Updown: Duke | Syracusefan.com

Updown: Duke

SWC75

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The Upside

- We hung with Duke for 25 minutes until they went crazy from outside. We hung with Tennessee and Gonzaga and had that great start vs. Virginia. If we can play like that for 40 minutes, we’ll be all set.

- Maliq Brown just keeps getting better and better. Early in the season, his scoring was down as he adjust to playing center rather than forward but now he’s tearing it up inside. 26 points and 7 rebounds vs. Duke!

- Judah Mintz missed 9 of 14 shots but he’s getting back to the line again and was 8 for 9 from there. He also had 3 steals.

- JJ Starling scored 9 points and had 3 rebounds. That’s not spectacular but in this game, that qualifies as an upside.

- Until the end, it was fun looking at the screen and seeing “Syracuse 10-3, 1-1 vs. Duke 9-3, 0-1”.

10-4 (1-2) with 17+ to go…


LET’S GO ORANGE!


Net Points

This year I’m going to make things a bit easier on myself and just list the net points in each game after the Upside. Once a month I’ll do a deeper dive into the numbers rather than doing a “Net Points, etc.” post after every game. ‘Net’ points is the positives (points, rebounds, assists, steals and blocks) minus the negatives, (missed field goals and free throws, turnovers and fouls committed).

Maliq Brown game: 28NP in 33 minutes; season: 193NP in 329 minutes = 23.5NP/40m
Judah Mintz game: 14NP in 39 minutes; season: 205NP in 444 minutes = 18.5NP/40m
Benny Williams game: 4NP in 18 minutes; season: 51NP in 152 minutes = 13.4NP/40m
Kyle Cuffe game: 3NP in 9 minutes; season: 22NP in 158 minutes = 5.6NP/40m
JJ Starling game: 3NP in 35 minutes; season: 123NP in 484 minutes = 10.2NP/40m
Justin Taylor game: 2NP in 22 minutes; season: 103NP in 378 minutes = 10.9NP/40m
Quadir Copeland game: 1NP in 26 minutes; season: 148NP in 281 minutes = 21.1NP/40m
Naheem McLeod game: -1NP in 7 minutes; season: 108NP in 202 minutes = 21.4NP/40m
Chris Bell game: -3NP in 11 minutes; season: 66NP in 341 minutes = 7.7NP/40m

Mounir Hima game: 0NP in 0 minutes; season: 8NP in 15 minutes = 21.3NP/40m
Peter Carey game: 0NP in 0 minutes; season: 2NP in 12 minutes = 6.7NP/40m
William Patterson game: 0NP in 0 minutes; season: 0NP in 0 minutes = 0.0NP/40m
Chance Westry game: 0NP in 0 minutes; season: 0NP in 0 minutes = 0.0NP/40m




The Downside

- Goal #1 for this season is to make it to the Big Dance. Goal #1 is to become a ranked team by the end of the year. We have four losses, all to ranked teams. But they have been by 17, 19, 22 and 20 points. All those games were close at one point but all anybody across the country sees is the final score. We are far from being a ranked team. Even to get to the Big Dance, we’ve got to find a way to win a couple of these games against ranked teams and we haven’t come close to that.

- A big problem is that we are starting our reserves. Naheem McLeod, Chris Bell, Justin Taylor and I’ll says it: JJ Starling are just not productive enough to warrant starting. One of them has to start with Brown, Williams, Copeland and Mintz, so I guess JJ stays.

- Another problem is that when a team goes off from the arc, as Virginia and Duke did, we have no answer. Yes, we hung with Duke until they made 8 in a row. But we hung with them because they were 0 for 9 to that point. We should have a lead at that point. Bell and Taylor are our best outside threats but they aren’t playing enough to stay in games and they aren’t getting their shots when they are in there. They played 33 minutes combined tonight and got off three shots and made none of them. Meanwhile Quadir Copeland and Maliq Brown, the last guys we want shooting threes, jacked up 8 of them. Amazingly, they made 3. Maybe that’s what it’s come to.

- Devo, in the post-game show was complaining about Bell’s lack of hustle and came up with a great line: “Energy is a skill.” McLeod should develop that skill as well. He hasn’t made a shot since the Cornell game. He’s 0 for 5 in 47 minutes of play since then.

- Quadir Copeland was looking like an NBA player in recent games but hit the wall today, shooting 2 for 9 and scoring just 6 points while turning it over 4 times. He did have 4 assists, 3 rebounds and 2 steals. He at least has the skill of energy.

- The SU formula for possessions is to break even on the boards and win the turnover battle. Tonight we actually won the boards, 31-30 but lost the turnover battle 11-17. Judah had 5, Copeland 4, Starlin and Bell 3, the latter in only 11 minutes, quite an accomplishment.
 
Last edited:
Great post as usual. You even made the down side sound not that bad. Agree we did not take advantage to build a lead in the first half but even that would have little impact on the 8/8 from three point land. Thanks for the Devo comment. It definitely fit the bill with a few of our players.
 
duke fans consider us repulsive underlings.


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