn't - I told the guys, you know, March is what it's all about. Going into March in the last two weeks of the season, if you get better, then you're going to be a March team. And they kept getting better. And it's a credit to them."</span></p><p><span style="font-family: courier;"><b>Q: Coach, Nahiem Alleyne played amazing today. Do you think he was your secret weapon because he's played in the tournament before? <i>Pitino</i>:</b> "He had zero turnovers, two assists, five for five, three for three from three. So I think you're right on that. I think he's a veteran basketball player. We needed him. But I thought all the guys made great plays tonight. You know, it's very difficult for us to play without D.J. But Na and Jordan did a fabulous job, and we've got a third point guard and that's RJ. RJ is a man, he plays power forward for us. He plays the wings. RJ can play all four positions, and it's not easy to do and he does it very well."</span></p><p><span style="font-family: courier;"><b>Q: With you having six players scoring double figures today, with this win streak you guys have had different contributors kind of stepping up. Having all of them do it today, what does that show about the progress this team has made? <i>Pitino</i>:</b> Well, we had three tough practices, and the message I had to them - I gave them two messages. I said this time of year some teams get really, really tight and they rely on their half court basketball. And I said I want you to do the opposite. I want you to go out and try and score 100 points tonight. I want you to play race horse basketball, get a high number of assists, and get in the gaps and play them.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: courier;">"But we've gotta play a different style come March. It's gotta be race horse basketball, because I feel it takes the pressure off teams. When you're in the open court and you're running and you're having to move the ball, pass the ball and cut, you're not overthinking in the half court. And we did that tonight. We gave them two messages. Pace, we're going to sub right away. And then the second thing I put, I just put on the board, I said, we got dinner right away. Then we have the Connecticut film. And then we're bringing you back at 1:00 for Connecticut film. (Laughs)."</span></p><p><span style="font-family: courier;"><br /></span></p>Jason Schotthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11179389315079382362noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6284289787271291246.post-43827261807282676262024-03-14T15:00:00.000-07:002024-03-15T05:49:19.856-07:00 A-10 Tourney Day 3: Barclays Center Turns Into Upset Central<p> </p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhVS5uOxHONRpFaDGTm0uscpSgFVayJ2_T22by16M33uulVR3GRuGGdyzRZOJIyYo6_FS-MXeLjB0T1UbWxsKFPZTytwgY42wDXKemb8dLJzJm84xMdWDAtyAkKpgrM96VjIBlQXBm2-8CbTc41VWBo8TqtC-axi7JiiJZqEkaHKSQJbSuty8Ry9LqrfsE/s3024/IMG_8814%20(1).jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2561" data-original-width="3024" height="339" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhVS5uOxHONRpFaDGTm0uscpSgFVayJ2_T22by16M33uulVR3GRuGGdyzRZOJIyYo6_FS-MXeLjB0T1UbWxsKFPZTytwgY42wDXKemb8dLJzJm84xMdWDAtyAkKpgrM96VjIBlQXBm2-8CbTc41VWBo8TqtC-axi7JiiJZqEkaHKSQJbSuty8Ry9LqrfsE/w400-h339/IMG_8814%20(1).jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">St. Bonaventure celebrates after beating Loyola of Chicago in double overtime. Photo by Jason Schott.</td></tr></tbody></table><p></p><p><br /></p><p><span style="font-family: courier;">The Atlantic 10 Tournament took a major turn on Thursday as the top four seeds were eliminated. St. Joseph's knocked off the top seed, Richmond, 66-61, then VCU knocked off the fourth seed, UMass, 73-59, in afternoon action. The night session began with No. 7 St. Bonaventure knocking off No. 2 Loyola Chicago, 75-74, in double overtime, and finally, No. 3 Dayton fell to No. 6 Duquesne, 65-57.</span></p><p><span></span></p><a name='more'></a><p></p><p><span style="font-family: courier;"><b>No. 9 Saint Joseph's 66, No. 1 Richmond 61:</b></span></p><p><span style="font-family: courier;">Richmond led this one, 24-22, at halftime, and then held a 10-point edge, 45-35 nine minutes into the second half. St. Joseph's responded with a 9-0 run capped by a Christ Essandoko, and they took the lead with 3:19 remaining when Erik Reynolds II completed a three-point play that made it 54-53. Rasheer Fleming put it away with a trio of free throws in the final minutes that put St. Joseph's up 64-59 with just 22 seconds on the clock.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: courier;">St. Joseph's was led by Erik Reynolds II, who had 30 points, including 17 in the second half, as he shot 11-19 overall, including 3-8 on three-pointers, with three rebounds, two steals, and an assist. Cameron Brown had 10 points (4-10 FG, 2-5 threes), seven rebounds, and two assists. Rasheer Fleming had six points (1-3, 0-2 threes, 4-6 free throws) and 12 rebounds.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: courier;">Richmond was led by Neal Quinn, who had 21 points on a superb 10-13 from the field, including 1-1 on threes, with four assists and three rebounds. Jordan King had 17 points (5-16 FG, 3-9 threes), four assists, and a rebound.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: courier;">St. Joseph's Head Coach Billy Lange said afterwards, "Two things. Number one, I just honestly praise God that I get another day to coach a great group of guys. And it's these two (referencing Reynolds II and Brown). They've endured a lot here to just get to this point. And they're just faithful believers. I don't have any other word to say it. So to just have the blessing to get one more opportunity, one more meal together, one more film session together, one more conversation with someone. To just keep going, he gets the glory for that. Because it can end at any second.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: courier;">"The second thing is, and it really is a testament to how good our conference is. That's a great team. That's an NCAA tournament team. So the world has to get it right. Because we just keep projecting all the 'who fits' in the NCAA Tournament. So I've been in this position before, where you have an amazing season and then you've got one game to try to prove your worth and value - and it's not right. And their whole season shouldn't be judged by that. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: courier;">"For (Richmond Head Coach) Chris [Mooney] to come back from what he dealt with last year, to have a whole new roster. Richmond is a no-joke school. My wife went to school there. She's not mad at me, though. But she went to school there. It's hard to get those guys through. They deserve a lot of credit. The ball goes in or it doesn't. And a lot of times we decide how we feel about a season based on that. But that's an NCAA Tournament team. Whether we are or not remains to be seen, but that is. And it's unfortunate that our conference is not getting the recognition nationally that it should. That's a really, really good team. And I just think that we should celebrate their season. They had a heck of a season and that's what makes this a really good win for us."</span></p><p><span style="font-family: courier;">Richmond Head Coach Chris Mooney said, "Congratulations to Saint Joe's. I thought they played a great game. We played them last week in Richmond and had a good game with them. Today, I thought obviously Eric Reynolds had a tremendous college basketball game. It was really hard for us - I thought we guarded him and made him take difficult shots, but he was able to make them. Overall, they played really well.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: courier;">"I thought our team played extremely hard. Our effort, alertness, moving the ball, defense. I thought everything was really, really good. Unfortunately, sometimes the other team still wins. So congratulations to Saint Joe's. But I couldn't be more proud of our team."</span></p><p><span style="font-family: courier;">Even though Richmond finished with a record of 23-9 and a share of the A10 regular season title with Loyola of Chicago, they likely will not make the NCAA Tournament. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: courier;">Mooney said of that, "Yeah, every tournament has - every postseason has expanded - the NFL, the Olympics, the World Cup, college, women's basketball. And I think we have over 360 teams now. Scheduling is really difficult since the Power Five conferences went to 20 conference games. And there's no one directing anyone to schedule. You just find out your schedule is not good enough in March. So it's a really impossible situation. I feel bad for our guys, because they're here at this time when a team of this caliber in the A-10 historically is an NCAA team. I think in the future, maybe if there is expansion as an NCAA team. Right now, you know, it's frustrating. Because the A-10, 15 really, great basketball schools will have one, maybe two teams in the tournament. And that doesn't seem accurate."</span></p><p><span style="font-family: courier;"><b>No. 5 VCU 73, No. 4 Massachusetts 59: </b>VCU played about as perfect a first half as you could to take full command of this game, as they raced out to a 42-25 lead. The Rams shot 54.5 percent (12-22 overall) and 5-9 (55.6 percent) from behind the arc, while holding the Minutemen to just 25.0 percent (7-28) from the field and 1-9 (11.1 percent) on three-pointers.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: courier;">UMAss never got closer than six points in the second half, 65-59, with 4:24 on the clock, and VCU pitched a shutout the rest of the way, closing the game on an 8-0 run.</span></p><p></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgpJUszWTdGfKGdn1jyEjhGu1QKBra7o8Ue_kU-24ZbtA1p0TqTbcfOlAltEbzwsmlXAvsEwI9jIhZuadEZc4f9K2nE6SbBsE0Th-R_OPYNvEjRJNldM-QyHHXP34f7w2fBF7ogOCLlB1kiYZvMMCFpauy14h89Ooy1Lv7Al0aLMACgBLYdD88TiLoBRSQ/s4032/IMG_8791.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="4032" data-original-width="3024" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgpJUszWTdGfKGdn1jyEjhGu1QKBra7o8Ue_kU-24ZbtA1p0TqTbcfOlAltEbzwsmlXAvsEwI9jIhZuadEZc4f9K2nE6SbBsE0Th-R_OPYNvEjRJNldM-QyHHXP34f7w2fBF7ogOCLlB1kiYZvMMCFpauy14h89Ooy1Lv7Al0aLMACgBLYdD88TiLoBRSQ/w300-h400/IMG_8791.jpg" width="300" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Michael Belle putting up a layup that made it 65-56 at the 4:37 mark of the second half. Photo by Jason Schott.</td></tr></tbody></table><br /><span style="font-family: courier;"><br /></span><p></p><p><span style="font-family: courier;">VCU was led by Joe Bamisile, who had 18 points, nine of which came in the first half, on 6-9 shooting, including 4-6 on three-pointers, with a rebound and an assist. Zeb Jackson had 17 points, including 11 in the opening stanza, on 3-9 from the field, 1-4 on threes, and a superb 10-11 from the charity stripe, with five assists, four rebounds, and four steals. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: courier;">UMass was led by Rahsool Diggins, who had 21 points (7-16 FG, 4-10 threes), with an assist and a steal. Josh Cohen had 14 points (3-5 FG, 8-9 free throws), six rebounds, two steals, and an assist.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: courier;">VCU Head Coach Ryan Odom said afterwards, "Yeah, I'm just really proud of our guys. We knew what we were facing with such a well-coached, really tough-minded UMass team. They got the best of us, obviously, in our first matchup in Amherst, and certainly our guys were excited to play in this game, certainly because of the opportunity to play in the A-10 Tournament and, obviously, the stakes at this point here in our conference, but also a chance to play against them as well.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: courier;">"I thought our guys did a nice job. We got off to a little bit of a slow start. It was 5-0. They got two offensive rebounds, and we were a little bit irritated with one another at that point. And then from then on, our guys began to play the way the tough-together basketball that we needed in order to come out with a win.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: courier;">"Obviously, they're really hard to guard in and around the basket. They challenge you. They beat you up with their post-ups in a very legal way, and they can make you very fatigued. And we had to play all three of our bigs today I order to fight that and give ourselves a chance. And I thought the zone obviously was an important factor in that, just to give us some time away from the post-ups."</span></p><p><span style="font-family: courier;">UMass Head Coach Frank Martin said, "Much credit to VCU. They obviously came out, and they just outplayed us in that first half. The hole was too big to crawl out of against a team that doesn't really turn the ball over. But my guys emptied their tank from day one this year. They've left it on the court every single time we've taken the court and today was no different. Unfortunately, we had some empty possessions once got it to six and couldn't get closer."</span></p><p><span style="font-family: courier;">Martin was asked what his halftime address to the team was like, and he said, "Yeah, at halftime, these kids have given us everything that we've asked of them. It's postseason play. You don't go in there; there's no Knute Rockne speech that overcomes a 17-point deficit. It's not the time to - back in November I might have gone in there and challenge people a little but, challenge a winning team.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: courier;">"Come on, there's a reason they're winners. We spoke about - we created the problem. Right in the stretch of the game in the first half, we committed six hand-check fouls in seven possessions. And we didn't commit any hand checks the rest of the game. But in that segment, we committed six in seven sessions and gave them ten free throws. Then we had empty possessions, and that's when the game kind of went from four, five, six to 14, 15, or whatever it was.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: courier;">"We spoke about we created the problem. We're not trying to win the game at the 16-minute mark or at halftime. We just got to figure out a way to get us where we can win the game in the last media segment of the game. And that's what we did. Unfortunately, we had those empty possessions there at the end of the game."</span></p><p><span style="font-family: courier;"><b>No. 7 St. Bonaventure 75, No. 2 Loyola Chicago 74 (Double overtime): </b></span></p><p><span style="font-family: courier;">In a game that will be remembered in the annals of this tournament, St. Bonavanture battled back from an 11-point deficit to outlast Loyola Chicago in double overtime.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: courier;">Loyola Chicago dominated early, as they had a nine-point edge at the half, 31-22, and they had that 11-point lead as late as the 6:02 mark of the second half.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: courier;">A Barry Evans three-pointer at the 5:45 mark began a 10-0 run to close out regulation and that that knotted the game at 58.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: courier;">In overtime, it was St. Bonaventure who jumped out to a 62-58 edge, making it in essence a 14-0 run, but Loyola Chicago responded with a 5-0 clip to retake the lead.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: courier;">Darryl Banks III drained a three-pointer to give St. Bonaventure a 65-63 lead with just 29 seconds on the clock.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: courier;">Philip Alston got to the line for Loyola Chicago with 17 seconds left, and he missed the first free throws. His second attempt rimmed out, but he swooped in to grab the rebound and slammed one home to tie the game at 65.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: courier;">That would be the score heading into the second overtime period, which the Bonnies opened again with a four-point edge. Loyola Chicago would bounce back again, and they took the lead when Dame Adelekun drained a pair of free throws at the 32-second mark that made it 74-72. Adelekun had six points in the second OT.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: courier;">The Bonnies wasted no time on their ensuing possession, and Banks III made it to the free throw line with 12 seconds left, and he buried all three of his free throws to give them a 75-74 lead.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: courier;">Loyola Chicago had one final shot, but Des Watson's three-pointer was just off the target as time expired.</span></p><p></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjnBpMazEIiCuOZ8qRKwUfJ5bQ9D7IGaWa9FbzxK2048a5oYsAAqy3cyZqvyZZdwJmCsIJEzvhdy2lj6b9Z5hHtPbnjiFc6Ir1kdWGCjAIalns-L-Bsa89aMqXL7j1v3hDXWK9fAWIPLXMs1F-F-Oul8uH5z-oxFqZGVrMZFqmGiknDHhKhnY_rnBPnDik/s4032/IMG_8812.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="4032" data-original-width="3024" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjnBpMazEIiCuOZ8qRKwUfJ5bQ9D7IGaWa9FbzxK2048a5oYsAAqy3cyZqvyZZdwJmCsIJEzvhdy2lj6b9Z5hHtPbnjiFc6Ir1kdWGCjAIalns-L-Bsa89aMqXL7j1v3hDXWK9fAWIPLXMs1F-F-Oul8uH5z-oxFqZGVrMZFqmGiknDHhKhnY_rnBPnDik/w300-h400/IMG_8812.jpg" width="300" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Darryl Banks III draining the third of his three free throws to clinch the win. Photo by Jason Schott.</td></tr></tbody></table><br /><span style="font-family: courier;">St. Bonaventure was led by Darryl Banks III, who had 22 points on 4-12 from the field, 2-6 on three-pointers, and a perfect 12-12 from the free throw line, with eight rebounds and two assists in 43 minutes. Mika Adams-Woods played 48 of the 50 minutes in this one, and he had 13 points (4-13 FG, 0-4 threes, 5-5 FT), with seven rebounds and two assists. Noel Brown also had 13 points on 4-5 from the field, with five rebounds.</span><p></p><p><span style="font-family: courier;">Loyola Chicago was led by Philip Alston, who had 22 points on 7-13 from the field, 2-2 on three-pointers, and 6-10 from the charity stripe, with eight rebounds and an assist. Miles Rubin had 12 points (5-8 FG), eight rebounds, and an assist. Dame Adelekun also had 12 points (4-12 FG), with 10 rebounds to give him a double-double, and two assists.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: courier;">St. Bonaventure Head Coach Mark Schmidt said afterwards, "Great college game. Back and forth. I thought we showed great toughness. We got down double digits early. I think we got down double digits again sometime during that game. We're not a pretty team, as you saw tonight. But we have some gritty guys, and they produce. The guy next to me (Daryl Banks III) has struggled throughout the year, but those struggles, he never quit, and kept on fighting and fighting and deserved a game like today. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: courier;">"I thought Barry Evans did a great job, coming in, spacing us out a little bit. They're a great defensive team. I thought spacing out helped us a little bit. But we defended them. We were tough, we were physical. We played small a lot. Just to be outrebounded by only five is a credit to our guys. And to hold that team to 33 percent (overall) and 26 percent from threes, that's a credit to our guys."</span></p><p><span style="font-family: courier;">Schmidt said of how they have found a way to pull out close games two days in a row in Brooklyn, "That's a good question. I wish I knew. I just thought, you know, we kept on playing. One of the reporters talked about we were down 11 or 15, then 11. If you don't have any character guys, if you don't have competitive guys, you just quit. You lay down. And we didn't lay down. We got character guys. We've got competitors, and they just kept on fighting. Like I said, it wasn't pretty, but we made the plays. They missed some shots, but we shoot 27-31. In games like this, when you get into the tournament, it's one or two plays. And we made those plays that we needed to make. Some luck on our side, for sure. But we have competitive guys. They're fun to coach."</span></p><p><span style="font-family: courier;">When asked how his experience has helped his team, Schmidt said, "My experience? Yeah, I'm old, I got no hair. But yeah, I think experience is a big key. I've been there before. As a young coach, you may panic a little bit. But when you have good players, it makes me look much better. But we have a veteran team, even though they played in our system for only one or two years. All those guys have been in tough situations, pressure situations. I'm lucky to have those guys out there producing."</span></p><p><span style="font-family: courier;">Like Richmond, Loyola Chicago finishes with a 23-9 record and likely out of the NCAA Tournament.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: courier;">Loyola Chicago Head Coach Drew Valentine said afterwards, "First of all, credit to Bonaventure. It was a gritty, intense college basketball game, where it looked like two teams who really, really wanted to win. So credit to them for finding a way to pull it out. But I told my team in the locker room after the game that this game doesn't define our season. And if anybody thinks that it does, then you're totally wrong, because what we did to be regular season champions in the Atlantic-10, it means something - especially in our second year, especially with the way that our season went last year.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: courier;">"So I'm proud of my group. I feel like we're a postseason team. I think we deserve to be a postseason team. I think we've proven we're good enough to be a postseason team. I think the metrics will tell you that. I think from an eye test perspective, I think we deserve that as well. And then look, man, the way that they celebrated after the game, we're doing something right. If people are that excited to beat us and are that passionate, we're doing something right. So we're walking off the court with our head high, with our dignity, with our class. And I'm proud of my group and what we've been able to accomplish this year in the Atlantic-10."</span></p><p><span style="font-family: courier;"><b>No. 6 Duquesne 65, </b></span><span style="font-family: courier;"><b>No. 3 Dayton 57: </b>Duquesne was led by Jimmy Clark III, who had 16 points on 5-11 from the field, 2-4 on three-pointers, and a perfect 4-4 at the free throw line, with four assists and three rebounds. Dae Dae Grant had 11 points (4-13 FG, 1-6 threes), with three rebounds and two assists.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: courier;">Duquesne Head Coach Keith Dambrot said afterwards, "First, unbelievable admiration for the Dayton program and their coaching staff. Just great people. Great team. Just fortunate to beat them. We played - we took their punches and punched back, which I think these guys have really learned how to do over the course of the year. And we've been in a lot of games now where we're making more winning plays when it matters. But that's a very difficult team to play against. And if you can hold them to 57 points, you did an unbelievable job."</span></p><p><span style="font-family: courier;"><b><i>NEXT UP: </i></b>After an off day Friday, it is Semifinal Saturday, with Saint Joseph's taking on VCU at 1:00 PM, followed by St. Bonaventure and Duquesne playing at 3:30 PM. </span></p>Jason Schotthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11179389315079382362noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6284289787271291246.post-36641204888248464932024-03-14T05:51:00.000-07:002024-03-14T05:51:55.454-07:00RFK Jr. To Name VP Pick On The 26th; Rodgers & Ventura In The Running<p><br /></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhmvQNKSQL2JwjhbG4tXYCm_6pDQK53x74ZlRjbk_XlA62HoqSGqBOxoNSx77Z1YHX2Ir4A4N4FwnlGxpHn2IkKuzVPry7Rj6g3FpnxOAdJx3qr4OpfoFWW88FRV8-7dpUFqi2AiEz3yYWITQWImIvdekcJdRFwBp6ctCaAgZEjcSIEirYGj1XU9sRXkcM/s2291/IMG_7843.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2291" data-original-width="2070" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhmvQNKSQL2JwjhbG4tXYCm_6pDQK53x74ZlRjbk_XlA62HoqSGqBOxoNSx77Z1YHX2Ir4A4N4FwnlGxpHn2IkKuzVPry7Rj6g3FpnxOAdJx3qr4OpfoFWW88FRV8-7dpUFqi2AiEz3yYWITQWImIvdekcJdRFwBp6ctCaAgZEjcSIEirYGj1XU9sRXkcM/w361-h400/IMG_7843.jpg" width="361" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Robert F. Kennedy Jr. in New York City on February 17. Photo by Jason Schott.</td></tr></tbody></table><p></p><p><br /></p><p><span style="font-family: courier;">Independent Presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. will be announcing his choice of a Vice President in less than two weeks, on Tuesday, March 26, in Oakland, California.</span></p><p><span></span></p><a name='more'></a><p></p><p><span style="font-family: courier;">In recent days, according to reports, Kennedy has had discussions with Jets quarterback Aaron Rodgers and former wrestler and Minnesota Governor Jesse Ventura about becoming his running mate.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: courier;">Rodgers and Kennedy have been allies against a lot of the government's Covid policies, including the mandates of vaccines and censorship of those who had differing views of how the pandemic was handled by the government.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: courier;">Kennedy posted a photo on social media with Rodgers on February 20 atop a mountain, writing, "Hiking with @AaronRodgers12 and his amazing Achilles," referencing the injury suffered by the Jets quarterback four plays into last season's opening game.</span></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjx6iXor9uV_9jaWEbgu2oisMuRSd4aXIuRDBKVPhW4bU3JCW1huydUBYjCZKtvBjiiQS-qv8LPe-wEK2dhP8S5btR2MiF0OUfMTic8QEOqJuz4ex2hoIJYGcyYPN1Uv1U1SbR9ly9Zn4uBc9wwVNyghoSHWFof-B9Y_bkj3QdC_LeZp9TFWZtR2j3azlc/s960/IMG_7961%20(1).jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="960" data-original-width="615" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjx6iXor9uV_9jaWEbgu2oisMuRSd4aXIuRDBKVPhW4bU3JCW1huydUBYjCZKtvBjiiQS-qv8LPe-wEK2dhP8S5btR2MiF0OUfMTic8QEOqJuz4ex2hoIJYGcyYPN1Uv1U1SbR9ly9Zn4uBc9wwVNyghoSHWFof-B9Y_bkj3QdC_LeZp9TFWZtR2j3azlc/w256-h400/IMG_7961%20(1).jpg" width="256" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Kennedy with Rodgers in the Feb. 20 post. @RobertKennedyJr.</td></tr></tbody></table><p><span style="font-family: courier;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-family: courier;">Jesse Ventura was a famous wrestler in the WWF in the 1980s, nicknamed "The Body." He entered politics when he became Mayor of Brooklyn Park, Minnesota, in 1991, and he served one term. </span><span style="font-family: courier;">In 1998, Ventura set the political world on fire when he won the Minnesota Governor's race when he was the Reform Party candidate, and he declined to run for re-election, citing that he had to care for his wife. Recently, he considered running for President in 2020 as the Green Party's nominee.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: courier;">Ventura introduced Kennedy before he delivered a speech in Arizona on February 5 that certainly showed why he would be considered his running mate. The speech is excerpted below:</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span>I'm here in support of Robert F. Kennedy's bid for President of the United States, and </span>I support this because I have been a person of the third party my entire political career and my entire adult lifetime. I go way back. I voted for John Anderson back in 1980, for those of you that are old enough to remember that, so I have been a third party person my entire life. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">I support the third party movement. Ralph Nader had it best when he called it 'the two-party dictatorship,' because that's what it is, and you're seeing right now - right now - the very reason we need to elect somebody other than Democrats or Republicans, and that reason is this: you're seeing it right now with this border bill, where they put their party before the country.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">Bear that in mind: Democrats and Republicans always put their party first , then it's their money-bag donors that give them the money, and then, let's see, the people, we could end up about fourth or fifth on the list. Rest assured it's their party first, not the country, and you're seeing that right now, they could pass this bill, but they're not doing it, why? Because of party politics and election coming this fall, so let everybody suffer while they put their parties first. </span><span style="font-family: georgia;">Well, that's why we need to elect independents.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">I won the election in Minnesota. I took on the Democrats and Republicans, and I was talking with Bobby earlier, and I think I amazed him a little bit when I told him I only raised three hundred thousand dollars to become the Governor of Minnesota. I can tell you this: I made more money doing the job than what I spent to get it. There isn't an elected official in the last hundred years to a major office who can say that. I made more money doing the job than I spent to get it.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">That's what you're looking at today - you talk about wasteful spending, how about the wasteful spending on these political parties, and the money that just goes down, for lack of a better term, down the toilet, with this fundraising and all that stuff. I don't need that, and Bobby doesn't need it, either.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">Bobby will make it on ideas - that's what I ran on in Minnesota, ideas, and the people responded. The voter turnout rose and went sky high in Minnesota. Bobby can do the same thing nationally. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">All we need is for people to believe, and I'm your example. I beat the Democrats and Republicans at the same time. They can be beaten. They can be beaten, and how you beat them is with ideas. How you beat them is with people responding to those ideas, and how you beat them is by putting America first. The United States first, not yourself. This isn't about yourself, and this isn't about your political party. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">It's about our country, and right now our country needs Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. and all third party candidates. I believe it was John Adams told us, warned us, he said when political parties take over the government, say goodbye to the government that you know. Well, he warned us and we're on the brink right now because these two dysfunctional parties that are running this country, they've been doing it now for, what, 50 years or more, and with the same results, and they don't have you in mind. They've got themselves in mind, so we need to elect people who truly understand what public service is about. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">I'll say this to you, and I'll finish with this:</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">Imagine the world we would live in today if the two Kennedys would have lived.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">There would have been no Vietnam, there would have been no Cold War, we'd be friends with Cuba. This world would be - you wouldn't recognize it today, and so I always say Jack Kennedy was the greatest President of all in my lifetime, and the reason I say that is because they let him serve the least amount. He didn't even get one term! That's why he's the best, because they wouldn't let him go past not even one term.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">Well, maybe it's time to elect another Kennedy.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: courier;">To view Ventura's entire speech, which begins around the 7:30 mark after Kennedy's campaign video, please <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3t14TOUkYuk&t=939s" target="_blank">click here</a>.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: courier;"><br /></span></p>Jason Schotthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11179389315079382362noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6284289787271291246.post-21125485409153519062024-03-13T18:57:00.000-07:002024-03-14T03:36:13.597-07:00A10 Tournament Day 2: St. Joseph’s, VCU Early Winners<p> </p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgwOPWmWm3-tACpECyD4WiSANQEUMti7VXA3KiE-CC2OKdEs0J6PViJrgv8PKq1mTwRLy1o_SrJUmotly9Alyf0PjmomO_vuKq2h12wDQDgYezhvMtihrSXwWwKxABWWnqvZFzcPZrIIlNVIbaTqBOnARzmn-W15vR_ViKzEoeuBZaqQHbjm_OfjXYe6P4/s3024/IMG_8721.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2930" data-original-width="3024" height="388" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgwOPWmWm3-tACpECyD4WiSANQEUMti7VXA3KiE-CC2OKdEs0J6PViJrgv8PKq1mTwRLy1o_SrJUmotly9Alyf0PjmomO_vuKq2h12wDQDgYezhvMtihrSXwWwKxABWWnqvZFzcPZrIIlNVIbaTqBOnARzmn-W15vR_ViKzEoeuBZaqQHbjm_OfjXYe6P4/w400-h388/IMG_8721.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">VCU's Kuany Kuany going up for a layup that gave them a 24-22 edge midway through the first half. Photo by Jason Schott.</td></tr></tbody></table><p></p><p><br /></p><p><span style="font-family: courier;">In the second day of action in the A10 Tournament at Barclays Center on Wednesday, St. Joseph’s beat George Mason, 64-57, and VCU beat Fordham 69-62, in afternoon action. St. Bonaventure's beat LaSalle, 75-73, while Duquesne beat Saint Louis, 83-73, in the night session.</span></p><p><span></span></p><a name='more'></a><p></p><p><span style="font-family: courier;"><b>No. 9 St. Joseph’s 64, No. 8 George Mason 57</b>: St. Joseph's, backed by 48.1 percent shooting in the first half, raced out to a 33-24 halftime lead. That lead ballooned to 18 points, 46-28, when Lynn Greer III made a layup at 15:24 of the second half. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: courier;">As the games went Tuesday, so did this one, as George Mason got back into it, as they pulled to within five, at 53-48, when Woody Newton completed a three-point play at 6:40.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: courier;">Mason got as close as three, 60-57, when Baraka Okoije made a jumper at 1:25, but St. Joe's forced a turnover by Amari Kelly with 39 seconds left, and Rasheer Fleming hauled in an offensive rebound with 10 seconds left to essentially seal it, as he was fouled on the play and buried a pair of free throws to make it a five-point game, 62-57.</span></p><p></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEilXa30MhHPRO1K4xuV99rI5T8cTj5Z6x79Rs7CM4aMbtd_gEZGeJhg8dfNvy84eEReXy0hbrM1mBiOIJGossU0B599RtTjb3kzvJkQHLiyrjW1Iv7Rpp8wgTnlrqrSwJB5MvTuAtBisbxG6vlnTLvnrWh5vOwNmrlj9L9cXFzxrLYj3XBCy1aOpKanFFc/s4032/IMG_8714.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="4032" data-original-width="3024" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEilXa30MhHPRO1K4xuV99rI5T8cTj5Z6x79Rs7CM4aMbtd_gEZGeJhg8dfNvy84eEReXy0hbrM1mBiOIJGossU0B599RtTjb3kzvJkQHLiyrjW1Iv7Rpp8wgTnlrqrSwJB5MvTuAtBisbxG6vlnTLvnrWh5vOwNmrlj9L9cXFzxrLYj3XBCy1aOpKanFFc/w300-h400/IMG_8714.jpg" width="300" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Rasheer Fleming hauling in that critical rebound in the final seconds. Photo by Jason Schott.</td></tr></tbody></table><br /><span style="font-family: courier;"><br /></span><p></p><p><span style="font-family: courier;">St. Joseph's Head Coach Billy Lange said of Fleming hitting those late free throws, "When he stepped to that foul line, I was as confident as a coach can be in a guy who shoots in the 60s from the free-throw line. He's steadfast. I said this before, and I'll say it again. The guy since the moment he got here has led our team in pre-game prayer. He was 17 years old in front of 23-year-old men doing that. The courage it takes to do that in front of your peers is remarkable. It's uncommon. He's uncommon to me."</span></p><p><span style="font-family: courier;">St. Joseph's was led by Cameron Brown, who had 16 points on 6-9 from the field, including 3-5 from behind the arc, with two rebounds, two assists, and two steals. Fleming had 14 points (5-7 FG, 2-4 threes), eight rebounds, and two assists. Greer III had 13 points (5-8 FG, 1-1 threes), five assists, one rebound, and a steal.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: courier;">George Mason was led by Baraka Okoije, who had 22 points on 9-15 from the field, with rebounds, three assists, and a steal. Amari Kelly had 14 points (5-10 FG), five rebounds, and a steal.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: courier;">Lange said of the game, "It's a blessing to be able to compete in March. You know, to be in Brooklyn, to be at the Barclays Center, to be able to compete in March, it's a blessing. It's a blessing to be able to represent Saint Joseph's University. We've had a very disjointed conference season. So through the grace of God, we get a chance to continue to get better. And like we beat a team that has been playing great as of late. That program has beaten Dayton this year. They just beat Richmond four or five days ago. They have been playing really well. Credit to our guys for coming out here and playing as united as we needed to be to win this game. And it was a battle. So we got to get back to the hotel and recover, and we'll be back tomorrow morning."</span></p><p><span style="font-family: courier;">No.9 St. Joseph's takes on No. 1 Richmond in the Quarterfinals Thursday at 11:30 AM.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: courier;"><b>No. 5 VCU 69, No. 12 Fordham 62:</b> In a game where Rams were destined to win, as they share that nickname, it was VCU who outlasted Fordham.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: courier;">The first half was incredibly competitive, as Fordham shot an even 50 percent (13-26), while VCU shot 52.4 percent (11-21), and Fordham was able to eke out</span><span style="font-family: courier;"> a one-point edge, 38-37, into halftime.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: courier;">Fordham expanded that lead to five, at 45-40, in the opening five minutes of the second half, but VCU raced back to tie the game at 50 on a Zeb Jackson free throw at 11:04. That would be one of six times the game would be tied in the second half, and there were 11 ties in the entire game.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: courier;">Fordham did have a chance at the end, as they were trailing by just three, 65-62, with 24 seconds left. They drew up a play in which Kyle Rose took it to the hoop, but his layup attempt rimmed out with 14 seconds left. Joe Bamisile grabbed the rebound, and was fouled, sending him to the line, where he made two free throws to seal the win.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: courier;">From when it was tied at 59 with 3:29 left, VCU won it at the free throw line, as they made 10 of them, starting with the pair from Max Shulga at 3:11 on a one-and-one.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: courier;">VCU was led by Shugla, who had 14 points on 4-4 from the field, 2-2 on three-pointers, and 4-4 on free throws, with seven rebounds and four assists. Toibu Lawal had 13 points (2-4 FG, 9-11 free throws), with six rebounds and a steal.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: courier;">Fordham was led by Kyle Rose, who had 19 points on 6-12 from the field, 4-6 on threes, with three rebounds and a steal. Abdou Tsimbila, who was limited to 16 minutes due to early foul trouble, had 10 points on 4-4 shooting, with three rebounds. </span></p><p></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEixpw9rqTbQFaNoXPzscO9Nt8qNFe4K1eV0cQaKHQGJXXayMqr4NqZCB55Ugvot49egptkXpyVjLTg1NUiQOloDYktD_QNqG97hSoBAVv9mvOHWa-YvVsUsjZQLkjnlsJDfetPvV_N7MHYVH9JEvnMZVjF_Q8PGqYHLIy4GGfGAVfK_OjRu8TvDmu4pebM/s4028/IMG_8738.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="4028" data-original-width="3010" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEixpw9rqTbQFaNoXPzscO9Nt8qNFe4K1eV0cQaKHQGJXXayMqr4NqZCB55Ugvot49egptkXpyVjLTg1NUiQOloDYktD_QNqG97hSoBAVv9mvOHWa-YvVsUsjZQLkjnlsJDfetPvV_N7MHYVH9JEvnMZVjF_Q8PGqYHLIy4GGfGAVfK_OjRu8TvDmu4pebM/w299-h400/IMG_8738.jpg" width="299" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Fordham's Kyle Rose missing a late layup.</td></tr></tbody></table><br /><span style="font-family: courier;"><br /></span><p></p><p><span style="font-family: courier;">Fordham Head Coach Keith Urgo said afterwards, "Yeah, I mean our goal was to be the best team we could be by the end of the year. And I don't think anybody who has been watching us all year long could say that wasn't the case. We're playing the best basketball that we played all year long. It was just a little too late. Tonight was no different. We cleaned up the turnovers. They had 29 points - first time we played them, they had 29 points off of our 15 turnovers. Tonight, our goal was 10 or less. We had 13. But off of turnovers, they were only at 10.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: courier;">"First game, they got to the free throw line 16 times. Obviously, tonight's 38 attempts is a lot of free throws. Credit to them. They were making the plays, I guess, on offense and on defense. We only took 18 free throws (compared to 39 for VCU). We got more shots (49 to 42). We made more threes (9 to VCU's 8. We made three more baskets. Played a pretty good game. We just - I guess we had to defend a little better without fouling."</span></p><p><span style="font-family: courier;">No. 5 VCU takes on No. 4 UMass in the Quarterfinals on Thursday afternoon at 2 PM.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: courier;"><b>No. 7 St. Bonaventure 75, No. 10 LaSalle 73: </b>The Bonnies dominated this one early, jumping out to a 22-13 lead when Noel Brown made a jumper at the 7:40 mark of the first half. LaSalle pulled to within four points, 34-30, when Jhamir Brickus made a jumper at 1:38, but St. Bonaventure still took a 42-34 lead into the half when Noel Brown made a jumper as time expired.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: courier;">In the second half, the Explorers got back into the game, and they went on a 10-0 run over just one minute and 46 seconds to take a 55-52 lead when Tunde Vahlberg got fouled on a three-point attempt and made all three of his free throws at the 11:06 mark.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: courier;">St. Bonaventure took the lead back when Daryl Banks also was fouled on a three-point shot and drained his trio of free throws to make it 60-59 at 6:07. The game remained back and forth until the end, as Chad Venning put St. Bonaveture back up 70-68 when he made a layup with just 1:09 left. (pictured below)</span></p><p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjtO_Wu3bWHb6dHSJolzKeK-aBuuzG2cBwhtboyJb-f8xgc5-tB29wqvoeS_Vnqf47Hs8W3FnDcznW007fuUFj36qY1gZPdlVlYBHJY0wIzdgSGBZwTAnumcPV5FWMaUkEUGbYwPh-RlrgK0XyNyWQ79dtTVsf5jLCRjigD8KKNW8pS_smpC2pSQXOlDPo/s4032/IMG_8751%20(1).jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="4032" data-original-width="3024" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjtO_Wu3bWHb6dHSJolzKeK-aBuuzG2cBwhtboyJb-f8xgc5-tB29wqvoeS_Vnqf47Hs8W3FnDcznW007fuUFj36qY1gZPdlVlYBHJY0wIzdgSGBZwTAnumcPV5FWMaUkEUGbYwPh-RlrgK0XyNyWQ79dtTVsf5jLCRjigD8KKNW8pS_smpC2pSQXOlDPo/w300-h400/IMG_8751%20(1).jpg" width="300" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Chad Venning going up for his late layup. Photo by Jason Schott.</td></tr></tbody></table><br /><span style="font-family: courier;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-family: courier;">The Bonnies were up 74-70 with 17 seconds left, but LaSalle raced down the court and Brickus was fouled on a three-point attempt that gave them a lifeline.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: courier;">Brickus buried all three of his free throws to make it a one-point game, 74-73, with 11 seconds left, and then Venning got to the line, but only made one of his free throws.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: courier;">LaSalle needed just a basket to tie it, and Daeshon Shepherd raced right into the lane, but his layup was just off target, and they suffered a brutal 75-73 loss.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: courier;">St. Bonaventure was led by Mika Adams-Woods, who had 15 points on 5-9 from the field, including 1-1 on three-pointers, with six assists and a rebound. Charles Pride had 13 points (3-8 FG, 1-3 threes), with six rebounds and an assist. Chad Venning had 12 points (5-14 FG), with a rebound. Noel Brown and Daryl Banks III had 11 points each, as Brown shot 5-8, with four rebounds, and Banks III shot 3-4, including 2-3 on threes, with two assists and a rebound.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: courier;">LaSalle was led by Brickus, who had 18 points on 6-13 from the field, including 1-2 on threes, with five assists and two rebounds. Rokas Jocius had 16 points on a superb 7-11 from the field, including 2-3 on threes, with seven rebounds.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: courier;">No. 7 St. Bonaventure will face No. 2 Loyola Chicago on Thursday at 5 PM.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: courier;"><b>No. 6 Duquesne 83, No. 14 Saint Louis 73:</b> The Duquesne Dukes wasted no time gaining an edge in this one, as they raced out to a 12-2 lead when David Dixon made a layup at the 16:01 mark of the first half. The Billikens got back into it, and they pulled within 21-20 when Terrence Hargrove Jr. made a three-pointer at the 8:10 mark. The Dukes bounced back to take a nine-point edge, 41-32, when Jake DiMichele made a three at the 2:13 mark, and they took a 43-39 lead into halftime.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: courier;">Duquesne started the second half much the way they did the opening frame, as Jimmy Clark III made a jumper to cap an 8-0 run that made it 51-39 at the 17:24 mark. Just over two minutes later, Clark buried a three-pointer that made it 57-41, making it an elongated 14-2 run. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: courier;">Saint Louis then went on an 18-6 run to pull back within four, at 63-59, when Cian Medley made a layup at the 8:57 mark. That was as close as they would get, as Duquesne then went on an 18-8 run to take a commanding 81-67 lead on a Dae Dae Grant jumper with just 2:10 remaining.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: courier;">Duquesne was led by Clark, who had 20 points on 6-13 from the field, including 4-7 on three-pointers, with four rebounds and four assists. Grant had 17 points (6-14 FG, 2-6 threes), with seven assists and four rebounds. Dixon had 13 points (5-8 FG), six rebounds, and an assist.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: courier;">Saint Louis was led by Gibson Jimerson, who had 22 points on 7-18 from the field, including 1-8 on threes, with four rebounds and an assist. Medley had 15 points (6-11 FG, 2-2 threes), with five assists and three rebounds.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: courier;">No. 6 Duquesne takes on No. 3 Dayton in the Quarterfinals on Thursday night at 7:30 PM.</span></p>Jason Schotthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11179389315079382362noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6284289787271291246.post-18785316020515451732024-03-13T05:04:00.000-07:002024-03-13T05:05:08.834-07:00Pitino Pregame: Big East Tourney Battle With The Hall<p> </p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEihUIOBGe6AsNy77wpAu2qhyphenhyphenrcJlPSyit-pej0okwacWpn3QlSvbxvi3HlT7Sz7xhCF0pVBvMYR6-U9CNreCpIW5T6rjg_pd8smHH0VYJgHVKxtDE7RNpS6Z0p46CGyjoiE6q9LKY7EqjtMFxRWHPKYHgqehTmdUp1JammbecK0FT9AJvVIVosI5JR2YHA/s4032/IMG_5789%20(2).jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="4032" data-original-width="3024" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEihUIOBGe6AsNy77wpAu2qhyphenhyphenrcJlPSyit-pej0okwacWpn3QlSvbxvi3HlT7Sz7xhCF0pVBvMYR6-U9CNreCpIW5T6rjg_pd8smHH0VYJgHVKxtDE7RNpS6Z0p46CGyjoiE6q9LKY7EqjtMFxRWHPKYHgqehTmdUp1JammbecK0FT9AJvVIVosI5JR2YHA/w300-h400/IMG_5789%20(2).jpg" width="300" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">St. John's Head Coach Rick Pitino at Carnesecca Arena on December 6. Photo by Jason Schott.</td></tr></tbody></table><p></p><p><br /></p><p><span style="font-family: courier;">The St. John's Red Storm will take on the Seton Hall Hall Pirates on Thursday afternoon in the Big East Tournament at Madison Square Garden.</span></p><p><span></span></p><a name='more'></a><p></p><p><span style="font-family: courier;">For the Red Storm, they need to win this game to give them 20 on the season and firm up their big for a spot in the NCAA Tournament. They are 19-12 on the season, and that includes an 11-9 record in Big East play.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: courier;">St. John's closed the regular season having won five straight games after they lost to Seton Hall, 68-62, on February 18 at UBS Arena. That game has become known for St. John's Head Coach Rick Pitino ripping his players by name in his post game press conference, which obviously had the desired effect. They also lost their other matchup against The Hall, 80-65, on January 16 in Newark, a game Pitino missed due to Covid. With that in mind, it's natural to wonder how Pitino will impact this third meeting between these local rivals.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: courier;"><b><i>PITINO PREGAME:</i> St. John's Head Coach Rick Pitino spoke to the media on campus on Tuesday afternoon ahead of the Big East Tournament, and he opened with this statement: </b>"The Big East Tournament I've always looked forward to. It's been a while since I've been back and the tournament's highly competitive, you don't know who is going to win so it's very exciting. We are pleasantly surprised we got a bye; it didn't look that way about three weeks ago, but it's very exciting to have a bye."</span></p><p><span style="font-family: courier;"><b>On if Seton Hall will see a different team from their last meeting:</b> "We are a team that has improved in the last two or three weeks. We played a decent first half against them the first time around. One thing you have to do, you have to have great spacing against Seton Hall. If you don't have great spacing in your attack, they are going to make you pay for that. We are a better basketball team from an offensive spacing standpoint since the last time we played them."</span></p><p><span style="font-family: courier;"><b>On the pressure St. John's is facing in the Big East Tournament:</b> "I love [the word pressure]. I think it's the greatest word for any competitor. Whether you take Billie Jean King's analysis of pressure as a privilege, or mine. Pressure to me is your ally, your best friend in life. Stress is your enemy. This is what we live for, these moments. I think we are all under the pressure when you get to this time of year. The only ones not under the influence of pressure are probably Connecticut, Creighton and Marquette. So we are all under that, but it's fun. Pressure makes it fun. We have been under this pressure thing the last [five] games in a row because if we lost any of those, we wouldn't be on this proverbial [NCAA Tournament] bubble they talk about all the time."</span></p><p><span style="font-family: courier;"><b>On Daniss Jenkins' All-Big East Second Team Selection: </b>"You know, [Daniss Jenkins] could have made the First Team, he was good enough, but I have no problem with the people that are on the first team. He's had a fabulous year. It is well deserved. I'm very proud of him. You know, Daniss came in [to Iona] and I wouldn't say his qualities were great as a leader, I wouldn't say his qualities were great as a point guard. He developed the qualities of a leader and he was the MVP of the MAAC Tournament. He's developed all of that and now he's carried it to a different level against better competition in the Big East, so I'm really proud of him."</span></p><p><span style="font-family: courier;"><b>On his past success in the Big East Tournament:</b> "[My teams at Louisville had success] because they all matured together. [Players] came back. Peyton [Siva] and Russ [Smith] didn't play too much, and they all grew into a championship team. My team was not ready to play against Rutgers or Michigan because we were teaching not only the fundamentals, but the system and I realize now I spent a whole summer with player development. I was making them better basketball players, shooting, dribbling and all of the offensive moves. I probably should have spent more time developing the offenses and the defenses. You learn this new climate now and that's what I would do going into next year. But this team is capable of winning and capable of winning in the NCAA Tournament. Would I have said that three weeks ago? Probably not. But they have evolved into what I hoped they would evolve into and that's really great to see."</span></p>Jason Schotthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11179389315079382362noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6284289787271291246.post-30185075417636005222024-03-12T12:06:00.000-07:002024-03-13T05:05:28.992-07:00A10 Tournament Day 1: Fordham Opens With A Bang<p> </p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhwUACedf93BC6ikLyleFJgLerOj27BHxxgqxY2x5rfX8z49mDXh0BNCHv8yKvexY7nU_ol3ILZ17wB9_7dUtH7Pf-8MfkrIf7qm2Ot9EPwOWHuHuVOwV604HGaG9EQ2w3FdppYWzaDjkAyLMAjs2QGR9SFB5RfELdI3IB1AwfU3zcn0qrqrO6ZBwNVvoI/s4028/IMG_8659.jpeg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="4028" data-original-width="2955" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhwUACedf93BC6ikLyleFJgLerOj27BHxxgqxY2x5rfX8z49mDXh0BNCHv8yKvexY7nU_ol3ILZ17wB9_7dUtH7Pf-8MfkrIf7qm2Ot9EPwOWHuHuVOwV604HGaG9EQ2w3FdppYWzaDjkAyLMAjs2QGR9SFB5RfELdI3IB1AwfU3zcn0qrqrO6ZBwNVvoI/w294-h400/IMG_8659.jpeg" width="294" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Abdou Tsimbila makes an early up in Fordham’s win. Photo by Jason Schott.</td></tr></tbody></table><br /><p></p><p><br /></p><p><span style="font-family: courier;">The Fordham Rams opened the 2024 A10 Tournament at Barclays Center on Tuesday afternoon with a stirring comeback win over the Davidson Wildcats, 71-63, in overtime. </span></p><p><span></span></p><a name='more'></a><p></p><p><span style="font-family: courier;">Fordham entered the tournament as the 12th seed, while Davidson was No. 13, so it was pretty even to start, if not a little slow to develop, likely due to the 11:30 AM tipoff. Davidson found a rhythm at the end of the first half, as they took a 27-19 halftime lead. Fordham was held to 22.6 percent, or 7-31, from the field in the first half. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: courier;">The early stages of the second half were more of the same, as Davidson opened up a 13-point lead, 37-24, at the 14:49 mark.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: courier;">Davidson maintained that lead, as they were up 44-31 at 11:23, but then Fordham started to chip away. The Rams went on a 13-3 run capped by a Will Richardson jumper from the top of the key to make it a 3-point game, 47-44, with 7:32 left.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: courier;">In just about four minutes, after forcing a turnover, Josh Rivera made a hook shot to bring Fordham even at 52 with 3:34 left.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: courier;">Davidson would respond and take a four-point edge, 58-54, when Reed Bailey made a hook shot at the 2:21 mark. (Pictured below)</span></p><p><span style="font-family: courier;">However, Fordham was not finished, as they found themselves trailing by just two point, 61-59, with 23 seconds left after Bailey missed the second of two free throws.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: courier;">With plenty of time, and with the memory of how they beat North Texas at the buzzer at Barclays on December 10, they got the ball to Kyle Rose, who took it to the hoop along the baseline and cashed in a layup to tie it at 61 with 2.3 seconds left.</span></p><p></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhQzqmCDDGrnvayAQ1gGZTBTE_hSzpirPcGE0f5zKtWFRw194b6TFZ-tOc0JgrWtGv-3NZX0kjZ4tQg5r3Uk2bgsMNeb2fEU0mD2uZYRKyjjv7IIM9Dz0vQY9esVojMTt6zvQF8e0Hx2u9XP9C2dvkfWBP9L4vh8oHhB51g7wjKmOTuJoTIX0AQ8m7KYYc/s2318/IMG_8673.jpeg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1639" data-original-width="2318" height="283" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhQzqmCDDGrnvayAQ1gGZTBTE_hSzpirPcGE0f5zKtWFRw194b6TFZ-tOc0JgrWtGv-3NZX0kjZ4tQg5r3Uk2bgsMNeb2fEU0mD2uZYRKyjjv7IIM9Dz0vQY9esVojMTt6zvQF8e0Hx2u9XP9C2dvkfWBP9L4vh8oHhB51g7wjKmOTuJoTIX0AQ8m7KYYc/w400-h283/IMG_8673.jpeg" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Kyle Rose going to the basket. Photos by Jason Schott.</td></tr></tbody></table><br /><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi8Ber8sqK2JKDlEQ4naVQDTh8AO721xg1lqWMc1AYW_Tn_rx0KT__zUU8AKiuCd1gUt1pqf0WlinU8gJcbtwCT00irEveF9DwMVORiov5NUC28G97rhJXh_OF5CXzNcZCGxMSFgI7v3DEKXTDdEzY5OGA_YjSjZ65UETikJC8MXuiW5TWB4JP_LcPlRFU/s4032/IMG_8674.jpeg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="4032" data-original-width="3024" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi8Ber8sqK2JKDlEQ4naVQDTh8AO721xg1lqWMc1AYW_Tn_rx0KT__zUU8AKiuCd1gUt1pqf0WlinU8gJcbtwCT00irEveF9DwMVORiov5NUC28G97rhJXh_OF5CXzNcZCGxMSFgI7v3DEKXTDdEzY5OGA_YjSjZ65UETikJC8MXuiW5TWB4JP_LcPlRFU/w300-h400/IMG_8674.jpeg" width="300" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The anticipation in the building as it went in.</td></tr></tbody></table><br /><span style="font-family: courier;"><br /></span><p></p><p><span style="font-family: courier;">Fordham kept the momentum going in overtime, as Charlton trained a three-pointer 18 seconds into it, followed by a jumper from Abdou Tsimbila and a fast-break dunk from Richardson at the 3:37 mark to make it 68-61.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: courier;">Incredibly, Fordham outscored them 10-0 in the extra session until Connor Kochera made a layup to provide the 71-63 final.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: courier;">Fordham Head Coach Keith Urgo said afterwards, “I want to thank all the Fordham Rams for coming out and supporting us. It feels like more of a home court advantage right now than Rose Hill, quite honestly. I want to give a shoutout to Coach McKillop and Davidson, specifically Grant Huffman. What I said to him at the end, man, what an unbelievable career he’s had up to this point. If he ends up coming back to Davidson - I’m hoping not, quite honestly, because he’s one of the toughest kids I’ve seen in my coaching career.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: courier;">“Credit to them. They came out and they just kept plugging away and kept firing. They were very physical in the first half. But for our guys, we talked about it at halftime. Got 20 minutes of everything we got. All you can ask as a coach is to have your guys give it up for each other as much as they can. And if they can look themselves in the eye in that locker room after the 40 minutes - or 45 in this case - and know that they gave each other every ounce of energy that they could have, you’ve got to be comfortable with a win or loss.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: courier;">“They went out there and they played a little bit more freely. We didn’t hit very many shots in the first half. But we knew - honestly, it’s carried over from the last couple of games. We’ve been struggling from the field. But our defense and our rebounding has been as good as it has been all year long the last two games going in. Now it’s three games in a row.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: courier;">“That’s what we pride ourselves on, defending and rebounding. And we knew, once we catch fire, which we’re capable of doing, now if we put those two things together, we can be a really good team. I hope we continue to score that way, because I know at the very least we’re going to give you every ounce of energy on the defensive end and rebounding.”</span></p><p><span style="font-family: courier;">No. 12 Fordham will face No. 5 VCU on Wednesday afternoon at 2:00 p.m. in a rematch of last year’s A10 Tournament Semifinal, which was won by VCU.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: courier;"><b><i>No. 10 La Salle 61, No. 15 George Washington 60:</i></b> In similar fashion to the one that opened the day, LaSalle reversed a 30-23 halftime deficit in a game that went down to the wire. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: courier;">GW had a 57-53 lead with 4:31 remaining before Khalil Brantley made a jumper and Daeshon Shepherd made a pair of free throws with 3:19 left to tie it at 57. Jhamir Brackus put LaSalle up two after he made a jumper at the 2:23 mark before Darren Buchanan Jr. drained a three-pointer at 1:56 to make it 60-59. It stayed that way nearly until the end, but Brackus buried a jumper with 20 seconds left that made it 61-60 LaSalle.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: courier;">LaSalle was led by Brickus, who had 21 points on 9-16 from the field, including 3-5 on three-pointers, eight rebounds and three assists. Brantley had 15 points (6-17 FG, 3-7 threes), nine rebounds, and an assist. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: courier;">GW was led by James Bishop IV, who had 19 points (5-18 FG, 4-8 threes), two rebounds, and an assist. Buchanan had 14 points (3-7 FG, 1-2 threes), six rebounds, and six assists.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: courier;">LaSalle will take on St. Bonaventure tomorrow, Wednesday evening, at 5:00 p.m.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: courier;"><b><i>No. 14 Saint Louis 74, No. 11 Rhode Island 71: </i></b>Saint Louis raced out to the early lead in this one, as they led 24-12 just over midway through the first half on their way to a 41-32 halftime edge. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: courier;">Rhode Island opened the second half with a 22-11 run capped by a Jaden House three-pointer, as they took a 54-52 lead at the 11:11 mark. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: courier;">However, unlike the two teams that blew leads in the early games, Saint Louis would bounce back and they would go on a 12-3 run to take a 71-67 with 27 seconds left on a layup from Gibson Jimerson, who then made three free throws after that to seal the win.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: courier;">Saint Louis was led by Jimerson, who had 26 points on 8-22 from the field, including 3-10 on three-pointers, with five assists and four rebounds. Terrence Hargrove Jr. had 18 points (6-9 FG, 2-4 threes) and four rebounds. Bradley Ezewiro had 10 points (5-7 FG) and 11 rebounds to give him a double-double, along with four assists.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: courier;">Rhode Island was led by House, who had 18 points on 8-12 from the field, including 1-3 on three-pointers, with three rebounds and an assist.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: courier;">No. 14 Saint Louis will take on No. 6 Duquesne on Wednesday night at 7:30 p.m.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: courier;">Wednesday's action opens with two teams who did not need to play on Tuesday, No. 8 George Mason and No. 9 Saint Joseph's.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: courier;"><br /></span></p><p><br /></p>Jason Schotthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11179389315079382362noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6284289787271291246.post-70009332246794684232024-03-10T15:17:00.000-07:002024-03-17T16:55:04.568-07:00A10 Championship Commences Tuesday at Barclays Center (UPDATED DAILY WITH RESULTS)<p> </p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg-Dls5e9d0ol3IG_5YhxCtFUlVLOQ_0k1gRA4WqS3Wy7ynSzQQStaR6UL_Gy36qjemSpfmPCJNgmEI3-belyrQoXGfzAXity2cDPc038xInL5WufDZyVZ_hvHXLdmjKPy3JJhyphenhyphenKBYnqYmEA6GtLwn04ln3G7Le2MimG2z_yLkkx3xEDASVk7qVY7NPM-o/s4032/IMG_7976%20(1).jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="4032" data-original-width="3024" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg-Dls5e9d0ol3IG_5YhxCtFUlVLOQ_0k1gRA4WqS3Wy7ynSzQQStaR6UL_Gy36qjemSpfmPCJNgmEI3-belyrQoXGfzAXity2cDPc038xInL5WufDZyVZ_hvHXLdmjKPy3JJhyphenhyphenKBYnqYmEA6GtLwn04ln3G7Le2MimG2z_yLkkx3xEDASVk7qVY7NPM-o/w300-h400/IMG_7976%20(1).jpg" width="300" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The scene at the A10 Tournament Final between VCU and Dayton in 2023. Photo by Jason Schott.</td></tr></tbody></table><p></p><p><br /></p><p><span style="font-family: courier;">March Madness hits Brooklyn Tuesday when the A10 Championship commences at Barclays Center, with local darling Fordham in the opening game. The tournament runs through Championship Sunday, March 17.</span></p><p><span></span></p><a name='more'></a><p></p><p><span style="font-family: courier;">This is the second straight year the A10 is in Brooklyn, as VCU took home the crown in 2023 after they entered the tournament with the No. 1 seed since it won the regular season title. The A10 has been at Barclays Center seven times since it opened in 2013. Saint Louis won that inaugural one, while Saint Joseph's won it in 2014, followed by VCU the next year, and Saint Joseph's again in 2016. It returned in 2019 with Saint Louis winning it, and then it was cancelled after one day in 2020 before its return in 2023.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: courier;"><b>A10 Championship Schedule (arranged by day/round and tournament game number): </b></span></p><p><span style="font-family: courier;"><b>Tuesday, March 12 - <i>First Round</i></b></span></p><p><span style="font-family: courier;">Game 1 - No. 12 Fordham vs. No. 13 Davidson - 11:30 AM (Fordham won 71-63 in OT)</span></p><p><span style="font-family: courier;">Game 2 - No. 10 La Salle vs. No. 15 George Washington - 2:00 PM (LaSalle won 61-60)</span></p><p><span style="font-family: courier;">Game 3 - No. 11 Rhode Island vs. No. 14 Saint Louis - 4:30 PM (Saint Louis won 74-71)</span></p><p><span style="font-family: courier;"><b>Wednesday, March 13 - <i>Second Round</i></b></span></p><p><span style="font-family: courier;">Game 4 - No. 8 George Mason vs. No. 9 Saint Joseph's - 11:30 AM (Saint Joseph’s won 64-57)</span></p><p><span style="font-family: courier;">Game 5 - No. 5 VCU vs. Winner of Game 1 (Fordham) - 2:00 PM (VCU won 69-62)</span></p><p><span style="font-family: courier;">Game 6 - No. 7 St. Bonaventure vs. Winner of Game 2 (La Salle) - 5:00 PM (St. Bonaventure won 75-73)</span></p><p><span style="font-family: courier;">Game 7 - No. 6 Duquesne vs. Winner of Game 3 (Saint Louis) - 7:30 PM (Duquesne won 83-73)</span></p><p><span style="font-family: courier;"><b>Thursday, March 14 - <i>Quarterfinals</i></b></span></p><p><span style="font-family: courier;">Game 8 - No. 1 Richmond vs. Winner of Game 4 Saint Joseph’s - 11:30 AM (Saint Joseph's won 66-61)</span></p><p><span style="font-family: courier;">Game 9 - No. 4 Massachusetts vs. Winner of Game 5 VCU - 2:00 PM (VCU won 73-59)</span></p><p><span style="font-family: courier;">Game 10 - No. 2 Loyola Chicago vs. Winner of Game 6 St. Bonaventure - 5:00 PM (St. Bonaventure won 75-74 in Double overtime)</span></p><p><span style="font-family: courier;">Game 11 - No. 3 Dayton vs. Winner of Game 7 Duquesne - 7:30 PM (Duquesne won 65-57)</span></p><p><span style="font-family: courier;"><b><i>Friday, March 15 - OFF DAY (Practices & Press Conferences)</i></b></span></p><p><span style="font-family: courier;"><b>Saturday, March 16 - <i>Semifinals</i></b></span></p><p><span style="font-family: courier;">Game 12 - Winner of Game 8 (Saint Joseph's) vs. Winner of Game 9 (VCU) - 1:00 PM (VCU won 66-60)</span></p><p><span style="font-family: courier;">Game 13 - Winner of Game 10 (St. Bonaventure) vs. Winner of Game 11 (Duquesne) - 3:30 PM (Duquesne won 70-60)</span></p><p><span style="font-family: courier;"><b>Sunday, March 17 - <i>Championship</i></b></span></p><p><span style="font-family: courier;">Game 14 - Winner of Game 12 (VCU) vs. Winner of G</span><span style="font-family: courier;">ame 13 (Duquesne) - 1:00 PM (Duquesne won 57-51 to make the NCAA Tournament)</span></p><p><span style="font-family: courier;"><b><i>This will be updated as the tournament rolls on </i></b></span></p><p><span style="font-family: courier;"><b><br /></b></span></p><p><span style="font-family: courier;"><br /></span></p>Jason Schotthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11179389315079382362noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6284289787271291246.post-85059104257995314332024-03-10T12:46:00.000-07:002024-03-10T12:46:13.139-07:00St. John's PG Jenkins Makes All-Big East Second Team<p> </p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjzQspJsxfH6YrBdqspDTVmOMiyiYSY5XYowjqdX8wSJ_-XYkXNwRC-Bej-hqIBCP_E7l0wIh2BD0Wx4VHiH4UvnbG1LgqoNbcc_R2BdrG1hMRfvHPBRvti-k-MQh-O_IuXHkG1mdth97rSG5wq5t-dHhl3oLJntm_-xzxutmuFeBWuiOm0_ZgII6miCBc/s4032/IMG_6222.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="4032" data-original-width="3024" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjzQspJsxfH6YrBdqspDTVmOMiyiYSY5XYowjqdX8wSJ_-XYkXNwRC-Bej-hqIBCP_E7l0wIh2BD0Wx4VHiH4UvnbG1LgqoNbcc_R2BdrG1hMRfvHPBRvti-k-MQh-O_IuXHkG1mdth97rSG5wq5t-dHhl3oLJntm_-xzxutmuFeBWuiOm0_ZgII6miCBc/w300-h400/IMG_6222.jpg" width="300" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Daniss Jenkins draining a three at Carnesecca Arena on December 20 against Xavier. Photo by Jason Schott.</td></tr></tbody></table><p><br /></p><p><span style="font-family: courier;">St. John's Red Storm point guard Daniss Jenkins was named to the 2024 All-Big East Second Team, the conference announced on Sunday a day after the regular season concluded.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: courier;">Jenkins led St. John's with 14.7 points per game, and shot 44.7 percent from the field, plus a superb 83.7 percent from the free throw line. His 5.5 assists per game ranked third in the Big East and 31st in Division 1. In addition, he was sixth in the Big East with a 2.2 assist-to-turnover ratio and seventh averaging 1.5 steals per game.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: courier;">St. John's Head Coach Rick Pitino said of Jenkins after Saturday's win over Georgetown, </span><span style="font-family: courier;">"[Daniss] is a great player. He is one of the premier guards in the country, and NBA talent. I can't say enough about him about how proud of him I am. He killed it at Iona and now he's killing it at St. John's. Wherever he goes he is going to kill it because he has the stuff to make it happen."</span></p><p><span style="font-family: courier;">Jenkins was also named to this week's Big East Weekly Honor Roll, the fourth time he has appeared this season. He posted a team-high 17.0 points and 4.5 assists per game in St. John's two wins this week against DePaul and Georgetown.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: courier;">In the 20 Big East Conference games, Jenkins averaged 16.1 points per game, and he shot 47.1 percent from the field, which was 10th in the league. In addition, in conference play, he ranked fourth in assists (5.1 per game), sixth in assist-to-turnover ratio (2.0), 12th in steals (1.4), and 12th in three-pointers (2.0 per game).</span></p><p><span style="font-family: courier;">Jenkins had a season-high 27 points, including 12-18 from the field, with six assists, two blocks, in two steals in St. John's season-turning win over Creighton on February 25. That win keyed a five-game winning streak to close the regular, and give St. John's an overall record of 19-12, including 11-9 in Big East play, as they are right on the doorstep of making the NCAA Tournament. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: courier;">St. John's faces Seton Hall on Thursday afternoon at 2:30 p.m. in the Big East Tournament at Madison Square Garden.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: courier;"><b><i>ALL-BIG EAST FIRST TEAM:</i></b></span></p><p><span style="font-family: courier;"><i style="font-weight: bold;">Tristen Newton -</i><b><i> </i>Connecticut</b>, guard, Gr. 6-5, 195, El Paso Texas</span></p><p><span style="font-family: courier;"><b>Cam Spencer - Connecticut,</b> guard, Gr., 6-4, 205, Davidsonville, Md.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: courier;"><b>Baylor Scheierman - Creighton</b>, guard, Sr., 6-7, 2-5, Aurora, Neb.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: courier;"><b>Tyler Kolek - Marquette</b>, guard, Sr., 6-3, 190, Cumberland, R.I.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: courier;"><b>Devin Carter - Providence</b>, guard, Jr., 6-3, 195, Miami, Fla.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: courier;"><b>Kadary Richmond - Seton Hall</b>, guard, Sr., 6-6, 210, Brooklyn, N.Y.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: courier;"><b>NOTE: </b>Scheierman, Kolek, and Carter were unanimous selections.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: courier;"><b><i>ALL-BIG EAST SECOND TEAM: </i></b></span></p><p><span style="font-family: courier;"><b>Trey Alexander - Creighton, </b>guard, Jr., 6-4, 190, Oklahoma, City, Okla.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: courier;"><b>Ryan Kalkbrenner - Creighton</b>, center, Sr., 7-1, 270, Florissant, Mo.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: courier;"><b>Oso Ighodaro - Marquette</b>, forward, Sr., 6-11, 225, Chandler, Ariz.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: courier;"><b>Daniss Jenkins - St. John's</b>, guard, 6-4, 180, Dallas, Texas</span></p><p><span style="font-family: courier;"><b>Eric Dixon - Villanova</b>, forward, R-Jr., 6-8, 255, Willow, Grove, Pa. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: courier;"><b><i>ALL-BIG EAST HONORABLE MENTION:</i></b></span></p><p><span style="font-family: courier;"><b>Donovan Clingon - Connecticut</b>, center, So., 7-2, 280, Bristol, Conn.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: courier;"><b>Josh Oduro - Providence</b>, forward, Gr., 6-4, 290, Gainesville, Va.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: courier;"><b>Quincy Olivari - Xavier</b>, guard, Gr., 6-3, 200, Atlanta, Ga.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: courier;"><b><i>BIG EAST ALL-FRESHMAN TEAM:</i></b></span></p><p><span style="font-family: courier;"><b>Finley Bizjack - Butler</b>, guard, 6-4, 195, Trophy Club, Texas</span></p><p><span style="font-family: courier;"><b>Stephon Castle - Connecticut</b>, guard, 6-6, 215, Covington, Ga.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: courier;"><b>Rich Barron - Providence,</b> forward/guard, 6-5, 220, Chicago, Ill.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: courier;"><b>Isaiah Coleman - Seton Hall</b>, guard, 6-5, 180, Fredericksburg, Va.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: courier;"><b>Trey Green - Xavier</b>, guard, 6-0, 160, Charlotte, N.C.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: courier;"><b>Dailyn Swain, Xavier</b>, guard/forward, 6-7, 200, Columbus, Ohio</span></p><p><span style="font-family: courier;"><b>NOTE: </b>Stephon Castle was a unanimous selection.</span></p>Jason Schotthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11179389315079382362noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6284289787271291246.post-73028067558991718612024-03-09T14:47:00.000-08:002024-03-13T05:04:48.096-07:00Johnnies On The Spot: St. John's Takes Regular Season Finale, On Brink Of Magic Number For March Madness<p> </p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjtOMeK2fIEhiEuIIdUNpVOIheOvZX452OvTRGoTrCmj36QStVuBeMEj-zA1gz3WtDQf4a-2S8LDPQJ5EoJvLE39_8CxbrdY495NROMxaMvXeSLmPC0odZjsnUBGOIWLnLQhSYURpk-ztHAKSQAbJBwzoQKWau_eyAFVLaDm_MH-ovKESsO5S68-m6kTv0/s4032/IMG_8560.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="4032" data-original-width="3024" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjtOMeK2fIEhiEuIIdUNpVOIheOvZX452OvTRGoTrCmj36QStVuBeMEj-zA1gz3WtDQf4a-2S8LDPQJ5EoJvLE39_8CxbrdY495NROMxaMvXeSLmPC0odZjsnUBGOIWLnLQhSYURpk-ztHAKSQAbJBwzoQKWau_eyAFVLaDm_MH-ovKESsO5S68-m6kTv0/w300-h400/IMG_8560.jpg" width="300" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Chris Ledlum burying a three-pointer in front of the St. John's bench early in the second half. Photo by Jason Schott.</td></tr></tbody></table><p></p><p><br /></p><p><span style="font-family: courier;">The St. John's Red Storm used a late surge to secure a win in the regular season finale against the Georgetown Hoyas, 86-78, at Madison Square Garden on Saturday afternoon, with the Big East Tournament on tap in a few days.</span></p><p><span></span></p><a name='more'></a><p></p><p><span style="font-family: courier;">St. John's closes the regular season with five wins in a row, and they now have 19 victories on the season. This means they are one away from what is traditionally the magic number needed to make the NCAA Tournament in Head Coach Rick Pitino's first year at the helm.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: courier;">"Well, I think we're playing terrific offensive basketball," </span><span style="font-family: courier;">Pitino said when asked about St. John's being on the doorstep of that magic number. "To finish 19-12, we're very proud of that. We put ourselves in the hunt to go to the Big Dance, and I don't think, as you all know, there's a tournament in all of basketball as good as the Big East Tournament. There's nothing like it. We don't have football, it's the best basketball in 'The World's Most Famous Arena.' I love it, I think the players are going to love it."</span></p><p><span style="font-family: courier;">Georgetown Head Coach Ed Cooley said of St. John's, "The way they've been playing, this is their fifth win in a row, if I'm not mistaken. They're playing their best basketball coming down the stretch. I think Coach Pitino's done a great job allowing these guys, clearly want you to believe, we have several Tournament teams in the Big East, and clearly they are definitely are one of them." </span></p><p><span style="font-family: courier;">The Red Storm are 19-12, and they finish with a winning record of 11-9 in Big East play, their most wins in-conference since 2010-11, a memorable season when Steve Lavin was in his first season as head coach and they made March Madness.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: courier;">St. John's finished in fifth place in the Big East, meaning they earned a first-round bye in the Big East Tournament. They will face No. 4 Seton Hall in the quarterfinals on Thursday at 2:30 p.m.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: courier;">Georgetown, which finished their season with a record of 9-22 overall and 2-18 in Big East play, overcame a 10-0 deficit early to take a 22-21 lead on a Dontrez Styles fast-break three-pointer at the 8:09 mark of the first half.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: courier;">St. John's did rally back to take a 39-35 lead into the intermission, powered by 13 points from Daniss Jenkins and Nahiem Alleyne had six points off the bench.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: courier;">This remained a long, hard slog of a game well into the second half, as St. John's was clinging to a 61-60 lead with just 7:50 remaining.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: courier;">A couple of minutes after that, RJ Luis Jr. hit a floater at the top of the key at the 5:23 mark to make it 67-62 St. John's.</span><span style="font-family: courier;"> (pictured below)</span></p><p></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhKP6PPr8bDcQk5FRAA0nV21z2cLVwhgXcujvZ9wTuAHFmN2-b_0BRLPxH_-Ttc8fCTY0CjVY14oK6t1nkGIpHhRrdVqZemSOlEMl3w8kXukIcimhuUNBtq76BXa5otd2dszOvxXx-Th95YeIm_OTapNgFJpqsRyHHWcNV5SLore1AYz3ZjE1u4flpj4eo/s4032/IMG_8568%20(1).jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="4032" data-original-width="3024" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhKP6PPr8bDcQk5FRAA0nV21z2cLVwhgXcujvZ9wTuAHFmN2-b_0BRLPxH_-Ttc8fCTY0CjVY14oK6t1nkGIpHhRrdVqZemSOlEMl3w8kXukIcimhuUNBtq76BXa5otd2dszOvxXx-Th95YeIm_OTapNgFJpqsRyHHWcNV5SLore1AYz3ZjE1u4flpj4eo/w300-h400/IMG_8568%20(1).jpg" width="300" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">RJ Luis Jr.'s floating jumper in the final minutes. Photo by Jason Schott.</td></tr></tbody></table><br /><span style="font-family: courier;"><br /></span><p></p><p><span style="font-family: courier;">Luis then got a steal and raced down for another basket, and his four points would be the start of a 9-2 run capped by a Chris Ledlum three-point play that made it 74-64 at 3:39.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: courier;">Georgetown would pull within five, at 80-75, with 1:31 left, but Luis was Johnny on the spot again, as he buried a jumper at 1:17, and a pair of free throws that made it 84-75 with 45 seconds left. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: courier;">St. John's was led by Daniss Jenkins, who had 23 points on 7-11 from the field, 1-2 on three-pointers, 8-9 from the free throw line, with seven assists, and two rebounds, with the one down beat being seven turnovers.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: courier;">RJ Luis Jr. finished with 16 points, 14 of which came in the second half, on 6-8 shooting (did not take a 3-point attempt, notable in today's basketball), including 4-6 on free throws, with three steals, two assists, and two rebounds. Chris Ledlum had 14 points (6-6 FG, 1-1 threes, 1-1 free throws), with four rebounds, an assist, and a steal. Joel Soriano just missed a double-double, as he finished with nine points (3-5 FG) and 10 rebounds, and Jordan Dingle also had nine points (2-8 FG, 5-5 free throws), with a rebound and a steal.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: courier;">Georgetown was led by Jayden Epps, who had 23 points on 9-23 shooting, including 1-7 on threes and 4-4 on free throws, with six steals, five rebounds, and three assists. Off the bench, Kay Heath had 14 points (5-9 FG, 4-6 threes), and Drew Fielder had 12 points (4-5 FG, 2-2 threes), five rebounds, and two assists.</span></p><p></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgUt6iYgiaKjfc9O0vp2NXhPY87Y0O3s3A8fQWh7edSTJPyJsOoOrBviOnzHxvV4qUPJ75W0r2mSAjSw4pl4M88DAU6jH1HviemU4D-qtvVhTswBJC_SfoWK7l-VqJ3b4hOW_DzftTXt8h3PagDpC438KQSI720I9KQHLsSpU2dmOren-vnI7wsIf3U2So/s4032/IMG_8553.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="4032" data-original-width="3024" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgUt6iYgiaKjfc9O0vp2NXhPY87Y0O3s3A8fQWh7edSTJPyJsOoOrBviOnzHxvV4qUPJ75W0r2mSAjSw4pl4M88DAU6jH1HviemU4D-qtvVhTswBJC_SfoWK7l-VqJ3b4hOW_DzftTXt8h3PagDpC438KQSI720I9KQHLsSpU2dmOren-vnI7wsIf3U2So/w300-h400/IMG_8553.jpg" width="300" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Drew Fielder slamming down this dunk off a missed basket that put Georgetown up 33-32 late first half. Photo by Jason Schott.</td></tr></tbody></table><br /><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgKah9DIfv1h9wjFx9-EqF6P9O6j2LMZBJRy9a4f12rZGj0MQ65KCtp1fX-lmkkWJzHUhdzKTXinFeta8FagHFJxaKlsQzgFu7eecaH2XYmUIWZGcMTW3tagkQRAse-bOsILPzrg1S-QUwzWt4wIJO2JUjE_8OrBOr4z4gJUE5AJ8mYFwm93ngaQFilRi4/s4032/IMG_8577.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3024" data-original-width="4032" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgKah9DIfv1h9wjFx9-EqF6P9O6j2LMZBJRy9a4f12rZGj0MQ65KCtp1fX-lmkkWJzHUhdzKTXinFeta8FagHFJxaKlsQzgFu7eecaH2XYmUIWZGcMTW3tagkQRAse-bOsILPzrg1S-QUwzWt4wIJO2JUjE_8OrBOr4z4gJUE5AJ8mYFwm93ngaQFilRi4/w400-h300/IMG_8577.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The scene at The Garden near the end of the game. Photo by Jason Schott.</td></tr></tbody></table><br /><span style="font-family: courier;"><br /></span><p></p><p><span style="font-family: courier;"><b><i>PITINO POSTGAME: </i>St. John's Head Coach Rick Pitino addressed the media after the game, and he opened with this statement: </b>"I want to give a lot of credit to Georgetown because when you don't win any games it begins to wear on you...You always get the best of everybody because it's Madison Square Garden. Everyone wants to play here. RJ [Luis] doesn't like to have on his resume that he's a great defensive player but he saved us today. He saved us with offensive rebounds, saved us with scoring and saved us with great defense on [Jayden] Epps. I'm really proud of him, he has unlimited potential in almost every phase of the game and I'm really excited about the way he played today defensively. He is so long, he is a very cerebral basketball player and he played a lot of minutes. He must be exhausted. We're happy with this win and we give a lot of credit to Georgetown. In our two games with them they shot 50 percent from [behind] the 3-point line. The bank with no time left on the [shot] clock really hurt us, it killed our momentum. We needed a game like this. When you're headed into the Big East Tournament, you want to see a game like this to prepare you for it." </span></p><p><span style="font-family: courier;"><b>On his decision to have RJ Luis guard Jayden Epps:</b> "His length bothers people. Not only is he 6-foot-7 but he has a long wingspan. RJ has a lot to learn about defense off the ball, but on the ball he's very good. We weren't able to stop Epps and we felt we didn't have to blitz or trap, because they kept coming with the shooters on blitzes and traps. But RJ made things very difficult for [Epps] down the stretch."</span></p><p><span style="font-family: courier;"><b>On Daniss Jenkins:</b> "[Daniss] is a great player. He is one of the premier guards in the country, an NBA talent. I can't say enough about him about how proud of him I am. He killed it at Iona and now he's killing it at St. John's. Wherever he goes he is going to kill it because he has the stuff to make it happen."</span></p><p><span style="font-family: courier;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-family: courier;"><br /></span></p>Jason Schotthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11179389315079382362noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6284289787271291246.post-47345357950899346622024-03-08T09:52:00.000-08:002024-03-08T11:06:55.807-08:00Books: The Holocaust: An Unfinished History, By Dan Stone<p> </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi7nEFE0ZRbcChHlrxDssW18WSHoVD79-G_I2xgo1yWWPlodIr9uvBNn1yGYewHMJlDlmzm-YsUcswoWFq1guJXDqQJfH_WxcGiDURNjOvtXNimDpxussbFtkQOOYWHYvj1TTjrLnANrnJ6y9qg4Te7Aa2HB3X4kCWlmWVptLf4zzhnLO_cABNmJ2F-wRg/s766/IMG_8495.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="766" data-original-width="512" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi7nEFE0ZRbcChHlrxDssW18WSHoVD79-G_I2xgo1yWWPlodIr9uvBNn1yGYewHMJlDlmzm-YsUcswoWFq1guJXDqQJfH_WxcGiDURNjOvtXNimDpxussbFtkQOOYWHYvj1TTjrLnANrnJ6y9qg4Te7Aa2HB3X4kCWlmWVptLf4zzhnLO_cABNmJ2F-wRg/w268-h400/IMG_8495.jpg" width="268" /></a></div><p></p><p><br /></p><p><b><span style="font-family: courier;">The Holocaust: An Unfinished History</span></b></p><p><b><span style="font-family: courier;">By Dan Stone</span></b></p><p><b><span style="font-family: courier;">Mariner Books; hardcover, 464 pages; $32.50</span></b></p><p><span style="font-family: courier;">Dan Stone is Professor of Modern History and Director of the Holocaust Research Institute at Royal Holloway, University of London. He is the author of editor of books, including <i>Histories of the Holocaust </i>(Oxford University Press); The Liberation of the Camps: <i>The End of the Holocaust and its Aftermath</i> (Yale University Press); and <i>Concentration Camps: A Very Short Introduction</i> (Oxford University Press).</span></p><p><span></span></p><a name='more'></a><p></p><p><span style="font-family: courier;">Stone has done decades of research to produce this sweeping account that spans the history of the Holocaust, which was released to acclaim in the UK in January 2023. One aim of the book is to uncover </span><span style="font-family: courier;"> </span><span style="font-family: courier;">major parts of the history of the Holocaust that have been overlooked</span><span style="font-family: courier;">, especially at present with the rise of antisemitism, authoritarianism, and the "great-replacement" theory in the wake of the October 7 attack on Israel.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: courier;">One big theory on the Holocaust that Stone contests is the idea of "industrial murder" is incomplete. Almost half of all the victims of the Holocaust died outside of the camps, of starvation in ghettos or in face-to-face shootings during killing actions. Many were killed where they lived in the most brutal means possible. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: courier;">Stone emphasizes the depth of collaboration across Europe, from Norway to Romania to North Africa, as he makes a persuasive argument that we need to stop thinking of the Holocaust as an exclusively German project. The single largest massacre of the Holocaust took place in what today's Ukraine, in Bogdanovka concentration camp, where 54,000 Jews were murdered between December 1941 and January 1942. This far outnumbers any massacre that took place in Western or Central Europe.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: courier;">There also consideration of the nature of the trauma that the Holocaust engendered, and why the suffering of the Jewish people has not been fully reckoned with. This has to happen as the radical right is occurring, and challenges a trend in books and movies to "beautify the Holocaust," which narrowly focuses on positive stories of resistance and rescuers that serve to blunt and distort our understanding of the true horror.<br /></span></p><p><span style="font-family: courier;">Stone makes clear that the way to understand Nazi thinking and action is genocidal ideology, providing a deep analysis of its origins. He draws on Nazi documents, but also on diaries, post-war testimonies, and even fiction, urging that it is vital we understand the true history of the Holocaust.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: courier;"><i>In this excerpt, Stone writes of the brutality unleashed on Jewish people, and its aims</i>: "The Holocaust turned the victims' world upside down, not just destroying their homes and families, leaving most of the small minority of survivors unable to return to the lands of their birth, but in terms of values. Both during and after the war years, the Nazi assault on the Jews left them, in many cases, unable to lead lives guided by morality or established norms, as the above examples show. Those trapped in Nazi ghettos and camps found themselves not on 'another planet' but certainly in the <i>anus mundi</i>, in which literal and metaphorical filth governed existence. These were places made by human beings in which human beings were destroyed. As Hannah Arendt said, perhaps the Holocaust was an attempt to eradicate the very concept of the human being.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: courier;">Arendt's radical claim reminds us that we have in some ways either forgotten, or ignored altogether, what the Holocaust was and how devastating its effects were. The depth of the trauma caused by the Holocaust means we must move beyond a mechanistic interpretation of 'industrial genocide.' The ubiquity of collaboration across Europe, driven by a coincidence of wants between the Nazis' ideologically driven aspiration to rid the world of Jews and the desires of many nation-states' leaders to create ethnically homogeneous populations, means we needs to stop thinking of the Holocaust as solely a German project. It was, however, driven and largely perpetrated by Germans (including Austrians), thus we must focus on ideology, understood as a kind of phantasmagorical conspiracy theory, as the kernel of Nazi thinking and action. And finally we need to understand the ways in which the after-effects of the Holocaust shaped the postwar years and continue to be felt today.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: courier;">The trauma of the Holocaust has been largely written out of the historiography and decidedly excluded from commemorative ceremonies and the discussion of the Holocaust in the public sphere. It is not the case that people are not moved or informed or that they do not find the events terrible; but the real depths of suffering the Holocaust caused beyond the level of the individual or family and its deep implications for the nature of the modern state and the modern world in general are just too unpleasant and uncomfortable for people to deal with - or so it seems...</span></p><p><span style="font-family: courier;">"The Holocaust was a truly transnational affair. By this, I mean that policies implemented by the Nazis were replicated by their allies but also vice-versa; often collaborating states forced the hand of the Nazis by taking the initiative where persecution of Jews was concerned. The Vichy government, for example, pre-empted the Nazis by introducing its first Statut des Juifs without the Nazis' encouragement. Persecution in one place emboldened others elsewhere, and the sharing of fascist ideology across Europe made this interconnectedness possible, facilitating a continent-wide crime that the Germans on their own would have found much harder to implement.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: courier;">The same is true from the victims’ perspective. Historians are only just investigating in detail the experiences of Jews not directly caught in the Nazi net. The deportation and murder of the Jews of France, the Netherlands, Belgium, Slovakia, Poland, Hungary, Greece and elsewhere has been described many times. Nevertheless, revelations continue to come, especially concerning the roles played by local, non-German actors and the extent to which the Holocaust was experienced as a constant movement. Many Eastern European Jews were killed where they lived in the summer and autumn of 1941; many others were rounded up and deported to their deaths; but the process of arrest, assembly, detention, deportation, travelling and arrival is often neglected. And for many Holocaust victims, the story was far more complicated, as they were dragged from one incarceration site to another. As we will see, some victims endured five, six or more concentration camps, especially in the later stages of the war, when Jews were used as slave labourers in small camps linked to specific firms which hired the ‘work Jews’ (<i>Arbeitsjuden</i>) from the SS.”</span></p><p><b><br /></b></p>Jason Schotthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11179389315079382362noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6284289787271291246.post-55684959620453659092024-03-07T18:44:00.000-08:002024-03-07T20:11:38.373-08:00Kennedy, In His Version Of State Of The Union, Wants U.S. "To turn again toward peace, freedom, good health, and prosperity"<p> </p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgig7M2LrppyZpcOgMJN-qoCDcodub8inyAItp-AN9518Lx8MnRW127U63R8P4-Y5slSZmTCgS8P83CidFDw9l93A8KN0myGMzIDmyKu8qIoW1pmT1ls3bOOnkbxBRZezIiipRAq571XXKcogccnmxWvr9h99hljph2wyXZKwebkg8uvTPcl_9brEwYOCc/s750/IMG_8481.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="464" data-original-width="750" height="248" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgig7M2LrppyZpcOgMJN-qoCDcodub8inyAItp-AN9518Lx8MnRW127U63R8P4-Y5slSZmTCgS8P83CidFDw9l93A8KN0myGMzIDmyKu8qIoW1pmT1ls3bOOnkbxBRZezIiipRAq571XXKcogccnmxWvr9h99hljph2wyXZKwebkg8uvTPcl_9brEwYOCc/w400-h248/IMG_8481.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Provided by Kennedy 24.</td></tr></tbody></table><p></p><p><br /></p><p><span style="font-family: courier;">Around the time President Biden was set to deliver his State of the Union address, Independent Presidential Candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. took the opportunity to release a speech on Thursday night.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: courier;">"How I See The State Of Our Union" is Kennedy's video on how he sees the state of our country, and declared "What we once were, we can be again."</span></p><p><span style="font-family: courier;">In this address, Kennedy paints a picture of an America that was thriving after World War II, the envy of the world when his uncle, John F. Kennedy was President, and how we can be that country again.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: courier;">"Other countries aspired to be like us, and our children grew up proud of their passport, proud of their flag," Kennedy said. "My uncle, President Kennedy, left us a legacy of peace, and the hope of ending the arms race and winding down the Cold War. Those were the traditions of freedom, prosperity, and peace that my father, my uncle, and Martin Luther King Jr. were striving to protect and advance. In the half-century since their deaths, we've lost touch with that vision for our country.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: courier;">"I want to tell you right now that we can still restore that America, the America that almost was, and yet may be. But we have to start with being honest with ourselves. Neither my uncle nor my father would recognize the version of America that we have today.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: courier;">"We have become a nation of chronic illness, violence, loneliness, depression, and division. What happened to 'America, the land of opportunity,' where you could be sure that if you worked hard and played by the rules, you would have a decent life?...</span></p><p><span style="font-family: courier;">"We may be on the mat today, but we can be on our feet and happy and healthy and strong again, with good leadership, tomorrow. Our people and our system were built for resilience. And here's the most important thing I want to tell you about the state of our union: Our nation seems more divided than ever, </span><span style="font-family: courier;">but Americans everywhere want to heal that divide. Our nation has become artificially divided by political forces that can survive only when we the people are at war with each other. People are tired of being manipulated by fear. We learned that lesson during COVID. </span><span style="font-family: courier;">We recognize that the same techniques of manipulating fear are being used by elites today to corral us into voting for one political candidate or the other.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: courier;">"Americans are tired of these dire warnings that to preserve democracy itself, you better vote for our guy. I can tell you that in every state of this union, people are rejecting fearmongering. 80% of Americans say they don't want to be forced to choose in this election between the lesser of two evils. They're tired of voting against something or someone.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: courier;">"I see it in the crowds of mixed Republicans and Democrats and Independents who attend my rallies That a growing number of Americans are rejecting divisiveness. They are ready to unite, to rebuild this country, and to fulfill the promise of the America of my youth. They're ready to vote <i>for </i>something and <i>for</i> someone they like, for someone who represents hope and healing, for someone with an inspiring vision for America's future.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: courier;">"For a future that they can believe in. So that's the State of the Union that I want to bring you today. It's a nation that hungers to heal. It's a nation ready to face reality. To rebuild, to end the forever foreign, wars, to clean out the corrupt Washingon establishment, and to turn again toward peace, freedom, good health, and prosperity. When we unite in that vision, we're going to be unstoppable."</span></p><p><span style="font-family: courier;">To view Robert F. Kennedy Jr.'s entire address, please <a href="https://www.kennedy24.com/state-of-the-union-video" target="_blank">click here</a>.</span></p><p><br /></p>Jason Schotthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11179389315079382362noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6284289787271291246.post-35048093562721765092024-03-05T22:13:00.000-08:002024-03-05T22:13:02.891-08:00St. John's Drops DePaul In Penultimate Regular Season Game<p> <table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhW-tfWLRzX1JB-uT7b1Kn-WrI7FTttagJ91xjHjxAkiP0Lc1_794nksWj3SPAXQ0y5NT3qwlopOh3A9zwYUC3-jNBmntDFafRNzxvPgnL-2bHqoeV9YeFldZesS21w02GqdSWRdxAO-ny5LthyphenhyphenXS48VvjyOyMoQsjyJVha-jDO3vajDZ3RL_Smp-PJ62E/s750/IMG_8429.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="520" data-original-width="750" height="278" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhW-tfWLRzX1JB-uT7b1Kn-WrI7FTttagJ91xjHjxAkiP0Lc1_794nksWj3SPAXQ0y5NT3qwlopOh3A9zwYUC3-jNBmntDFafRNzxvPgnL-2bHqoeV9YeFldZesS21w02GqdSWRdxAO-ny5LthyphenhyphenXS48VvjyOyMoQsjyJVha-jDO3vajDZ3RL_Smp-PJ62E/w400-h278/IMG_8429.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Daniss Jenkins looks to make a play. @StJohnsBball.</td></tr></tbody></table></p><p><br /></p><p><span style="font-family: courier;">The St. John's Red Storm cruised to a 104-77 win on the road over the DePaul Blue Demons on Tuesday night to give them a winning record in Big East Conference play.</span></p><p><span></span></p><a name='more'></a><p></p><p><span style="font-family: courier;">St. John's is now 18-12 overall and 10-9 in Big East play, with the regular season finale on Saturday against Georgetown (2-16 in Big East play) at Madison Square Garden. DePaul fell to 0-19 in Big East Conference play with this loss. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: courier;">This was St. John's fourth straight win, and with the Big East Tournament commencing next Wednesday, the Red Storm have an excellent shot at hitting the 20-win plateau that could put them in line for an NCAA Tournament appearance.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: courier;">Jordan Dingle and Chris Ledlum paced St. John's, with 19 points apiece. Dingle shot 8-10 from the field, 3-4 from behind the arc, with six assists and a rebound, while Ledlum was 8-11 from the field, including making his lone three-point attempt, with eight rebounds and three assists.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: courier;">Simeon Wilcher had 12 points (4-8 FG, 3-5 threes), and two assists, and Daniss Jenkins, Nahiem Alleyne, and RJ Luis each had 11 points, giving St. John's six players in double figures.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: courier;">St. John's took this game over with a 30-6 run that took a game that was 24-22 nine minutes in and gave the Red Storm a commanding 54-28 lead at the half. They led by as many as 44 points, 92-48, with 8:49 remaining in the second half.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: courier;"><b><i>PITINO POSTGAME: </i>St. John's Head Coach Rick Pitino addressed the media after the game, and opened with this statement: </b>"We played about as well as you could play offensively. I'm actually glad DePaul came back a little at the end, we don't want to embarrass anybody. Those guys are going through a difficult year, so I'm glad they came back, made some shots. For about eighty percent of the game, we counldn't play any better offensively."</span></p><p><span style="font-family: courier;"><b>On the strong play as of late:</b> "I think we are practicing great, playing great, with the exception of the last twenty percent of the game [tonight]. We have been playing great basketball in practice. [Our performance against] Creighton (80-66 win on February 25th) was terrific, Butler (82-59 win on Feb. 28th) was even better. Tonight, our offense was clicking. We never panicked when they made a few threes, we just kept running our offense. When you see 26 assists and six turnovers, it's continuing now. Six turnovers, three turnovers, you all remember the beginning of the year, turnovers were a major problem for us. We are getting a lot better, and you want to get better in March. I think Dingle and Ledlum are the key for us getting a lot better. I think Jordan was terrific tonight. He only played 12 minutes and had 19 points, six assists, and no turnovers. He played a fabulous game and so did Chris. They all played tremendous basketball."</span></p><p><span style="font-family: courier;"><b>On the team's improvement:</b> "We are getting a lot better, improving, working very hard. They are highly motivated to play good basketball. We have played good basketball all year with the exception of a couple of games, but never this good where you see six turnovers, six turnovers, three turnovers (referring to the Creighton, Butler, and DePaul wins). We are playing good basketball and we want to keep it up."</span></p>Jason Schotthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11179389315079382362noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6284289787271291246.post-36438030143221847472024-03-05T19:13:00.000-08:002024-03-05T19:13:10.198-08:00RFK Jr. Set To Make Ballot In Nevada; Idaho Lawsuit Win<p> <table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhYO48KbGIW2bLgFAt0dluRSw4kpqBnmiwOVsfNNwExfrFia4mBgFp5LTDGG-QliVn_9J7eT2Wf-2FGW4cU6qYSMjtarXtcNUCxTGJWQy-Ofq2gI6UUt6kyqkjK5fmJW2t5Ht_VDnhjlyNLs3xASSJKL4b568YLKhLUkk5b1fOKhHXvBWqBOrlRzLRwa34/s824/IMG_4552%20(1).jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="824" data-original-width="750" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhYO48KbGIW2bLgFAt0dluRSw4kpqBnmiwOVsfNNwExfrFia4mBgFp5LTDGG-QliVn_9J7eT2Wf-2FGW4cU6qYSMjtarXtcNUCxTGJWQy-Ofq2gI6UUt6kyqkjK5fmJW2t5Ht_VDnhjlyNLs3xASSJKL4b568YLKhLUkk5b1fOKhHXvBWqBOrlRzLRwa34/w364-h400/IMG_4552%20(1).jpg" width="364" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Robert F. Kennedy.</td></tr></tbody></table></p><p><br /></p><p><span style="font-family: courier;">Independent Presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. announced that his campaign has collected the necessary signatures, over 15,000, for him to appear on the ballot in Nevada. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: courier;">This is significant because Nevada was one for the tightest races last time, as Biden won it by just 2.39 percent over Trump.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: courier;">This is the latest big step for Kennedy in his quest to make the ballot in all 50 states. He is already on the ballot in Utah, has collected the necessary signatures to appear on the ballot in New Hampshire, and in Hawaii, the Office of Elections has confirmed that RFK Jr.'s supporters have collected the required signatures to establish the "We the People" party in that state.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: courier;">"Today marks the end of the primary and the beginning of the general election," Kennedy said in a statement. "Nearly 70% of Americans don't want a Trump/Biden rematch from 2020. They want to vote for someone who represents hope and healing. For someone with an inspiring vision for America.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: courier;">"I look forward to taking on Presidents Biden and Trump on the issues that matter most to Americans - from making housing and health care affordable to ending the forever wars and unraveling corporate captures of our government."</span></p><p><span style="font-family: courier;"><i style="font-weight: bold;">IDAHO LAWSUIT WIN: </i>The Kennedy campaign won its ballot access lawsuit challenging Idaho's unconstitutional early deadline for independent presidential candidates to qualify for Idaho's general election ballot.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: courier;">As the Kennedy campaign described it in the press release, "Kennedy challenged Section 34-708A of the Idaho Code mandating that independent candidates file nomination petitions containing a minimum of 1,000 verified signatures with Secretary of State McGrane no later than March 15. In Anderson v. Celebrezze, The United States Supreme Court, more than 40 years ago, clearly established that a March 20 deadline imposed by Ohio for independent presidential candidates to qualify for a state ballot was unconstitutional as too early and impairing the rights of voters to cast meaningful votes for candidates other than the two major political candidates."</span></p><p><span style="font-family: courier;">Soon after Kennedy's campaign filed its lawsuit, the Idaho State Legislature commenced a race to amend the statute to make it comply with Supreme Court precedent. On February 29, during an informal status conference, Judge Winmill informed Sec. McGrane that he would extend the March 15 deadline if the state legislature failed to promptly amend the challenged law.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: courier;">This is the second constitutional challenge to state petitioning deadlines that Kennedy 24 has won, as it also struck down the Utah deadline this past December.</span></p>Jason Schotthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11179389315079382362noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6284289787271291246.post-39004007050689841012024-03-04T08:39:00.000-08:002024-03-04T11:22:39.510-08:00Books: "Our Moon" By Rebecca Boyle<p> </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgtL6TEHHbmmjeEQvDf-sNayMsO7EbuQENXKHdNqEq0G_vOo6-NuZxkc4kM4W_zdkRGqUsI9ywFt5Xhz36Hwqv-U7Y40ETIuSpuc2ZSoi5N4ogLXyJCLVQuwKqJsH27BPmz0p9Lyfu_hhLJfTFmeXQggqJlHwyusx9vsc5rEYSalr2KDEGrB5gKJkjcVz8/s815/IMG_8363.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="815" data-original-width="549" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgtL6TEHHbmmjeEQvDf-sNayMsO7EbuQENXKHdNqEq0G_vOo6-NuZxkc4kM4W_zdkRGqUsI9ywFt5Xhz36Hwqv-U7Y40ETIuSpuc2ZSoi5N4ogLXyJCLVQuwKqJsH27BPmz0p9Lyfu_hhLJfTFmeXQggqJlHwyusx9vsc5rEYSalr2KDEGrB5gKJkjcVz8/w270-h400/IMG_8363.jpg" width="270" /></a></div><p></p><p><br /></p><p><span style="font-family: courier;"><b>Our Moon: How Earth's Celestial Companion Transformed the Planet, Guided Evolution, and Made Us Who We Are</b></span></p><p><span style="font-family: courier;"><b>By Rebecca Boyle</b></span></p><p><span style="font-family: courier;"><b>Random House; hardcover, 336 pages; $28.99</b></span></p><p><span style="font-family: courier;">Rebecca Boyle is a columnist at <i>Atlas Obscura</i> and a contributor to <i>Scientific American, Quanta Magazine, The Atlantic, </i>the<i> New York Times, Popular Science, </i>and Smithsonian's <i>Air & Space Magazine</i>. She is a member of the group science blog <i>The Last Word on Nothing</i>. Boyle was a Knight Science Journalism Fellow at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and has been honored with numerous writing awards, and she is a former Space Camp attendee and lifelong Moon enthusiast.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: courier;">In the riveting new book,<i> </i></span><span style="font-family: courier;"><i>Our Moon: How Earth's Celestial Companion Transformed the Planet, Guided Evolution, and Made Us Who We Are</i>,</span><span style="font-family: courier;"> Boyle will let you discover more about the moon, and its effect on Earth, than you ever imagined. She reveals the intimate role that our 4.51 billion-year-old companion has played in our biological and cultural evolution.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: courier;">Earth's orbit was stabilized by our Moon's gravity, and its climate was shaped by how the Moon drew nutrients to the surface of the primordial ocean, where they fostered the evolution of complex life. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: courier;">To this day, the Moon continues to influence how animals migrate and reproduce, the movement of plants, and it's possible that it influences the flow of the very blood in our veins.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: courier;">The Sun helped prehistoric hunters and gatherers mark daily time, but it was early civilizations that used the Moon's phases to count months and years, allowing them to plan farther ahead. Mesopotamian priests recorded the Moon's position in order to make predictions, and that led to the creation of the earliest known empirical, Scientific observations. Boyle chronicles ancient astronomers and major figures of the scientific revolution, including Johannes Kepler and his influential lunar science fiction.</span><span style="font-family: courier;"> </span></p><p><span style="font-family: courier;">The thing that changed our relationship with the Moon is an event a lot of people remember, or certainly know well, when Apollo astronauts landed on it in 1969. Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin were the first human beings to experience selenic discomfort, as moon dust covered their spacesuits and boots, and a lot of the inside of their Eagle lander, as well. Astronauts on later missions noticed that the dust scratched their sun visors and damaged the seals on the rock boxes they brought home. Moon dust, which is all pulverized rock, caused a form of hay fever, making astronauts' eyes watery and itchy and their throats scratchy and sore. By comparison, Earth dust is made of organic material.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: courier;"><i>Our Moon</i> comes at a time when space exploration is in the news again, and our relationship with the Moon is about to enter a new phase, as governments and private enterprise aim to profit from its resources. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: courier;"><i>In this excerpt, Boyle writes of the essence of this work</i>, "The Moon is different.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: courier;">It is like nowhere on Earth, which is a watery bubble improbably bursting with life in a universe of emptiness. The Moon is barren and has been throughout the four-and-a-half-billion-year eternity of its companionship with this planet. The moon is silent. It plays host to no cricket chorus, coyote calls, or night wind sailing through pines. It is dry, at least on the outside. There are no waves lapping on shores, no soft rains, no snow. It is a crater-pocked wasteland that smells of doused firecrackers. The Moon is scorching hot during its long day, and freezing cold during its long night.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: courier;">The lunar landscape is grayscale, but flecked with shades of tan, chocolate, beach sand, chalk, gold, spicy-mustard ochre, and, in the words of Apollo 11 astronaut Michael Collins, a 'cherry rose' hue.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: courier;">Sunlight of the airless Moon plays tricks on human eyesight, warping a moonwalker's sense of crater depths and hillside angles, making tiny slopes look like vertiginous peaks. All is monotony. There is no blue, and there is no green. No sunlight scatters through a watery atmosphere. No lichens splotch the Moon's rocks. No bacteria grow in its dirt to help plants flourish. Certainly, there are no birds overhead, ants underfoot, or another other kind of animal anywhere. On the Moon there is nothing and no one. Until the Apollo landings, no creatures ever looked up at the Moon's black sky and wondered about their place in it all. No one ever stared up at the crescent Earth and thought about visiting. There is no culture, except the one we brought.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: courier;">The Moon says nothing for itself, but it says plenty about us. We project our dreams and our fervor onto its mottled surface and it serves as a mirror, both figruratively and literally. It reflects sunlight and even Earth's own light, ashen earthshine, back to us. We can see this phenomenon when the Moon is a crescent, and yet its full disk is just barely perceptible. The Moon is Earth in inverse, a desolate rock whose scars whisper of our world's violent past and underscore its riotous gardens of color and life. The Moon contains only what we imagine it to contain. It harbors only what we berth in its seas.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: courier;">SINCE THE BEGINNING of time, the Moon has controlled life on Earth and shepherded the human mind through a spectacular journey of thought, wonder, power, knowledge, and myth. But this frenzied, multifarious, Earthly history disguises the truth of the Moon. As vivid and lively as our history with it has been, the Moon itself is quiet, barren, and still.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: courier;">This was not always the case: When the Moon was young, it was livid with energy and heat, a magnetic field, oceans of lava, and maybe an active crust like the one that warps and wrinkles the face of our world. But no one was around for this lively phase. The only Moon we have ever known is the spectral one in our sky, the two-dimensional one, the cold and silent one. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: courier;">Nothing happens there, except the occasional arrival of an asteroid or the briefly violent puff of a crashed or landed spacecraft. Nothing looks up, nothing breathes, nothing hopes.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: courier;">When Apollo 11 astronaut Buzz Aldrin walked on the Moon in 1969, he described his surroundings as 'magnificent desolation,' an interpretation that has yet to be bested. It's difficult to liken the Moon to anywhere familiar, because anywhere familiar is a place on Earth.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: courier;">Even from orbit, Earth looks and feels like home. Astronauts report that staring down on out planet is one of the most exhilarating things about being in space. We belong here. Earth's razor-thin atmosphere, cloud tendrils, green-carpeted continents, and deep ocean blues beckon us. Not so for the Moon, according to Collins, who orbited it alone in his spacecraft but did not walk on it. There is no comfort to the 'withered, sun-seared peach pit out my window,' he wrote in his memoir, <i>Carrying the Fire</i>. 'Its invitation is monotonous and meant for geologists only.'</span></p><p><span style="font-family: courier;">Humans are sensory beings, and the Moon is a place devoid of any familiar sensory experience. If you were to visit, you might experience conflicting feelings of deprivation and overwhelm. Every time you went outside - in a spacesuit, of course - and every time you went back indoors and took off your gear, the Moon would bowl you over. You would feel lonely, hot, freezing, terrified, ecstatic, superhuman, and tiny, in a matter of moments or maybe all at once. Its topography, its innards, its atmosphere - everything about the Moon is different."</span></p>Jason Schotthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11179389315079382362noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6284289787271291246.post-80609304241633677452024-03-02T14:54:00.000-08:002024-03-02T18:15:38.979-08:00RFK Jr. Collaborates With Hip-Hop Icons On Campaign Anthem <p> </p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi5lhvdQkXa5KlNt62nk0L3zuZpZlI1hpwL7IYUMAjFuFqQfVqBbvAdRRzum6XMb3x8BN6GWkb1G8lp_fos9XAqmhPmkB3JMxKVc5gtUsqVn0MNrsVaCzT_XAfZlSEPqGIBtxmcGGKMoBCuuQew8t_K338qIQCpJIlTQjdJxoTXLnutHMtnRoiQOjwH_YU/s661/IMG_8337.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="661" data-original-width="660" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi5lhvdQkXa5KlNt62nk0L3zuZpZlI1hpwL7IYUMAjFuFqQfVqBbvAdRRzum6XMb3x8BN6GWkb1G8lp_fos9XAqmhPmkB3JMxKVc5gtUsqVn0MNrsVaCzT_XAfZlSEPqGIBtxmcGGKMoBCuuQew8t_K338qIQCpJIlTQjdJxoTXLnutHMtnRoiQOjwH_YU/w400-h400/IMG_8337.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Provided by Kennedy 24.</td></tr></tbody></table><p></p><p><br /></p><p><span style="font-family: courier;">Independent Presidential Candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has taken a step in political engagement that's the first of its kind, as he has collaborated with a lineup of hip-hop royalty on a campaign anthem, "Standing on Bidness."</span></p><p><span></span></p><a name='more'></a><p></p><p><span style="font-family: courier;">This song captures the essence of Kennedy's bid for the White House, and it will aim to unite music lovers and voters by delivering a message of community empowerment and political participation. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: courier;">The slate of influential artists appearing with Kennedy includes Boosie, Turk, Jazze Pha, Drumma Boy, and prominent political figure and influencer Angela Stanton King, with Team Kennedy's Rijoun Murphy. The song was produced by CasshhJay and A.N.T. Productions.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: courier;">"We're standing on business for our community," King said in a statement. "Completely done with Republicans and Democrats. People over Party!"</span></p><p></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEil60XMSs1YvcZog9Jw4LU1dquiL4L4K_abiWFntP470kup_ZpPS1NImJfMf_ZAD-jg61N00swPvDBX33QtvJ4Bl7Cddxfq_YxnaNewt1EekF5C_H7vFPE9Si8gi3ev7Bl4ebIujzdZQI06M3bmVFk6_Vj-3UFLj23eEyYE1vHtB6EsqYcWXFD2hlTmZzk/s4032/IMG_7882.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="4032" data-original-width="3024" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEil60XMSs1YvcZog9Jw4LU1dquiL4L4K_abiWFntP470kup_ZpPS1NImJfMf_ZAD-jg61N00swPvDBX33QtvJ4Bl7Cddxfq_YxnaNewt1EekF5C_H7vFPE9Si8gi3ev7Bl4ebIujzdZQI06M3bmVFk6_Vj-3UFLj23eEyYE1vHtB6EsqYcWXFD2hlTmZzk/w300-h400/IMG_7882.jpg" width="300" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Robert F. Kennedy Jr. chats with Angela Stanton King at an event in Brooklyn on February 18. Photo by Jason Schott.</td></tr></tbody></table><br /><span style="font-family: courier;"><br /></span><p></p><p><span style="font-family: courier;">With this groundbreaking move, Kennedy, as the press release described it, "showcases his dedication to bridging the gap between political endeavors and community outreach through the powerful and unifying medium of music."</span></p><p><span style="font-family: courier;">Turk, in reflecting the song's call to action, said in a statement, "Until we change, we will never see change. We have to do what's uncomfortable to be comfortable."<br /></span></p><p><span style="font-family: courier;">This song was recorded in Atlanta at PatchWerk Recording Studios, is not just a regional anthem, and is meant to resonate across the country as a symbol of the bridge the political world and its citizens.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: courier;">Drumma Boy said of the goal of this song, "We want to inspire people to uplift the community as well as the government to serve us! We gotta meet each other halfway and together, we're standing on bidness."</span></p><p><span style="font-family: courier;">Boosie, in a display of dedication to grassroots advocacy, said, "I'm standing on business for my community. It's about tangible actions and support that uplift our people, beyond whoever occupied the Oval Office."</span></p><p><span style="font-family: courier;"><b><i>Listen</i></b> <i style="font-weight: bold;">to "Standing on Bidness" </i>by please <a href="https://onerpm.link/standingonbidness" target="_blank">clicking here</a>. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: courier;"><b><i>SPECIAL EVENT:</i></b> On Sunday night at 7:30 p.m. ET, Team Kennedy invites the public to a special X Spaces event that will be a unique opportunity to hear from Kennedy and the iconic artists behind the song. Please <a href="https://twitter.com/RobertKennedyJr/status/1763965967799840855" target="_blank">click here</a> for more information.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: courier;"><br /></span></p><p><br /></p>Jason Schotthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11179389315079382362noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6284289787271291246.post-70979637697368018712024-03-01T10:16:00.000-08:002024-03-01T10:24:32.028-08:00Kennedy Visits East Palestine, Ohio, Site Of Train Disaster: "This whole town is a crime scene"<p> <table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEipZALuhA5NC2gaCEvUt7mTL7DGEbXPB9v3nJ5MaSshkT_6zjuAXuv6eYFWvxcwfvV8739iEep7L7HEsR0IUCbYhJmkWIC9r-rteM07RE4u5DcIbPT7Cpda4V6-bKOYzqDFLSiB2IQHmDFFmsSDc9COPEt4Pav5iY4n-h2hQpwM7QDzRPbprlzxUZ-SdFs/s2291/IMG_7843.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2291" data-original-width="2070" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEipZALuhA5NC2gaCEvUt7mTL7DGEbXPB9v3nJ5MaSshkT_6zjuAXuv6eYFWvxcwfvV8739iEep7L7HEsR0IUCbYhJmkWIC9r-rteM07RE4u5DcIbPT7Cpda4V6-bKOYzqDFLSiB2IQHmDFFmsSDc9COPEt4Pav5iY4n-h2hQpwM7QDzRPbprlzxUZ-SdFs/w361-h400/IMG_7843.jpg" width="361" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Robert F. Kennedy Jr. in New York City on February 17. Photo by Jason Schott.</td></tr></tbody></table></p><p><br /></p><p><span style="font-family: courier;">Independent Presidential Candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. visited East Palestine, Ohio, the site of a train derailment that led to one of the worst environmental disasters in decades.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: courier;">38 train cars carrying vinyl chloride and other toxic chemicals derailed when a wheel bearing overheated and came off, on February 3, 2023.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: courier;">Kennedy has been an environmental lawyer for nearly 40 years, and he is representing residents in a class action lawsuit that targets the railroad company, Norfolk Southern, and the federal government. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: courier;">In an interview that with Fox News' Martha MacCallum that aired Wednesday, Kennedy met with five East Palestine residents, whose lives were upended by what Kennedy called a "crime."</span></p><p><span style="font-family: courier;">MacCallum opened the segment by explaining how, three days after the derailment, officials made the determination that, rather than risking an explosion, they would do a controlled burn. This is a decision that many residents believe was devastating to their health and their property.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: courier;">"This [disaster] occurred because of a failure of government," Kennedy said. "Norfolk Southern was paying its executives 80% of their salary for reducing costs. That's where their bonuses come from. The company should be criminally charged for what it did to this community. It was an act of theft. It stole the property values. It stole the health. It stole the pursuit of happiness from this wonderful community."</span></p><p><span style="font-family: courier;">Kennedy was then asked what he would do if elected President to prevent disasters like this one, and he and he said, "Preliminarily, we need to unravel the corporate capture at DOT that allowed this to happen. And right now, President Biden says that he's going to fix this problem and hold them responsible. Why isn't the Attorney General investigating this and filing criminal charges?</span></p><p><span style="font-family: courier;">"This whole town is a crime scene. What I would love to see President Biden say is, 'This happened because of a failure of government. This happened because these agencies are captured, they're corrupt, and I'm not going to tolerate it anymore. I'm going to expose and fire the people who are not doing the proper testing. I'm going to prosecute the people who are responsible at the outset.' Instead of a vague promise that, 'We're going to take care of everybody.'" (please <a href="https://www.foxnews.com/video/6347860756112" target="_blank">click here</a> to this link of the interview provided by Kennedy 24)</span></p><p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgO32jspVKrwijEetiF06T6c3WeoiQF-_c8CNWiROW-2l_6rB1yVxUIEluKGSi4ZxB3fkKi-OOIVauekuNWkuff5PqHDmLmhmSXPhwmZTGyYIRaIK-dCaVVctHoaEz_sypmOzMbi2LtCFgT-rMPpxKQj0G3i5MGJOCm6L-_12Hsrn72e5VRRH5NKPuYRtM/s750/IMG_8275.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="420" data-original-width="750" height="224" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgO32jspVKrwijEetiF06T6c3WeoiQF-_c8CNWiROW-2l_6rB1yVxUIEluKGSi4ZxB3fkKi-OOIVauekuNWkuff5PqHDmLmhmSXPhwmZTGyYIRaIK-dCaVVctHoaEz_sypmOzMbi2LtCFgT-rMPpxKQj0G3i5MGJOCm6L-_12Hsrn72e5VRRH5NKPuYRtM/w400-h224/IMG_8275.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">From Kennedy24.com</td></tr></tbody></table><br /><span style="font-family: courier;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-family: courier;">Kennedy also explains what he would have done if this disaster happened on his watch in this video provided by his campaign (please <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7RARj4Epd4c" target="_blank">click here</a>)</span></p><p><span style="font-family: courier;"><b><i>CONDEMNATION FOR "THE DAILY SHOW":</i></b> While outlets like this one, Fox News, and News Nation give Kennedy fair coverage, he still endures numerous hit pieces that are full of hate, and not much facts. The Daily Show ran the latest one of these on Tuesday, and it demeaned Mr. Kennedy's entire life essentially, mocking his admittance to Harvard as due to just his last name (a lie when you hear him speak), minimizing his environmental work, which included cleaning the Hudson River, and even mocking his addiction, which he has talked openly about in a way most public figures don't. Even if you are not a fan of Mr. Kennedy, this was shameful and the complete opposite of what was expected when Jon Stewart, at one time a friend of RFK Jr., took back the reins of the program. If Mr. Kennedy ever appears as a guest, Stewart should apologize immediately.</span></p>Jason Schotthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11179389315079382362noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6284289787271291246.post-26445402763421012072024-02-28T22:24:00.000-08:002024-02-28T22:24:58.513-08:00Pitino After SJU Bops Butler: "We are becoming a total team"<p> <table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhMMEam4Trp96t1VR5LLuusGZH7TwCGwRjv-_52MAqGs44GF5bjTj39j4dP6dbJ8xDoCzDqhqiVU3iCRtX6pdL1BZxeSIfvb-nV_KAmkoq9pnu_8y22-HlcGFT7SKaciLbYWmTe3PLIzj3eGx7XZ5Edh59uNECuG1fU64Fgm-tDdPkEOmiHQ1OT1VucDqQ/s750/IMG_8260.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="538" data-original-width="750" height="288" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhMMEam4Trp96t1VR5LLuusGZH7TwCGwRjv-_52MAqGs44GF5bjTj39j4dP6dbJ8xDoCzDqhqiVU3iCRtX6pdL1BZxeSIfvb-nV_KAmkoq9pnu_8y22-HlcGFT7SKaciLbYWmTe3PLIzj3eGx7XZ5Edh59uNECuG1fU64Fgm-tDdPkEOmiHQ1OT1VucDqQ/w400-h288/IMG_8260.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">RJ Luis Jr. goes up for a layup. @StJohnsBball.</td></tr></tbody></table></p><p><br /></p><p><span style="font-family: courier;">The St. John's Red Storm have now won three straight games, after they won on the road on Wednesday night at Butler, 82-59, to improve their record Big East Conference play back to an even 9-9.</span></p><p><span></span></p><a name='more'></a><p></p><p><span style="font-family: courier;">St. John's, whose overall record is now 17-12, was led by Glenn Taylor Jr., who followed up a superb performance in their win over Creighton at The Garden on Sunday, with a 17-point performance, in which he shot 6-8 from the field and a superb 5-7 from behind the arc, with three assists and three rebounds. Taylor also had a +24 ranking, meaning that's how many points more St. John's scored than Butler when he was on the floor.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: courier;">RJ Luis Jr. had 15 points (7-15 FG, 1-4 threes) off the bench, with five rebounds. Chris Ledlum had 10 points (3-7 FG), four rebounds, two steals, and an assist. Joel Soriano snatched 13 rebounds, with seven points (2-8 FG), as well as notching a +24, matching Taylor's. Daniss Jenkins had eight points (4-13 FG) and nine assists, narrowly missing a double-double, with three rebounds, and he tallied a +23.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: courier;">St. John's and Butler played basically even for the first five minutes, with the Red Storm up 13-11. Over the next six minutes, they went on a 12-2 run capped by a three-pointer by Zuby Ejiofor that made it 25-13. That 12-point lead was their biggest of the first half, and they took a 39-33 break into the intermission.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: courier;">Just like on Sunday, when their trough came late first half, it was followed by a flourish to open the second half. The Red Storm opened up a 48-37 lead at the 16:24 mark when RJ Luis Jr. had a fast break layup off a turnover.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: courier;">That lead would balloon to 16 points, at 59-43, when Jordan Dingle had a layup on a fast break at 13:08. That was just the start, as they would go up 22, at 77-55, on a pair of Soriano free throws with 6:18 left that sent the Butler fans to the exits.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: courier;">St. John's outscored Butler 43-26 in the second half, as they shot 45.7 percent (16-35) and 40% (4-10) on three-pointers, to Butler's 34.8 % (8-23) and 27.3% (3-11) from behind the arc.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: courier;">This is the third straight win for St. John's since the loss to Seton Hall on February 18, which left them with a Big East record of 6-9, and will be remembered for when St. John's Head Coach Rick Pitino caused a frenzy by calling out his players by name afterwards.</span><span style="font-family: courier;"> </span></p><p><span style="font-family: courier;">On Wednesday night, Pitino said of how this team has evolved in the last ten days,</span><b style="font-family: courier;"> </b><span style="font-family: courier;">"Every game has its reason of why you win and why you lose. Tonight, we were just relentless on defense, we were very aggressive on offense. These guys try so hard, they want to do it badly. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: courier;">"What I said was all staged to get them to wake up and they woke up in a big way because right now they are playing great basketball. What I told them is you beat a really good team on the road but don't let up. Keep improving, keep your goals high and I think they will because they are a tremendous group."</span></p><p><span style="font-family: courier;"><b><i>PITINO POSTGAME: </i>St. John's Head Coach Rick Pitino also addressed these topics with the media after the game, including his opening statement:</b> "We are becoming a total team. From the beginning, we relied on [Daniss Jenkins] but now we have Jordan, Ledlum, Glenn, we're just becoming a total team. I thought our offense was brilliant. I told the team, 'We are going to have to try to score, do not play to lose. Score, score, score.' I want them to keep scoring and obviously play the defense that we did. They did a great job. We had a record-high deflections with 38 tonight and that was terrific. It was a great team victory in a tough road environment to play in and I'm really proud of these guys."</span></p><p><span style="font-family: courier;"><b>On Glenn Taylor Jr.</b>: "Glenn, like [Simeone Wilcher] can play 7-8 minutes and you think he played 37 minutes. He's just a great team guy, but now, he's doing the things we expected of him. His personality is so good, he's so team oriented and he never really thinks about himself. He's got to get it drilled into his mind to be a better offensive basketball player. What I told him is that we work so hard on player development, we take thousands of shots, so I want him to shoot the ball. He did right from the first play of the game. Chris [Ledlum] is playing fantastic basketball as well, but they are all being very aggressive on offense with movement. We had 17 assists, shot a good percentage, so they are all playing terrific. It's not just one person."</span></p><p><span style="font-family: courier;"><b>On Daniss Jenkins:</b> "[Daniss] is one of the premium guards in the country...He's a legitimate NBA prospect because of his size, leadership and his ability to go by people. He does it for us every game, he never lets up in practice. He's a big-time basketball player and one of the premium guards in the country."</span></p><p><span style="font-family: courier;"><b>On what is working for his team:</b> "What I love about them is that when they make a mistake they say 'Coach, that's my fault' right away. I say, 'Okay, no problem.' They all own up to it right away. Just like tonight, we got 11 steals because these guys are helping each other on any dribble penetration, everybody has each other's back...Both [Taylor and Ledlum] have gotten a lot better on defense. Chris has gotten a lot better. Glenn is becoming a stopper right now and that's what we need."</span></p>Jason Schotthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11179389315079382362noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6284289787271291246.post-10237223941656603842024-02-25T13:06:00.000-08:002024-02-25T17:25:09.251-08:00St. John's Flips Script, Closes Out Creighton With Late Flourish At The Garden<p> </p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEheyKJ3FHsoIa6OTjCTTZ5uYww1WWU2sZQwEo4S4bbFcPUZICSoL87K5q_ZEoLYeTU2caWRN4REZzUE2aFJxYukdxj0iF7Xvtfo7HV_TkCWJpiZNnnXCUun1IJ0PkQ-ZAe1L4r7oENgXbPMzhuTd19o0Gj2sU0744UXPgaa4tnUk98cNuVBwAhC58cwSPo/s3558/IMG_8129.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3558" data-original-width="3024" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEheyKJ3FHsoIa6OTjCTTZ5uYww1WWU2sZQwEo4S4bbFcPUZICSoL87K5q_ZEoLYeTU2caWRN4REZzUE2aFJxYukdxj0iF7Xvtfo7HV_TkCWJpiZNnnXCUun1IJ0PkQ-ZAe1L4r7oENgXbPMzhuTd19o0Gj2sU0744UXPgaa4tnUk98cNuVBwAhC58cwSPo/w340-h400/IMG_8129.jpg" width="340" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Daniss Jenkins with the ball at the perimeter, amidst the "white out" at The Garden. Photo by Jason Schott.</td></tr></tbody></table><p></p><p><br /></p><p><span style="font-family: courier;">St. John's has stumbled a lot in the second half of games throughout the season, but on Sunday, they flipped the script on that as they closed out Creighton, 80-66, on Sunday afternoon at Madison Square Garden.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: courier;">The Red Storm have now won two in a row to inch their Big East record back to nearly even, at 8-9, while improving their overall record to 16-12. This was their strongest win of the season, as it came against a team ranked 15th in the country.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: courier;">St. John's began this one, as they do most games, with a 20-10 lead eight minutes in. That was quickly reversed, as the Blue Jays took a 25-24 edge on a Steven Ashworth layup at 7:21 of the first half.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: courier;">From then on, St. John's went on a stunning 17-3 run to close the first half, one in which they shot 55.9 percent (19-34) to Creighton's 33.3% (11-33).</span></p><p><span style="font-family: courier;">In the second half, Creighton chipped into St. John's edge, briefly pulling to within five, at 55-50, on a Trey Alexander jumper at the 9:05 mark.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: courier;">St. John's generally was up seven until the final five minutes, at what is usually the time things begin to go sideways.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: courier;">Instead, it was St. John's who went on a 9-0 run over just one minute and 54 seconds to take a 72-56 lead, capped by a Daniss Jenkins jumper at 2:52. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: courier;">Creighton did cut it to ten, but Joel Soriano drained four free throws in the final minute to seal the win.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: courier;">St. John's shot 47.2 percent (34-72) for the game, with 34 points in the paint, as they took a lot of runs right at the hoop, and they dished out 24 assists while committing only three turnovers. Their defense held Creighton to 39.7 percent (25-63) from the field, and forced them to commit 13 turnovers. One big difference was, since St. John's owned the inside, they only made eight three-point attempts, making two, while Creighton took 26 attempts from behind the arc, making just six of them, or 23.3 percent.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: courier;">The Red Storm was led by Daniss Jenkins, who had 27 points on 12-18 from the field, including 1-2 on three-pointers, with six assists, two steals, and a rebound. Jordan Dingle had 18 points (8-13 FG), one rebound, and one assist. Joel Soriano had 12 points (4-10 FG), seven rebounds and five assists.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: courier;">Creighton was led by Trey Alexander, who had 31 points (nearly half of the Blue Jays' 66) on 12-23 from the field, 4-8 from behind the arc, with four rebounds and three assists. Ryan Kalkbrenner had a double-double with 12 points (5-11 FG) and 10 rebounds, with four assists. Baylor Scheierman also had 12 points (4-16 FG, 1-10 threes), with five rebounds and two assists.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: courier;"><b><i>PITINO POSTGAME:</i> St. John's Head Coach Rick Pitino addressed the media after the game, and he opened with this statement:</b> "I really don't know what to boast on because I'm not sure if the offense was better than the defense or the defense was better than the offense. When you have 24 assists and only three turnovers, that's a special offensive night. When you hold them to 39 [percent from the floor] and 23 [percent from three], especially in the first half, the defense was great. So many times the shot clock was ready to go off and that's when you know you are playing great defense. I'm really proud of the guys. It was a great performance. We had two really good days of practice...Our strengths have always been the fast break and pushing the pace and I don't want to let up from pushing the pace because they are not going to sub much. I wanted their legs to have to sprint back and play you in transition as well as against the press and the guys did a fabulous job."</span></p><p><span style="font-family: courier;"><b>On if this was the best team performance of the season:</b> "No question. No question because we played both ends of the floor and we kept trying to push it, win the game and not be afraid to lose the game. I told them, 'Don't look at the scoreboard, keep pushing.' As I said, we had two great days of practice. Believe it or not, we played a terrible game against Georgetown. Awful defensively, we gave up like 13 uncontested layups and I said that has to stop and we have to push the pace. I said everyone is going to play, be ready to play, be ready to go in and they were. I told Glenn Taylor [Jr.], you got to rebound the ball for us. He did a fabulous job tonight."</span></p><p><span style="font-family: courier;"><b>On Glenn Taylor Jr.s performance: </b>"I met with him and said, 'Glenn, you are not driving to the basket, you are not rebounding, you are not playing great defense. I need you to start doing that. You are capable of it; you are a great athlete.' He did it tonight. He rebounded, he played great defense, he did a lot of really good things."</span></p><p><span style="font-family: courier;"><b>On if this win gave the team belief it can win games in the Big East Tournament: </b>"I think our guys have always believed it could be done. Sometimes, because they are new, they don't know how to get it done. They get frustrated sometimes and they try to play so hard, they try to get it back in the next 10 seconds. We told them every four minutes that we want to make sure we are moving the basketball. They did a fabulous job with it."</span></p><p><span style="font-family: courier;"><i><b>MARCH MADNESS IMPLICATIONS:</b></i> This was the kind of "strength of opponent" victory St. John's needed, but it doesn't excuse the fact they are still just 8-9 in Big East play, with their final three games against opponents weaker than them - at Butler (7-10 Big East) on Wednesday, at DePaul (2-14) on Tuesday, March 5, and against Georgetown (0-16) on Saturday, March 9 at The Garden. For the Red Storm to make March Madness, they need to win these three and two at the Big East Tournament starting March 13, and that would give them 21 overall wins.</span></p>Jason Schotthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11179389315079382362noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6284289787271291246.post-65065747223857600322024-02-22T16:35:00.000-08:002024-02-22T16:37:32.797-08:00RFK Jr. Will Be On Ballot In Hawaii <p> <table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgkbjCCjblz3UuvPWiwIFR1ltIp5AJXGG9MZSW57pJrJYn5Ft4bVX5Oz-hV1O7IuJ6FlgO4m4Re5kqWZLZkp8RgheQVIhcu3nsoKka-Ml4-55ZS3TbPLTDCc9pnLtAxwgQcTb68CaLbmM1RHXikcjrcXTkeErm1CLxps-GdWXgDLfTR6bOBRsKFRjcdNd0/s888/IMG_6761%20(1).jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="888" data-original-width="750" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgkbjCCjblz3UuvPWiwIFR1ltIp5AJXGG9MZSW57pJrJYn5Ft4bVX5Oz-hV1O7IuJ6FlgO4m4Re5kqWZLZkp8RgheQVIhcu3nsoKka-Ml4-55ZS3TbPLTDCc9pnLtAxwgQcTb68CaLbmM1RHXikcjrcXTkeErm1CLxps-GdWXgDLfTR6bOBRsKFRjcdNd0/w338-h400/IMG_6761%20(1).jpg" width="338" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Provided by his campaign.</td></tr></tbody></table></p><p><br /></p><p><span style="font-family: courier;">Independent Presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr.'s campaign confirmed on Thursday that they were informed by the Hawaii Office of Elections that he will be on its ballot in November.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: courier;">Kennedy's supporters collected the 862 required signatures to establish the "We The People" party in Hawaii. They actually supported three times the number of signatures required by today's official deadline.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: courier;">This means that the We The People party will nominate Kennedy as its nominee in Hawaii. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: courier;">"Mahalo to the people of Hawaii who made this great accomplishment possible," Kennedy said in a statement released by his campaign. "I'm inspired by how enthusiastic people are to collect singatures, create new political parties, and rally for real change. This kind of energy is what will get us onto the ballot in every state and fuel our voter registration and GOTV (Get out the vote) operation as we head toward election day."</span></p><p><span style="font-family: courier;">This is the third state that Kennedy has confirmed he will be on the general election ballot as Hawaii joins Utah, where he's already on the ballot, and he has amassed the necessary signatures to make the ballot in New Hampshire.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: courier;">The signature gathering effort was led by the "We The People" Hawaii Party Chair Kim Haine, who said in a statement, "Maholo to all the amazing volunteers across our island state who worked so hard to make this happen. We're excited and honored to be a part of this historic campaign to preserve peace, prosperity, and freedom for all. RFK Jr. truly embodies the spirit of aloha, and we know aloha can change the world.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: courier;">Kennedy visited Hawaii in January and saw the aftermath of the Lahaina wildfire, one of the worst examples of government inefficiency and corruption. Please <a href="http://www.brooklyndigest.org/2024/02/kennedy-releases-new-video-on-hawaii.html" target="_blank">click here</a> to view the video of his visit. In addition, RFK Jr. held a rally on the island of O'ahu where hundreds of people heard him speak about how he will restore the middle class, unwind the war machine, unravel corporate capture of agencies, end the chronic disease epidemic, and secure the border. Please <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M0ktEhQgtxs&t=278s" target="_blank">click here</a> to view the video of the rally via Robert F. Kennedy Jr's YouTube page.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: courier;">Earlier this month, Kennedy's supporters filed political party paperwork in six states, including Hawaii, as well as California, Delaware, Mississippi, North Carolina, and Texas.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: courier;">The inspiration for the We The People party, according to his campaign, came from the fact that they "are the first three words of the U.S. Constitution. These words symbolize that our government draws its power from the people that it was created to serve."</span></p><p><span style="font-family: courier;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-family: courier;"><br /></span></p><p><br /></p>Jason Schotthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11179389315079382362noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6284289787271291246.post-8864594504255079362024-02-21T20:54:00.000-08:002024-02-21T20:54:15.754-08:00St. John's Answers Pitino's Put-Downs With Win In DC<p> <table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjFFwBrLBAvKd5ZRvFLKK35e2miTFlw04pLaJDDTSlQMLYc7vGsHBGQWQ38bJLwyVQOJ05_S11Z6zyrOxbXw-YvzvuT0UczrtPchS8qXywE9T5bQxOq0wSZMCfuCKs7_uNKq7MVUh_erKx0qG4SEhCLBW3L7-Pgj4wFhpPz73kvdTmdrM-5u4WFiGAGZhA/s1061/IMG_7982%20(1).jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1061" data-original-width="750" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjFFwBrLBAvKd5ZRvFLKK35e2miTFlw04pLaJDDTSlQMLYc7vGsHBGQWQ38bJLwyVQOJ05_S11Z6zyrOxbXw-YvzvuT0UczrtPchS8qXywE9T5bQxOq0wSZMCfuCKs7_uNKq7MVUh_erKx0qG4SEhCLBW3L7-Pgj4wFhpPz73kvdTmdrM-5u4WFiGAGZhA/w283-h400/IMG_7982%20(1).jpg" width="283" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Jordan Dingle goes up for a layup. @StJohnsBball.</td></tr></tbody></table></p><p><br /></p><p><span style="font-family: courier;">Three days after St. John's Head Coach Rick Pitino tore into his team after a brutal loss to Seton Hall, the Red Storm went down to Washington, DC, and earned a road win over the Georgetown Hoyas, 90-85, on Wednesday night.</span></p><p><span></span></p><a name='more'></a><p></p><p><span style="font-family: courier;">St. John's improved to 7-9 in Big East Conference play, and improved their overall record to 15-12. As much as their hopes for the NCAA Tournament have dimmed, 20 wins is generally considered the magic number to make it. Georgetown fell to 1-14 in Big East play, while their overall record is 8-18.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: courier;">Jordan Dingle led the Red Storm with 22 points on 8-13 shooting, including 3-6 from behind the arc, with four rebounds and two assists. Daniss Jenkins had 15 points (5-8 FG, 2-4 threes), with five assists and three rebounds. Joel Soriano had a double-double with 10 points (3-6 FG) and 10 rebounds, along with two assists.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: courier;">St. John's raced out to a 23-9 lead early, and that ballooned to a 19-point edge, 37-18 when Soriano made a hook shot with 5:33 left in the first half.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: courier;">Georgetown stunned them from that point until halftime, as they went on a 14-2 run to pull to within seven points, 39-32.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: courier;">The second half began pretty even, with the Red Storm still up seven, 46-39 four minutes in. Over the next few minutes, St. John's went on a 12-2 run capped by a Simeon Wilcher three-pointer that made it 58-41 at 13:03.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: courier;">St. John's maintained around a 10-point edge until the final stages of the game, when Georgetown went on an 8-2 run to pull to within four points, 82-78, with 1:31 left.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: courier;">Jenkins then buried a jumper with 1:02 left, and after Wayne Bristol, Jr. drained a three-pointer to make it 84-81 SJU, the play of the game arrived.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: courier;">Fighting a press on the inbounds pass, Luis sprung ahead and found a lane to race in for a dunk to make it a five-point game with 33 seconds left, and then Soriano made a pair of free throws to put them up 88-81 with 16 seconds left and seal the win.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: courier;">St. John's returns to Madison Square Garden to take on #15 Creighton, who will be coming off a dominant 85-66 win over top-ranked Connecticut. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: courier;"><b><i>PITINO POSTGAME:</i> St. John's Head Coach Rick Pitino addressed the media after the win, and he started by addressing his comments after Sunday's loss to Seton Hall, when he called out his players: </b>"I went home and didn't think it was any big deal. I thought everyone blew it all the way out of proportion. These guys have heard a lot worse in closed quarters. I went home and talked to my wife and came back and said to my staff, 'Any of the guys upset?' and they said a couple of [the guys] feelings are hurt. I immediately went to the team and told them I love you guys, I would never want to embarrass you, but it's my bad. I'm at fault. I should have never mentioned anybody by name, I didn't mean it. I was trying to talk typical clinic talk like I do. The slowest player in the NBA is [Nikola] Jokic; he can't move laterally. Some of the greatest players I've coached can't move laterally. I didn't think it was a big deal, but I should have never mentioned the names. I'm a veteran coach. I tell every young coach in the business, show class when you win, show class when you lose, give the other team credit. I've been really frustrated this year for a number of reasons but understand something, I recruited [Jordan Dingle]. I recruited [RJ Luis Jr.]. My staff did not recruit these guys; it was all me. [Jordan's] dad called me, and I said, 'Done, I want him.] RJ, I wanted him, thought he was going to be great. [Chris] Ledlum, I wanted him. It was all me. And I'm very proud to have them, but I totally apologize to them for doing that...</span></p><p><span style="font-family: courier;">"I wasn't ripping them, that wasn't my intent, but words matter. I just want to briefly say, my guys are the most important thing. My family and my players, outside of breathing air, they are the most important things in my life. That's why I'm still coaching today. They are the air that I breathe, and I love them dearly. I would never want to embarrass them or hurt them. A couple of them certainly were, but they went out yesterday and had the best practice of the year. I'm real proud of that. We came tonight and played great offense. [Dingle and Luis] were terrific. Real proud of the win...I also want to apologize to any St. John's fan because they have treated me like royalty. If any of them were taken aback, I apologize as well. And some of you in the media who cover us, I want to apologize to you, because you didn't need to mess with this nonsense, you just want to talk basketball...</span></p><p><span style="font-family: courier;">"That's behind us. I'm real proud of our guys, we have a tremendous game coming on Sunday against a great team [Creighton] that's playing great basketball. We needed to win [tonight]. We did a lot of great things tonight on offense...Our motto in the timeouts was don't play to lose. Play to win. Don't milk the clock. Go score. That's exactly what RJ did, he was brilliant driving to the basket. Jordan was great tonight at every phase of the game with his steals, shooting the ball with his midrange, passing. He was great tonight. Real proud of these two guys as well as the other guys. This was a great win for us."</span></p><p><span style="font-family: courier;"><b>On slowing Georgetown's late run and winning on the road:</b> "Every basketball team has runs. The good thing is they made tough shots and we never stopped punching the basket and that's the key to winning a close game on the road. Look, I'm sure you all recognize in college basketball as opposed to the NBA, someone mentioned to me about UConn today, they are 0 for their last 21 on the road against ranked teams, and they are great. They are extremely well-coached, they are great. You take away nothing from them, they won a championship. What you take away is that is extremely difficult to win on the road. When you get a road victory, I don't care where it's at or who you are playing, it's a great victory."</span></p><p><br /></p><p><span style="font-family: courier;"><br /></span></p>Jason Schotthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11179389315079382362noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6284289787271291246.post-66611563751383677462024-02-20T05:07:00.000-08:002024-02-21T20:47:57.241-08:00Books: "The Unit" By Adam Gamal<p> </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhx4YpuT1p78Poj16ITlIR08O1ar57seMeQhIINUbij-rSQtPLxlFKd_uHsSEVlVvyzXQkaQfUK5xPtkn2lGeq3w3aruxjC3FpnCtzx5SszrOs9d2Uohdt9ZmQvkJu3v29CX6pQJ7r9XSU5pPFhdTTRmWl1wMMNPDpsiD_Dpq9dvJ4DNGTZpgc-FVO8WaY/s899/IMG_7934.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="899" data-original-width="602" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhx4YpuT1p78Poj16ITlIR08O1ar57seMeQhIINUbij-rSQtPLxlFKd_uHsSEVlVvyzXQkaQfUK5xPtkn2lGeq3w3aruxjC3FpnCtzx5SszrOs9d2Uohdt9ZmQvkJu3v29CX6pQJ7r9XSU5pPFhdTTRmWl1wMMNPDpsiD_Dpq9dvJ4DNGTZpgc-FVO8WaY/w268-h400/IMG_7934.jpg" width="268" /></a></div><p></p><p><br /></p><p><b><span style="font-family: courier;">The Unit: My Life Fighting Terrorists As One Of America's Most Secret Military Operatives</span></b></p><p><b><span style="font-family: courier;">By Adam Gamal, with Kelly Kennedy</span></b></p><p><b><span style="font-family: courier;">St. Martin's Press; hardcover, 384 pages, with 16-page color photo insert; $32.00; available today, Tuesday, February 20th</span></b></p><p><span style="font-family: courier;">Adam Gamal served in the most elite units in the United States Army, and he made over a dozen deployments before he retired in 2016. His awards include the Bronze Star Medal, the Purple Heart, and the Legion of Merit, and he is currently an international consultant for a security organization. Adam Gamal is a pseudonym created to keep the author's family and himself safe from harm. </span></p><p><span></span></p><a name='more'></a><p></p><p><span style="font-family: courier;">Kelly Kennedy served as a soldier in Desert Storm an Mogadishu, Somalia. She has written for <i>USA Today,</i> the <i>New York Times</i>, and<i> Army Times</i>, and is the managing editor of <i>The War Horse</i>, a nonprofit newsroom that is dedicated to coverage of veterans and military issues. She is the author of <i>They Fought for Each Other: The Triumph and Tragedy of the Hardest Hit Unit In Iraq.</i></span></p><p><span style="font-family: courier;">Gamal was one of the only Muslim Arab Americans to serve inside "The Unit," as the Department of Defense asked the publisher to refer to it. Within the U.S. military, there is a team so secretive that not only is the name of this unit classified, but the members of it are like ghosts to the military personnel in the country, to the point even Veterans Affairs doesn't even have them listed.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: courier;">In the new engrossing book, <i>The Unit</i>, Gamal has written an intense story about immigration, service, and sacrifice while being part of a highly-trained team that is responsible for preventing dozens of terrorist attacked in the United States and around the world.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: courier;">Before coming to the U.S., Gamal's life in Egypt was one filled with strife, as the Muslim Brotherhood laid waste to a once-free country. When he arrived here, he didn't speak English, was 5'1", 112 pounds, and certainly far from what would expect a soldier to be. The love he had for his new country meant it wouldn't be long before he enlisted in the U.S. Army, as he felt a calling to serve a nation that gave him freedom.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: courier;">Gamal's first deployment was to Bosnia, then he was part of the search for Saddam Hussein in Iraq, and he worked in Africa to fight against the very same Muslim Brotherhood that terrorized his community in Egypt when he was a child. One mission he writes intensely about was being in a cat-and-mouse game tracking down terrorist Aden Hashi Ayro, the head of the Hizb al-Shabab, or youth wing of the Islamic Courts Union, who it was believed led missions in Somalia.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: courier;">One thing Gamal focuses on with great detail is how diverse the armed forces are, as he was often mistaken for being Hispanic. He tells stories of other military members who were from a Middle Eastern background that could pass for being Latino, which was valuable in hunting down bad guys because they could blend in with those communities. This gave the U.S. an advantage in gathering intelligence needed to nab terrorists. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: courier;">Gamal strongly feels that immigrants would make extraordinary soldiers. In addition, women and people of color do things differently, and meld different views, strategies, and thought processes when engaging enemies. This is crucial and often overlooked, especially when future wars will look far different than they did in the 20th century. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: courier;"><i>In this excerpt, Gamal writes of his first impressions of America:</i> "When I landed in the United States at the age of twenty on a shiny day in July 1991, I felt as if I could breathe for the first time.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: courier;">In Egypt, where I was born, I did not have the freedom to breathe deeply, dream big, or jump high. As I grew, Egypt recovered - from a coup that had taken place four decades prior but still affected our daily life. To live in Egypt was to search constantly for a sense of self, to the extent that the late President Anwar Sadat called his book In Search of Identity. Most Egyptians are not fully Arabs, not fully Africans, and not fully Mediterranean. The military coup of 1952 deprived Egyptians of being just Egyptian. That affected many young men and women, me included.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: courier;">But on the day I landed in the land of the free, home of the brave, I filled my lungs with clean, crisp air and made a mental note: This is my chosen home. I will never go back.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: courier;">A year later, I watched a young Bill Clinton debate a wartime president, George H.W. Bush, whom I admired greatly. I could barely order breakfast, let alone follow the logic of a debate, but I did understand I was watching democracy in action: Americans not afraid to talk about how they would make their country better, even in the presence of a sitting leader. That debate made me all the more determined to be an American, as well as to serve in the military.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: courier;">Nearly thirty years later, I see a different America. I see an America unwilling to open its arms to welcome newcomers. As an immigrant, I served in the military for more than twenty years. I fought, I bled, and I almost died to make sure others would have the same opportunities I had - and, if I did it right, even more opportunities. From the snow of Bosnia to the deserts of Iraq, from the hills of Yemen to the mountains of Africa, I fought in every war since 1995. I deployed more than fourteen times to make sure all Americans feel safe and are also treated fairly and equally. We Americans believe everyone has a right to food, shelter, safety, and a sense of belonging - even the pursuit of happiness. But now, many great Americans lack that sense of belonging because of their religion, their national origin, or the color of their skin. I know that's not America. Most Americans are kind, welcoming, and helpful - take it from an immigrant who couldn't find his way out of a New York Train station on his first day here.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: courier;">So let me tell you a story: It's a story of action and adventure, of sorrow and loss, of love and citizenship, of pride and acceptance. It's a story of a battle against an enemy that began in my youth and continues even now - with ideas about a way forward for my new nation. It's a story of building the American Dream, and always, it is a story of hope...</span></p><p><span style="font-family: courier;">I am not writing this book for fame or money but rather to tell the story of some of America's finest - the unsung heroes Americans should know about. Heroes come in all colors and shapes, as well as with differing religious beliefs and traditions - including Islam and Judaism. Most Americans expect military heroes to look like Tom Hanks in <i>Saving Private Ryan</i>, but I am here to prove some true soldiers look nothing like that."</span></p><p><span style="font-family: courier;"><br /></span></p>Jason Schotthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11179389315079382362noreply@blogger.com0