Its apparent...

[two3zone]

The defensive ranking in KenPom ratings has been remarkably consistent in the 7 previous seasons. People didn't suddenly figure out the zone, it is personnel.
2017 - 99th
2016 - 17th
2015 - 19th
2014 - 13th
2013 - 7th
2012 - 16th
2011 - 14th
2010 - 15th

So maybe with the current personnel we shouldn't play the zone?

 

[SoBeCuse]

A shot blocker/changer at Center alleviates a lot of those problems, and we don't have one. The closest this team can get is to put Lydon there. The problem with that is we need two forwards who are light on their feet and able to rotate to the rim and challenge shots when the Center has to vacate. Roberson can do that, TT and White cannot. We basically have zero weakside defense unless Lydon and Roberson are the Forwards, which means we have zero interior defense (Center).

Definitely some truth there. It's all effort though. I saw ND guys driving past Battle though today a couple of times. That shouldn't happen. These guys, especially Frank and Gillon, are just are too cavalier with their slides over. No anticipation ever. No sense of urgency. I don't get it.

 

[iommi]

Definitely some truth there. It's all effort though. I saw ND guys driving past Battle though today a couple of times. That shouldn't happen. These guys, especially Frank and Gillon, are just are too cavalier with their slides over. No anticipation ever. No sense of urgency. I don't get it.

Yeah, forget about the box score, Battle had a mediocre game. He gets a pass from me because he's been very good. He and Lydon have loved up to expectations. TB was off today though, for sure.

 

[Coach Orange]

Yes. Michigan st would 100% have beaten us even though Izzo is I think 1-4 against Jb and the zone lifetime. . MSU got beat by a team we beat by 25. Come up with a different excuse why we got to the final four.

I never said we would lose. Try again.

 

[Coach Orange]

A shot blocker/changer at Center alleviates a lot of those problems, and we don't have one. The closest this team can get is to put Lydon there. The problem with that is we need two forwards who are light on their feet and able to rotate to the rim and challenge shots when the Center has to vacate. Roberson can do that, TT and White cannot. We basically have zero weakside defense unless Lydon and Roberson are the Forwards, which means we have zero interior defense (Center).

Fair point. I continue to say that scheme matters less than having players with sound fundamentals. We just don't have that at this point.

 

[SoBeCuse]

Yeah, forget about the box score, Battle had a mediocre game. He gets a pass from me because he's been very good. He and Lydon have loved up to expectations. TB was off today though, for sure.

Yeah, agreed. He's been really good the past couple of weeks. I was just surprised how easy ND was driving by all our guys. That was the one thing they NEVER could do against us. They would just chuck mostly.

 

[SoBeCuse]

Fair point. I continue to say that scheme matters less than having players with sound fundamentals. We just don't have that at this point.

Definitely. That's crystal clear.

 

[AZcuse77]

A shot blocker/changer at Center alleviates a lot of those problems, and we don't have one. The closest this team can get is to put Lydon there. The problem with that is we need two forwards who are light on their feet and able to rotate to the rim and challenge shots when the Center has to vacate. Roberson can do that, TT and White cannot. We basically have zero weakside defense unless Lydon and Roberson are the Forwards, which means we have zero interior defense (Center).

Yep we are much better off with Lydon at 5 but its picking the least negative option. Honestly I find even 5 year transfers like White being this awful at wing at least partly on the coaches in late January.

 

[dasher]

if you cant tell that the program is in trouble than there is nothing anyone is going to say to you

The program is in trouble. Well, we aren't very good this year. I prefer to see how this all plays out and what we have for next year before I spend worrying about it. We don't know what we don't know. Whether they are looking overseas for a pt or the juco ranks. Whether Lydon comes back. Which will have a big effect on our results next year. If TT and Battle return with Lydon, that foundation is good. I am going to wait before I panic.

 

[AZcuse77]

Please understand that there are no facts to back up your statement. And I wish we played more like the Ville than the way we play now. But the zone works just fine today if you have the right players. The last 7 years have showed that.

I agree the zone is not antiquated. Having some ability to play both / switch it up is useful and would be with this team. What was the last year we did that? Is it just lazy coaching? ... because we have mixed it up in the past and if any group screams "we suck at zone" its this one...

 

[SoBeCuse]

I agree the zone is not antiquated. Having some ability to play both / switch it up is useful and would be with this team. What was the last year we did that? Is it just lazy coaching? ... because we have mixed it up in the past and if any group screams "we suck at zone" its this one...

Part of it is pride I assume. JB has been rolling out strictly zone for years now. His legacy is defined by the zone. He's not going to switch out of it ever. He's like that old captain or architect of the Titanic in the movie. The ship is sinking but the guy is sticking around to go down with it.

 

[AZcuse77]

Part of it is pride I assume. JB has been rolling out strictly zone for years now. His legacy is defined by the zone. He's not going to switch out of it ever. He's like that old captain or architect of the Titanic in the movie. The ship is sinking but the guy is sticking around to go down with it.

I feel like it was Paul Harris days the last time we switched it up on occasion. There was lots of talk about how good our M2M could be with those players. Not sure...

 

[Zelda Zonk]

This will be the third consecutive year at .500 or under in the conference, and I don't think anyone has great expectations for next year, so that could be 4 straight. When will we win our first ACC tourney game? Personnel? I don't think you can attribute that string of 'not very good' to four different groups of players.

We began the year believing we had the deepest team ever, and now we are thin. Injury to Chukwu hurt, but it doesn't even seem likely he'd be playing now anyway.

I still think we have more talent than most of the teams we play, and more than some of the teams we've lost to. We have two guys who will be in the NBA in the next two years (Lydon and Battle), a PF who should be our "Worm," a proven and experienced scorer who shoots over 40% from 3, a quick experienced guard, and a PG we thought was a great passer as a freshman, and who only needed to fix his jumper—which he did. Lots of teams with less than that play without the consistent lapses in judgement, and ineptitude that we show so often. Regardless of how you feel about JB and all he has done, we do not look like a well-coached team. Blame it on the kids if you need to—say they haven't learned well from the HoFer. Whatever. We still look like we don't practice.

Questions I have: when did JB stop coaching practices? Any correlation to when we began to finish at league average? When did we stop playing m2m in practices? Any correlation to when our offense began to look so stilted and anemic?

I'm not there, so I have to read 'reports' of what the staff is doing and not doing, and it seems he last few years have seen a change in jb's involvement and effort, along with the defensive practice change. Too reminiscent of the Bobby Bowden 'transition.'

I'm hoping JB hangs it up this year, forgoing the ceremony and pageantry of a 'retirement season.' I can't see him smiling through all the gifting if we are playing like this, and I can't really see him being enthusastic about all that even during a good year. I think he really thought we had good things happening this season, and I feel bad for him—not having the opportunity to go out on a good note. But it's time.

I hope the kids we have coming in will be just as happy to play for Hop in their frosh seasons, because i think both will be pretty good for us.

 

[SoBeCuse]

I feel like it was Paul Harris days the last time we switched it up on occasion. There was lots of talk about how good our M2M could be with those players. Not sure...

Yeah, I feel like it was maybe the comeback in KC vs Kansas with that Harris/Flynn team. In a meaningful game, that is. Ugh, this is a nightmare.

 

[Cowtown]

Ownership is what's lacking with these players. There's no team glue. There's a bunch of players with the same uniform, but it's not a team. Nobody is playing a way that puts their team in position to win. And nobody seems to have any faith in the defense, they're slow to recognize, slow to react, slow to recover. They play D like they don't want to play. So no one knows that the guy next to him will do because there's no consistency. The wing players are running around like a loose wheel.

 

[Cusefan95]

if you cant tell that the program is in trouble than there is nothing anyone is going to say to you

The program being in trouble doesn't automatically mean playing a 2-3 is the problem. I agree we're floundering...it has nothing to do with the zone.

The idea this team should be playing man is absurd - I'm watching guys that barely try and don't even get their hands up on the defensive end. The only thing switching to M2M would prove is that these guys are terrible defenders regardless of what defense we're in.

 

[orangenirvana]

The jimmy zone no longer works in today's game. These kids come up in AAU shooting 25 footers or driving and dunking. The mid range game in college hoops is gone. Kids are simply shooting over our merry go round of rotation under the 3 point line. Time to play some man. Secondly, we aren't recruiting well enough. Maybe kids dont want to stand on D with their hands up or the dome has lost its luster , but jimmy isn't coming close to getting big talent. Watching the UCLA/ZONA game today was eye opening. Huge, long athletes at guard and athletic 7 footers. Its a different game.

lol "no longer works in today's game" - yet it got this team to the Final Four not even a year ago.

Apparently the game changed a ton during the 2016 offseason.

 

[CuseCPT]

The program being in trouble doesn't automatically mean playing a 2-3 is the problem. I agree we're floundering...it has nothing to do with the zone.

The idea this team should be playing man is absurd - I'm watching guys that barely try and don't even get their hands up on the defensive end. The only thing switching to M2M would prove is that these guys are terrible defenders regardless of what defense we're in.

It isn't about how well M2M works necessarily. It is about not being predictable and easy to coach against. It is about changing things up when the opponent is very comfortable attacking the zone.

 

[tbonezone]

"Hence that general is skillful in attack whose opponent does not know what to defend; and he is skillful in defense whose opponent does not know what to attack."
also
“Regard your soldiers as your children, and they will follow you into the deepest valleys.
Look on them as your own beloved sons, and they will stand by you even unto death!”

– Sun Tzu, quotes from the Art of War

 

[orangecuse]

here's another contributing truth. the ACC now knows our zone. its helpful in the tourney because most teams we meet haven't seen us. it was a weapon the first few years of league play because most teams had no experience going up against it. now, every team has personal experience.

that said, if we had better players playing it better, we would be better

Now knows our zone?

Here's the truth...since our 25-0; 12-0 anomaly of a start to 2013-2014 season, our ensuing ACC record has been; 1-4 (1-5 if you include the loss to NC State in the ACC Tourney that year);
9-9 in 2014-2015 (no ACC Tourney); 9-9 in 2015-2016 (9-10 if you include the loss to Pitt in ACC Tourney); 3-4 to date thus far for the 2016-2017 season.

This adds up to 22-26; 22-28 (including ACC T).

If the ACC now knows our zone, I'd hate to think what our overall ACC record would be at this point if they had somehow known it even sooner.

 

[Zelda Zonk]

lol "no longer works in today's game" - yet it got this team to the Final Four not even a year ago.

Apparently the game changed a ton during the 2016 offseason.

How do you know we didn't get to the final four despite the zone? Every game we win while playing zone is not necessarily a win because of zone. If our kids could be coached to play league average m2m, we would still win a lot of games. When we lose to m2m teams, does anyone say They would have beaten us if only they played zone?

 

[longtimefan]

The jimmy zone no longer works in today's game. These kids come up in AAU shooting 25 footers or driving and dunking. The mid range game in college hoops is gone. Kids are simply shooting over our merry go round of rotation under the 3 point line. Time to play some man. Secondly, we aren't recruiting well enough. Maybe kids dont want to stand on D with their hands up or the dome has lost its luster , but jimmy isn't coming close to getting big talent. Watching the UCLA/ZONA game today was eye opening. Huge, long athletes at guard and athletic 7 footers. Its a different game.

ND's previous game was vs. FSU, which plays the best M2M in the ACC. The Irish hit 15 of 21 3-pointers. They are a damn good offensive team.

 

[tbonezone]

looking at irish recruiting classes the past few years. 56th in 14, 44th in 15. 2016 ? couldn't find them. and they kicked our butts.

 

[longtimefan]

looking at irish recruiting classes the past few years. 56th in 14, 44th in 15. 2016 ? couldn't find them. and they kicked our butts.

Their starting 5--all have been in the ND system for 3 or 4 years.

SU's starters--4 in the first year, 1 in the second year.

 

[orangenirvana]

How do you know we didn't get to the final four despite the zone? Every game we win while playing zone is not necessarily a win because of zone. If our kids could be coached to play league average m2m, we would still win a lot of games. When we lose to m2m teams, does anyone say They would have beaten us if only they played zone?

Syracuse has one of the best defensive teams year after year because of the zone defense. If your personal preference is man-to-man then good for you. But that doesn't make SU's zone defense inferior just because of your opinion about it.

The only problem I have with the zone is it likely makes recruiting blue chips more difficult because it's so rarely played at the NBA level. But from an on-court production/efficiency standpoint the results speak for themselves.