How we are Going to Beat the Kansas Jayhawks

Get Hot, Stay Hot

In my opinion, the biggest key to beating a national powerhouse like Kansas is getting out to a hot start and showing that you belong from the start. They need to put Kansas on their heels from the opening tip and never let them get comfortable.

Since the game versus St. Peter’s on November 13th, we haven’t played a strong first half of basketball. Against teams like NJIT and St. Francis Brooklyn, a slow start in the first half is fairly easy to overcome, but against Kansas a slow start could cost us the game. Take the Indiana game for example; we played an outstanding second half of basketball, socring 47 points and outscoring Indiana by 10. Unfortunately such a slow start in the first half put us down 12 at the break, and we just fell short of overcoming it. Tonight we need to get hot and stay hot.

Defensive Pressure

As I said above, we can never let Kansas feel comfortable on the court tonight. This is a HOME GAME for us, let’s treat it like one. Our identity is defense, tonight we need to give Kansas hell for 40 minutes. Kansas has some really talented guards, but they have not yet faced on ball defenders as talented as Posh Alexander or Montez Mathis. St. John’s ranks 18th in the country in turnover rate, they need to continue to play at that type of level tonight in order to secure the win. Ochai Agbaji is the leading scorer for Kansas, tallying 22.5 PPG. He is extremely efficient from beyond the arc, as he shoots 41.7% from deep. He needs to be priority number one from a defensive standpoint. And of course, the defense will feed off the energy from the crowd.

Get LOUD

Let’s Get Loud, Let’s Get Loud
Turn the music up, let’s do it
C’mon people Let’s Get Loud
Let’s Get Loud
Turn the music up to hear that sound

Need I say more. Everyone knows how much of an affect home court advantage can have on a college basketball team. It is our moral responsibility as fans of St. John’s basketball, to help give our team the edge in anyway possible tonight. It may mean yelling at a Kansas player that they have a hot sister/mom, screaming at the ref when he blows a call, or starting a chant to get the arena going. We have over 1,000 students going to the game tonight. That’s a lot of Johnnies in one place. Let’s make sure UBS is rocking.