This season was incredibly disappointing

[Alsacs]

You want your team to win lots of games, in dominant fashion, in a style that pleases you, with players that all stick around just the right amount of time. Seems pretty reasonable.

I don't want to dominate. I want to watch a basketball game that is enjoyable basketball. Watch other games and watch Syracuse games.

We play a terrible brand of basketball. If we played an enjoyable brand of basketball and lost the same games atleast it wouldn't be as annoying. Stop creating straw man arguments. I don't expect to win every game. I expect with the athletes we can recruit to play a good brand of basketball. Not a gritty grind brand like we are Butler.

 

[Hoov50]

Its Boeheim. Our offense has been bad for 5 years, that's a trend.

I'm not saying JB is a bad coach, he just focuses more on winning with the 2-3. If the 2-3 is bad, we end up with 14 losses.

To me the last time I thought our offense was actually fun to watch was 09-10 and even then that seemed like an anomaly, since it was more because of a few play makers than due to the actual philosophy. Since then we have had some very successful teams, but I haven't tuned in to a game because I was excited to see our offense in many years. A lot of years I think we, as fans, overlook our lack of offense because we win games with tough defense. Success and winning makes many of us (myself included, from time to time) forget about the "issues" of the team. Most years for as long as I can remember 20+ years offense has been an issue, other than the years when we have elite level play makers (Carmelo, Devendorf, Flynn, McNamara, Richardson, Hart, etc...) our offense is non-existent. Honestly, during some games this year I was reminded of watching a junior varsity girl's game, with all the dribbling on the perimeter and no progress toward the basket.

So I would argue that our offense has been bad for more than last 5 years...

 

[orangecuse]

Ehhh. I think the skill of "putting the ball on the floor" is the most overrated skill in basketball tbh. Syracuse fan's love it for some reason(I think because we think of Dion). I think our offense isn't great to watch because outside of Lydon and sometimes Gillon we have a bunch of below average passers. If you can pass the ball you don't need to go one on one. We haven't had a good passing team in a couple years now.

I was watching the 2011 BET that we lost against UConn yesterday and the difference in the passing then compared to now was mindblowing. Triche and Scoop were feeding Rick Jackson in the post pretty much every other possession down the court. We never see that now.

Tony Bennett says hello.

 

[CousCuse]

The main focus of Coach Boeheim's plan for a season is to get the team into the Tourney and for them to be prepared to play their best in the Tourney.

 

[cliftonparksufan]

Even if we make the NCAA tournament it doesn't change the fact our brand of basketball sucks.
It just so pathetic to let the opponent dictate tempo every single game.
I hope we make it but the problem is because we are a ZONE.ZONE ZONE team its frustrating.
I want to actually enjoy watching my team play.

You've been spoiled and you don't even realize it. Accept reality. No one in the history of college basketball has coached at the same school for 41 years and never had a losing season. I would hate to see your reaction if we went 4-28 this season. Although I think it would be the same as 18-14.

Every school has had issues. We had the NCAA issue with scholarships. If you want to blame JAB for that, go ahead. But you can only coach with the players you have on the roster. Would Mali have made a difference this year. Hard to say since we had Battle. Would Thomas Bryant have made a difference on this team. Would Diagne have made a difference. Would Huerter have made a difference. None of that matters because they weren't on the 2016-17 Syracuse roster.

Let's just accept the results of this season and move on. What happens Sunday night will happen based on how the ten people in that room feel about our three big wins this season.

 

[Fly Rodder]

Next year, I guarantee I'm going to be posting in a thread like this that Moyer didn't seem to live up to all the hype. The expectations on this kid continue to grow and grow. I hope he's up to the task.

Keep in mind, I'm not anointing him to be the best player on the floor, but that he will play hard for as many minutes that he is in there.

 

[CuseFaninVT]

Keep in mind, I'm not anointing him to be the best player on the floor, but that he will play hard for as many minutes that he is in there.

I didn't mean to single you out. You just were the one who mentioned him. But it did remind me of many others who have built him up similarly.

 

[Alsacs]

You've been spoiled and you don't even realize it. Accept reality. No one in the history of college basketball has coached at the same school for 41 years and never had a losing season. I would hate to see your reaction if we went 4-28 this season. Although I think it would be the same as 18-14.

Every school has had issues. We had the NCAA issue with scholarships. If you want to blame JAB for that, go ahead. But you can only coach with the players you have on the roster. Would Mali have made a difference this year. Hard to say since we had Battle. Would Thomas Bryant have made a difference on this team. Would Diagne have made a difference. Would Huerter have made a difference. None of that matters because they weren't on the 2016-17 Syracuse roster.

Let's just accept the results of this season and move on. What happens Sunday night will happen based on how the ten people in that room feel about our three big wins this season.

I am not spoiled.
If we had preseason expectations to be 14th or 15th I would accept the season if we went 4-27. Obviously that would be disappointing but expectations being low means you don't get as disappointed.
I respect the fact that JB's nadir is being a bubble team. I just think when you have a program with our resources we can be more consistent.

This team should not be a bubble team. With the teams we are competing with.

JB deserves thanks but he is not above criticism.

 

[br801]

I'm not throwing myself off the cliff, I'm throwing this team off the cliff...

I did throw a few potential posts off a cliff these past few days.

 

[Alsacs]

I enjoy watching Syracuse play. If I didn't, I wouldn't watch it. Look forward to every game. I know that so many here know more about basketball than our coach. How he has managed to win 1000 games is close to a miracle. Teams have 30 seconds to shoot every time down the floor. No more. No less. There isn't a lot of tempo being dictated. Some teams play slower than others.

Don't make the 1000 win argument cause then I can go and break down how many are against P5/BE and how many are against inferior teams.

I don't care to do that exercise I think JB is a HOFer but since he was made the program an exclusive zone defense our offense has been nose diving outside a few select years. The defense works with proper personnel but even we don't have that personnel JB doesn't adapt.

Also if you don't get the tempo argument I am not going to waste the time to explanation beyond this. We have a slow as molasses offense and because we don't attempt to speed up the opponent it makes the game a lower possession game. By making the game a lower possession game it gives the team with less talent a better chance to win. This is a fact. Our pace of play is 262 out of 353.
NCAA Basketball Stats - NCAA BB Team Possessions per Game on TeamRankings.com

That is terrible.

 

[Townie72]

Go read the Iggy awards post above and say you are surprised.

Ex post facto your post tries to make this year appear to be a success. It had been a mediocre underachieving season.
This season has sucked JB called this team special preseason. He constructed the roster. He has built the program up but the school has stayed loyal to him as well.

He is 72 we aren't looking good next year. I want Hop to get his chance.

"I want Hop to get his chance."

There it is in a nut shell. The reason they are in charge and you aren't.

 

[NineOneSeven]

I likie to wait until the season is over to make judgments on the season. Take last year for example.

Wrong. Nothing that happens in the next however many weeks changes anything about the 32 games we have had.

 

[NineOneSeven]

But that Final Four run doesn't really count, or so I've heard.

My goodness... talk about just jumping to insane extremes. Can't say I am surprised.

 

[Alsacs]

"I want Hop to get his chance."

There it is in a nut shell. The reason they are in charge and you aren't.

Hey buddy the Grand Slam is still available till 10 go enjoy it.

Also in case you weren't aware JB has an announced retirement date and Hop has the contract to be the next HC.

I look at next year's roster and see it and don't want JB to go thru next year like this. Give Hop a honeymoon year so he can start getting his guys in.

If we had a roster next year which was stacked of course let JB coach it. We don't have that type of roster so change is my preference. I am not going to be blind in my loyalty I can be objective.

 

[CuseFaninVT]

"I want Hop to get his chance."

There it is in a nut shell. The reason they are in charge and you aren't.

Do you have an alarm that goes off whenever there is an anti-JB post? You're like the only 'semi-super-hero' of the JB Defense League.

 

[NineOneSeven]

To me the last time I thought our offense was actually fun to watch was 09-10 and even then that seemed like an anomaly, since it was more because of a few play makers than due to the actual philosophy. Since then we have had some very successful teams, but I haven't tuned in to a game because I was excited to see our offense in many years. A lot of years I think we, as fans, overlook our lack of offense because we win games with tough defense. Success and winning makes many of us (myself included, from time to time) forget about the "issues" of the team. Most years for as long as I can remember 20+ years offense has been an issue, other than the years when we have elite level play makers (Carmelo, Devendorf, Flynn, McNamara, Richardson, Hart, etc...) our offense is non-existent. Honestly, during some games this year I was reminded of watching a junior varsity girl's game, with all the dribbling on the perimeter and no progress toward the basket.

So I would argue that our offense has been bad for more than last 5 years...

well 2011-2012 was pretty dang good too.

 

[orangenirvana]

This team still may find itself in the NCAAT, and given recent history, it is curious to see so many here already referring to this season in the past tense. I plan to let this thing play out before throwing myself off a cliff.

I just said the same thing. These posts look a lot like the posts after the Pitt ACC tournament game last year.

But it worked last year. Don't you see? By counting the team out we're pleasing the basketball gods!

 

[Jasoncuse]

Whats really disappointing is the team now would beat St. John's and gtown. at the dome, and most likely uconn at msg. We win 2 of those games and we're a lock right now. To me this is a tournament team, it's just too bad it took 2 months for jb to figure out the best lineup.

If this team had won just ONE more ACC game, they'd be a lock. They'd have finished 11-7 and been the 5 seed. if that 1 win would have been the L'ville game, we'd have been the 4 seed.

 

[Knicks411]

Don't make the 1000 win argument cause then I can go and break down how many are against P5/BE and how many are against inferior teams.

I don't care to do that exercise I think JB is a HOFer but since he was made the program an exclusive zone defense our offense has been nose diving outside a few select years. The defense works with proper personnel but even we don't have that personnel JB doesn't adapt.

Also if you don't get the tempo argument I am not going to waste the time to explanation beyond this. We have a slow as molasses offense and because we don't attempt to speed up the opponent it makes the game a lower possession game. By making the game a lower possession game it gives the team with less talent a better chance to win. This is a fact. Our pace of play is 262 out of 353.
NCAA Basketball Stats - NCAA BB Team Possessions per Game on TeamRankings.com

That is terrible.

For what it's worth, our average offensive possession length is 153rd in the country, on defense it's 340th.

 

[Jasoncuse]

This team hasn't lost 14 games to date because of its offense.

I beg to differ.

We couldn't score against South Carolina, UConn and Wisconsin. Even the St. John's disaster was more than just our defense and quitting.

We fell behind in nearly every ACC game because our offense is horrendous in the half court. We literally had to get down double digits numerous times just to make any changes and speed up the tempo.

While the scoring #'s may not be so bad overall, our offense was an absolute cause of many of our losses. Many times that was coupled with poor D, but the bad offense was a major part.

 

[longislandcuse]

Nobody disputes the Final Four run. However I can look at it and say we were the first 10 seed to make the Final Four.
Our program the last 3 years has gone 59-41. That is pathetic for a top 10 program. Thank goodness for the Final Four run.
What changes or adjustments has JB made to the system?

None. We play 100% zone defense. We have a pathetic simple offense.
We press when we are down Big.
We let the opponent dictate the tempo of the game.

BOOM. Accurate.

I like the zone. I don't like never having a switch up D.

I like recruiting for the zone and having a long, athletic team. I don't like having weak recruiters and a HC that doesn't seem to care about grinding it out anymore.

Our offense is trash. No way around that. Zero creativity.

 

[Knicks411]

The thing that makes this season the most disappointing to me is that it isn't like next year particularly looks a whole lot better. Anything can happen, I get that, but we could be losing like 5-6 guys off this roster and it's not like the recruiting class coming in is expected to be amazing.

 

[Alsacs]

For what it's worth, our average offensive possession length is 153rd in the country, on defense it's 340th.

What that tells me is we let the opponent dictate tempo. Being the middle means when we play a fast team we play a faster tempo when we play a slow tempo team we play slow.

 

[Townie72]

Hey buddy the Grand Slam is still available till 10 go enjoy it.

Also in case you weren't aware JB has an announced retirement date and Hop has the contract to be the next HC.

I look at next year's roster and see it and don't want JB to go thru next year like this. Give Hop a honeymoon year so he can start getting his guys in.

If we had a roster next year which was stacked of course let JB coach it. We don't have that type of roster so change is my preference. I am not going to be blind in my loyalty I can be objective.

Not "blind loyalty".

No matter what the roster, I'll take JB over Hop because I prefer "proven" versus "unproven". If next year's team is going to be another "build it as the season progresses" version, than even more reason to keep JB at the helm.

That plus the fact that there are a lot of emotional posters on here, that since they are free from any real consequences, come up with whatever their gut tells them. And then they lay in some rationale to support it.

 

[Knicks411]

What that tells me is we let the opponent dictate tempo. Being the middle means when we play a fast team we play a faster tempo when we play a slow tempo team we play slow.

I absolutely agree we let teams dictate tempo. It bugs me as well. I still think it cost us the Vermont game in 2005.