Found this post from about a month into the season and I think it still basically sums up my thoughts:
To be clear, I have no problem with anyone saying that this program has been mediocre recently and that it's unacceptable. I agree 100% with that. It's disappointing that we can't field a good or great team anymore. My point is simply that I never thought the preseason expectations made sense. Returning all of your players from a pretty bad team without a significant influx of talent isn't really a reason to expect this team to suddenly be great IMO. In particular, the guy that we count on the most showed zero improvement or possibly regression last year and we came into the season expecting a massive leap from him? It always defied logic in my opinion. The simple fact of the matter is that this team isn't very talented and is also glued to an offensive system that exacerbates their issues. A heavy pick-and-roll offense is a great thing if you have the personnel to run it: guards that can finish at the rim, shoot if the defense goes under the screen, and make good passes out of it; wings that can shoot or make backside cuts; and big men that can set good screens, catch the pass as the roll/pop man, and finish. This team has none of those pieces. I don't really get how anyone looked at the makeup of this team and thought that they'd be great.
Edit: I think there's a difference between expectations for the program and expectations for each year's individual team. This program is performing at an unacceptable level IMO. This team is performing pretty much exactly as I think we should have expected this year.
I disagree with the idea that some people have that returning all 5 starters from a bad team is a good thing. Part of the downside of this scenario is that there's never guarantees that guys will improve. I don't think it was really reasonable to expect much improvement from Battle, Howard, or Chukwu. I do think it was reasonable to expect improvement out of Brissett and Dolezaj though, as well as the influx of Hughes.
Battle was coming off a year in which he had shown zero improvement and yet people were projecting a massive leap into the All-American picture for him...it never made any sense. He did end up showing at least a little improvement this year, improving his scoring efficiency a little bit, cutting down on turnovers, and improving his playmaking a little bit (though this was always maybe his biggest flaw).
Howard just didn't look right for the majority of the season.
Brissett became a better, though still bad, finisher at the rim. I have no idea what happened to his free throw shooting and 3 point shot though. He remains a flat out bad basketball player that continues to soak up a ton of minutes. His lack of meaningful improvement is a major disappointment.
In some ways, Dolezaj became a different player, and in other ways, he remained the same. As a freshman, 6.7% of his shots came from 3 point range. That increased in a gigantic way this year, up to almost 30% of his shots, and he converted them at a high rate too. He improved his shooting percentages pretty significantly at all 3 levels of the court as well. He also showed a little more ability handling the ball than he did as a freshman, relying a little less on others to create for him. Unfortunately, his passive nature did not improve this season. I think Dolezaj is a player that we need to utilize more moving forwards, and also think that he would likely impact games far more if he had teammates that could create and pass.
The other guys were all basically newbies. Hughes was a nice addition and exceeded my expectations. Boeheim showed flashes of what might end up being a strong college career. Braswell showed a lot in the few minutes he received. Carey looked like a trainwreck. And Sidibe just never looked healthy.
Moving forwards, PG and C are the obvious holes; of the three things I mentioned that are necessary for Boeheim's "offense" to work, we should finally have the shooting box checked next season. The other two remain major flaws.
