Boeheim's Army vs Pitt Thread 7/21 [7PM ESPN2]

[EastCoast2]

Paul Harris would be great in this style tournament. He's so strong and athletic and the smaller court makes him even bigger. Rebounds, defense, fast breaks, and put backs would be his game.

 

[Zelda Zonk]

I didn't even think Rick played that well when he was in. Baye actually looked like the best big out there. Was really impressed with him.

Devo was a black hole early. I think hes the "captain" of the team so thats why he plays the most. Would have liked to see Triche play the pt with Devo off the ball. Devo started and ended a lot of possessions.

That's what I saw, too. Devo had no sense of playing as a POINT guard. No distribution. There was zero ball movement on our possessions. Just a bunch of forced shots by everyone based on failed one on one moves. And on the defensive side, we gave up tons of wide open, stand still threes. Pitt wasn't talented enough to do anything except wait for a pass after an over commitment in the zone, but they were good enough to hit 'warm up threes' as we sailed by, far too late to affect he shots.

Plus, weird lineups, probably as Blackwell struggled to find ANYONE who could hit a shot. I thought southerland should have been in earlier, but I wonder if there is some sort of challenge to integrating a player who hasn't been with this kind of team for the entire time. How do they divvy up the winning pot? Maybe that was an unfortunate consideration for James' minutes when the concentration should have been just on advancing regardless?

Oh, well. Always good seeing our guys. I thought, before it started, that we were going to need a steady outside shooter, as we seemed to have an imbalance with a lot of size. Yes, Rautins or DNich would have been valuable.

Baye really was one of the best of our players. As was Devo, but only in game one. Against Pitt, not so much.

 

[HoustonCuse]

We had tons of size but with Roberts jacking 3's and the like, pffft. Also they need to play man. Because although they were in a zone configuration, they were not playing zone. The defense they played throughout the tournament is exactly the reason why zone has a terrible reputation. They didn't guard anybody in any of the games they played. Clearly, the legit Syracuse zone is a potent weapon, but it requires coaching and mastery to get right. These guys had that at one point, but not now. And since it is a team defense, the almost nil prep time they take for the tournament makes it a guarantee that the defense will be half-a$$ed at best. In this case it is probably 1/4-a$$ed.