My Take | Syracusefan.com

My Take

sutomcat

No recent Cali or Iggy awards; Mr Irrelevant
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Very nice win.

Pitt plays physical. There was a lot of pounding and smacking around and I think we were not 100% prepared for it early.

As usual, our forwards were not a factor in offense. They both tried to get shots off and did, but didn’t make many. Played passable defense but didn’t rebound much

McLeod had a player his size to match up with and so he stayed out there quite a while at the start of the game. Pitt was able to consistently beat our guys with the dribble but we were able to get away with it because McLeod was good with help defense near the basket.

They moved that Diaz guy with the huge nose out to the perimeter and they get McLeod out from down low so their offense could feast on our bad man defense.

Red brought in Maliq, which helped a bit but he was burned in defense quite a bit early.

We shot poorly from the outdide, they shot well. We made some bad turnovers and they converted them into easy baskets. By halftime, we were down and at our low point.

Red again made some good adjustments at half time and subbed early to get the inffective front line players out and replace them with our much better subs. That got us rolling.

Q did a great job defensively on Tubby Hinson. Largely denied him the ball. No one misses the SU 2-3 more than he does.

Last few games we have been putting Q in the paint up top and largely running the offense through him. He can pass it or drive it from there and it really helps our half court offense. Thought he again was a big factor in this role.

We had good ball movement in the second half and W, Maliq and Benny all helped to keep the ball moving and prove for open players. Pitt has a good offense but they are vulnerable on defense, especially down low and we hurt them here.

Also got some turnovers and did a good job converting most of them to easy fast break baskets.

Great to see Q, Maliq and Benny all playing well. Not just today but the last few games.

No offense to Bell and Taylor. They are good shooters and and help in other ways but against good teams, neither can score much and we aren’t good when they are playing. Hopefully they get their acts together soon.

We have lost to Pitt way too often recently. Good to get order restored here.

Second half, we eventually got some of their best players in foul trouble, which has been a key in many of our wins this year. Liked seeing the Pitt players whine about getting called for obvious fouls.

I have been watching college basketball since tue early 1970s. The uniforms Pitt wore today might be the ugliest ones I have ever seen. That team was completely unrecognizable as Pitt. The only possible way to if them was the line script P They looked like pajamas or maybe yoga workout clothes. Nice job Pitt.
 
Last edited:
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My emotional state.
 
Very nice win.

Pitt plays physical. There was a lot of pounding and smacking around and I think we were not 100% prepared for it early.

As usual, our forwards were not a factor in offense. They both tried to get shots off and did, but didn’t make many. Played passable defense but didn’t rebound much

McLeod had a player his size to match up with and so he stayed out there quite a while at the start of the game. Pitt was able to consistently beat our guys with the dribble but we were able to get away with it because McLeod was good with help defense near the basket.

They moved that Diaz guy with the huge nose out to the perimeter and they get McLeod out from down low so their offense could feast on our bad man defense.

Red brought in Maliq, which helped a bit but he was burned in defense quite a bit early.

We shot poorly from the outdide, they shot well. We made some bad turnovers and they converted them into easy baskets. By halftime, we were down and at our low point.

Red again made some good adjustments at half time and subbed early to get the inffective front line players out and replace them with our much better subs. That got us rolling.

Q did a great job defensively on Tubby Hinson. Largely denied him the ball. No one misses the SU 2-3 more than he does.

Last few games we have been putting i. Tie paint up top and largely running g the offense through him. He can pass it or drive it from there and it really helps our half court offense. Thought he again was a big factor in this role.

We had good ball movement in the second half and W, Maliq and Benny all helped to keep the ball moving and prove for open players. Pitt has a good offense but they are vulnerable on defense, especially down low and we hurt them here.

Also got some turnovers and did a good job converting most of them to easy fast break baskets.

Great to see Q, Maliq and Benny all playing well. Not just today but the last few games.

No offense to Bell and Taylor. They are good shooters and and help in other ways but against good teams, neither can score much and we aren’t good when they are playing. Hopefully they get their acts together soon.

We have lost to Pitt way too often recently. Good to get order restored here.

Second half, we eventually got some of their best players in foul trouble, which has been a key in many of our wins this year. Liked seeing the Pitt players whine about getting called for obvious fouls.

I have been watching college basketball since tue early 1970s. The uniforms Pitt wore today might be the ugliest ones I have ever seen. That team was completely unrecognizable as Pitt. The only possible way to if them was the line script P They looked like pajamas or maybe yoga workout clothes. Nice job Pitt.

Who is i. Tie paint?
 
I thought we started the game fairly well, and then fell apart the last 10 minutes of the half. Up until that point we were keeping it a close game. Refs decided to make a couple of controversial calls, and I was glad that Red let them know about it even though it resulted in a technical. Sometimes a coach needs to get a technical for his players.
 
.....all I know is Benny (much to my surpise), Cope and M Brown need to be starting until further notice.

Those 3 have been the much needed spark and enthusiasm this team needs.

Rotate them out with Taylor, Bell and McLeod who appear to be on the struggle bus as we enter the meat of our schedule.
 
...all I know is Benny (much to my surpise), Cope and M Brown need to be starting until further notice.

Those 3 have been the much needed spark and enthusiasm this team needs.

Rotate them out with Taylor, Bell and McLeod who appear to be on the struggle bus as we enter the meat of our schedule.
Begging all of you clamoring for changing the starting lineup to stop! Stop trying to fix what isn’t broke.
 
Begging all of you clamoring for changing the starting lineup to stop! Stop trying to fix what isn’t broke.
I agree with this. The tweak I’d like to see is a 1-3-1 or something like it for at least some of the McLeod minutes. He’s not impressive as a man defender.

Bell has to play some because there will be games where he hits 6 or 7 jumpers and helps us win. Taylor isn’t exciting but … he’s ok. If you want to play aggressive man, you need a bench. And you want production off that bench.

Don’t love our starting group but I’m not sure we change it up at this particular point.
 
I agree with this. The tweak I’d like to see is a 1-3-1 or something like it for at least some of the McLeod minutes. He’s not impressive as a man defender.

Bell has to play some because there will be games where he hits 6 or 7 jumpers and helps us win. Taylor isn’t exciting but … he’s ok. If you want to play aggressive man, you need a bench. And you want production off that bench.

Don’t love our starting group but I’m not sure we change it up at this particular point.
If, and it's a huge if, the Benny we get today becomes the norm, you change the starting lineup at one of the forward spots.

That said, I think the way we're using McLeod is right. Make your opponent figure out how to play around this really, really big dude.

Once they figure that out throw Maliq out there, because at that point those bigs are definitely not thinking about the ball getting poked away by him.

It works. We're likely only getting a few productive minutes from McLeod, and it's probably got its best chance to happen at the start of the game.
 
They moved that Diaz guy with the huge nose out to the perimeter and they get McLeod out from down low so their offense could feast on our bad man defense.
Bold portion was my favorite part of your write up!
 
I think Red has a great handle on what line-,up is working each game. Also not ready to elevate Benny until we see production in consecutive games, like Q has delivered.
 
Q needs to start over Taylor. I'd keep Bell in as a starter because we need his shooting, so continue to start him to see if he's going to have one of those games where he makes several threes. But for Taylor, the only thing he does that is significantly better than Q is shoot. But that doesn't seem to matter since Taylor has hardly contributed any offense recently. I think we bring Taylor off the bench as a spark for some tough d, rebounding, and improved shooting. But it's clear that Q deserves more minutes and should start as he is a do it all guy, especially his defense on Hinson yesterday was very impressive.

The Benny from yesterday was the one I hoped for all season. Really hoping he can build off this game, keep his confidence up, and continue to provide strong minutes. I like him going in as a Bell replacement when Bell is off, like he was yesterday. McLeod really should only play the first 5 min of a game and then maybe only a few in the second half if Maliq needs a rest. McLeod doesn't have the talent to be playing any more than 10 min a game right now.
 
Begging all of you clamoring for changing the starting lineup to stop! Stop trying to fix what isn’t broke.
Agreed. A manager has to be careful not to elevate people out off their success.
These guys are excelling in the bench role, which allows them and Red to observe the flow of the game, to come in with specific instructions on what Red wants to do, and to play against tired starters and/or lesser bench players from the opponent.
Also, they appear to have embraced their rolls, and team chemistry seems to be pretty good.
Lastly, it seems that Benny is in a good spot basketball wise, why mess with that? Making him a starter will bring more pressure to the kid.
 
I agree with this. The tweak I’d like to see is a 1-3-1 or something like it for at least some of the McLeod minutes. He’s not impressive as a man defender.

Bell has to play some because there will be games where he hits 6 or 7 jumpers and helps us win. Taylor isn’t exciting but … he’s ok. If you want to play aggressive man, you need a bench. And you want production off that bench.

Don’t love our starting group but I’m not sure we change it up at this particular point.
I dont think we should because sometimes the starters are hitting shots and we dont need the bump in energy.
 
I don’t know but I was trying to write this…

‘putting Q in the paint’

No fair editing your mistakes after they've been called out. I spent a lot of time trying to figure out what SWC was calling you out for before I finally realized you had edited it out.

Oh well, I don't have much going on anyway. ;)
 
Agreed. A manager has to be careful not to elevate people out off their success.
These guys are excelling in the bench role, which allows them and Red to observe the flow of the game, to come in with specific instructions on what Red wants to do, and to play against tired starters and/or lesser bench players from the opponent.
Also, they appear to have embraced their rolls, and team chemistry seems to be pretty good.
Lastly, it seems that Benny is in a good spot basketball wise, why mess with that? Making him a starter will bring more pressure to the kid.

Beware the peter principle.
 

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