Im starting a cooney thread | Syracusefan.com

Im starting a cooney thread

I think he is turning the corner and becoming more of an all around guard rather than just a shooter which has severely limited him taking those 2-3 jumpers a game that he had no chance making. Last night against Colgate he had the look of supreme confidence in what he was doing weather popping for a shot, driving and dishing or taking it himself. He has one pull up jumper from 17' that was so sweet just ripped the net. I wish he would take that shot more as its almost always open. His passing off his drives may have been the best I've ever seen from him. As Coach Knight would say he wasn't just looking he was seeing.
 
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I just loved the passing yesterday. Some of those releases were insane, but when he slashed, got into the lane, drew the defense to find the open man? Wow. So nice to have that, I hope he uses it more. Really keeps the defense honest and is a huge benefit to the other 4 offensive players around him.
 
For the sake of full disclosure, earlier in the year I reluctantly confessed to a friend of mine that I was worried that Trevor may never develop into an all-around player. I said a team that heavily relies on a fourth-year player as limited as Cooney is not likely winning many big games, and I admitted that his lack of fundamental development during his time on the hill was staggering.

However, over the last several games, something for Trevor has clicked. His fundamentals have improved dramatically. He's actually reading off-the ball-screens better, making better decisions about what cuts to make based on how the defense plays him. Impressively, he has suddenly shown the ability to utilize pick-and-roll action effectively. He is reading these well, knowing when to shoot and, more importantly, making shots off the bounce, something his game has lacked most of his time here. He's also knocking down shots off of dribble handoffs. Additionally, his passing is crisper, seemingly a result of better floor vision and an understanding of what pass is required in a given situation. He's even better (most of the time) with his on-ball defense, keeping the ball in front of him by moving his feet. He's getting better at fighting through screens, though this is an area I would like to see him continue improving.

It's a joy to see a young man like Trevor developing into a very good college player. I'm excited that my early season lament appears to have been premature, and we all know what Coach Boeheim thinks of premature things...
 
I miss these. He needs to stop playing like a D1 player so we can have dozens of these.


The biggest difference in Cooney's game lately, other than hitting his 3s of course, is he does not force it. If he doesn't have a good look , he does not shoot. He used to force some crazy ass 3s and is not doing that now.
 
I think he is turning the corner and becoming more of an all around guard rather than just a shooter which has severely limited him taking those 2-3 jumpers a game that he had no chance making. Last night against Colgate he had the look of supreme confidence in what he was doing weather popping for a shot, driving and dishing or taking it himself. He has one pull up jumper from 17' that was so sweet just ripped the net. I wish he would take that shot more as its almost always open. His passing off his drives may have been the best I've ever seen from him. As Coach Knight would say he wasn't just looking he was seeing.

I don't think you get how this thread is supposed to go!!
 
Coach Orange said:
For the sake of full disclosure, earlier in the year I reluctantly confessed to a friend of mine that I was worried that Trevor may never develop into an all-around player. I said a team that heavily relies on a fourth-year player as limited as Cooney is not likely winning many big games, and I admitted that his lack of fundamental development during his time on the hill was staggering. However, over the last several games, something for Trevor has clicked. His fundamentals have improved dramatically. He's actually reading off-the ball-screens better, making better decisions about what cuts to make based on how the defense plays him. Impressively, he has suddenly shown the ability to utilize pick-and-roll action effectively. He is reading these well, knowing when to shoot and, more importantly, making shots off the bounce, something his game has lacked most of his time here. He's also knocking down shots off of dribble handoffs. Additionally, his passing is crisper, seemingly a result of better floor vision and an understanding of what pass is required in a given situation. He's even better (most of the time) with his on-ball defense, keeping the ball in front of him by moving his feet. He's getting better at fighting through screens, though this is an area I would like to see him continue improving. It's a joy to see a young man like Trevor developing into a very good college player. I'm excited that my early season lament appears to have been premature, and we all know what Coach Boeheim thinks of premature things...

While I agree with everything you say, I also think it was a matter of a young team beginning to jell together a bit. There were a lot of new parts and new roles.

PG, as you know, is the key to a lot of any teams offense. Knowing who to get the ball to, when and where they like it. We had a frosh PG who was inexperienced even as a PG. We also started another freshman. And Roberson at SF was basically inexperienced. Then we went with an even less experienced SF in BJ. Even when we moved G there more recently, we had a kid more experienced as a SG.

Just seems like we had a lot of new moving parts.

I'm not surprised that Cooney has the strongest on court chemistry with Rak. They are the only 2 who have experience in their roles.

This team will continue to grow...together.
 
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The biggest difference in Cooney's game lately, other than hitting his 3s of course, is he does not force it. If he doesn't have a good look , he does not shoot. He used to force some crazy ass 3s and is not doing that now.
I'm not so sure he was forcing shots as much as he was deferring to others earlier in the schedule. In his attempt to allow others (especially KJ) feel comfortable and gain confidence in their games, I think it actually hurt the team. Rak and TC need to be option number 1 and 1a for this team to have success.

It looks like Mike G is developing into a consistent offensive threat which is very good news and should buy some time while Chris learns how to play at this level.

I know we don't have a dominant PG, i.e. Napier, but maybe we can develop and grow like UConn did over last season. Hey...you never know.
 
I'm not so sure he was forcing shots as much as he was deferring to others earlier in the schedule. In his attempt to allow others (especially KJ) feel comfortable and gain confidence in their games, I think it actually hurt the team. Rak and TC need to be option number 1 and 1a for this team to have success.

It looks like Mike G is developing into a consistent offensive threat which is very good news and should buy some time while Chris learns how to play at this level.

I know we don't have a dominant PG, i.e. Napier, but maybe we can develop and grow like UConn did over last season. Hey...you never know.

Since you brought up Silent G, he's another player whose fundamentals have been sharper as of late. He made a couple of excellent plays recently curling off of pin-down screens that showed his development. One such look got Christmas an easy two points last night. In addition, his handle and decision making in the pick and roll has been much more effective.

As for point guards, no one is tougher when evaluating their play than me. That said, the criticism aimed at Joseph this early in his career is a bit much (Not saying that you are criticizing him). Yes, he has made freshman mistakes, but he looked much better against Nova. He made fundamentally sound decisions. Likewise, he ran the pick and roll to near perfection in the second half. I'm not sure why we didn't just isolate him in the side pick and roll on the left side of the court repeatedly until Nova proved that they could stop it. They couldn't the few times we ran it. Kaleb's decision making regressed a little last night, but that is common with young players as they develop; they often take two steps forward and then one step back. I'm confident that his game will continue to grow during his time here.

There's a lot of basketball yet to be played. If this team continues to show the development that they have over the last two weeks, they could be a tough out come March.
 
Since you brought up Silent G, he's another player whose fundamentals have been sharper as of late. He made a couple of excellent plays recently curling off of pin-down screens that showed his development. One such look got Christmas an easy two points last night. In addition, his handle and decision making in the pick and roll has been much more effective.

As for point guards, no one is tougher when evaluating their play than me. That said, the criticism aimed at Joseph this early in his career is a bit much (Not saying that you are criticizing him). Yes, he has made freshman mistakes, but he looked much better against Nova. He made fundamentally sound decisions. Likewise, he ran the pick and roll to near perfection in the second half. I'm not sure why we didn't just isolate him in the side pick and roll on the left side of the court repeatedly until Nova proved that they could stop it. They couldn't the few times we ran it. Kaleb's decision making regressed a little last night, but that is common with young players as they develop; they often take two steps forward and then one step back. I'm confident that his game will continue to grow during his time here.

There's a lot of basketball yet to be played. If this team continues to show the development that they have over the last two weeks, they could be a tough out come March.
man I wish you would post more :)
 
Since you brought up Silent G, he's another player whose fundamentals have been sharper as of late. He made a couple of excellent plays recently curling off of pin-down screens that showed his development. One such look got Christmas an easy two points last night. In addition, his handle and decision making in the pick and roll has been much more effective.

As for point guards, no one is tougher when evaluating their play than me. That said, the criticism aimed at Joseph this early in his career is a bit much (Not saying that you are criticizing him). Yes, he has made freshman mistakes, but he looked much better against Nova. He made fundamentally sound decisions. Likewise, he ran the pick and roll to near perfection in the second half. I'm not sure why we didn't just isolate him in the side pick and roll on the left side of the court repeatedly until Nova proved that they could stop it. They couldn't the few times we ran it. Kaleb's decision making regressed a little last night, but that is common with young players as they develop; they often take two steps forward and then one step back. I'm confident that his game will continue to grow during his time here.

There's a lot of basketball yet to be played. If this team continues to show the development that they have over the last two weeks, they could be a tough out come March.
That's exactly my point. I couldn't agree more.

In fact, I think I'd prefer this scenario over the way last year played out with...fizzling-out in February.
 
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That's exactly my point. I couldn't agree more.

In fact, I think I'd prefer this scenario over the way last year played out with...fizzling-out in February.
I do to, and it's always been my argument against the way college football has been organized pre-playoff. There was no, and there still isn't much, room for a team to stumble early, get better, and be the best team at the end of the year (Miami in 2000 may be the best example). In basketball, teams have room to grow and there isn't as much fear of an early loss, so we get to see good early season OOC matchups too.

I'll be interested to see how much this team can grow between now and march.
 
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Hes had a great past few games, hopefully he find consistency.
 
I think we need to run Cooney as the point at the top 4-5 times a game. Set a high pick and roll and let him either shoot off the screen or drive. He has shown an excellent handle lately and is improving his decision making with the ball. It is a great way to get him going and to give KJ a break handling the ball. Most times we have run that it has had a positive outcome.
 
Since you brought up Silent G, he's another player whose fundamentals have been sharper as of late. He made a couple of excellent plays recently curling off of pin-down screens that showed his development. One such look got Christmas an easy two points last night. In addition, his handle and decision making in the pick and roll has been much more effective.

...

Gbinije made two great post passes last night. What a great surprise - these might have been the first two post passes of his career. That'd be a nice skill to demonstrate going forward.
 
Gbinije made two great post passes last night. What a great surprise - these might have been the first two post passes of his career. That'd be a nice skill to demonstrate going forward.
In general, we've been a bad post passing team for a while. I wonder why. It doesn't seem that is should be a difficult skill to master.
 

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