Won't be a popular post but its the truth

[Townie72]

No one here is smarter than JB. Criticizing coaching decisions is just part of the overall fan experience. The reason why JB is a famous millionaire is because he coaches a sport which many people are emotionally invested in. If he coached field hockey, nobody would care about his decisions.

"The overall fan experience?" No sale.

I'll buy it's part of the overall ENTITLEMENT of some fans, that they justify based on the fact that JB makes a lot of money. And both venting and self-aggrandizement have a lot to do with it.

I don't think JB is a genius. I do think, however, he is a basketball genius because he is a smart guy who has been doing the same thing for a very long time. As a result his understanding of the game has evolved.

 

[We Are Syracuse]

I generally agree with your concern about the half court offense; I think the problem mostly lies with the point guards we have had: Ennis was deliberate to a fault, Kaleb Joseph was just not good enough, and Gbinije was not a true point guard. Frank Howard is a work in progress; I have good hopes for him this year (Gillon, not so much). But even so, our half court offense in those five seasons have been middle of the pack, not terrible. I'd be willing to bet they were well within a single standard deviation of the national mean each year.

I also notice that in the first of your 5 year examples, we had the very capable Scoop Jardine as the primary point guard and the team was in the upper quartile in half court efficiency.

But I disagree with your dismissal of transition offense. The entire point of basketball is to get easy buckets. Any overall scheme designed to maximize such buckets while still maintaining competence in the half court is a system that is going to work a lot, both IMHO and backed up by our history.

Finally, the quote I highlighted above was a strange way to end your critique. The team has gone 12-4 in the NCAA tournament the last 5 seasons. Discounting national champions, I'll bet there's not 3 teams with a better tournament record over that period. Bad offense can cost you a game at any time, but it has absolutely not led to Syracuse making short tourney runs in recent years. Bizarre.

Ennis is about as good as a point guard as you will find in the half court so I disagree with that. He was great out of the PnR and always made the right decision. NO reason that team should be as low as they are in the half court. Secondly, I am in no way "dismissing" transition offense. I believe in playing fast- transition is the best way to get open looks offensively. Transition offense is not the argument I am making. My argument is half court offense. The half court offense stinks. If you disagree with that, look at the numbers in the OP. They are not good. As for the team winning in the NCAA, a HUGE part of that is there defense as a I have said earlier in this thread (hopefully we can agree with that. JB even said in his presser Syracuse rarely loses b/c of their defense. Always because of their offense. HINT: MAYBE MAKE AN ADJUSTMENT ON THAT END AFTER ALL THESE YEARS)

As I have said previously in this thread, JBs half court defense is one of the best in the nation. No one is losing sleep/concern about guarding his team in the half court, though. Not being able to score in the half court has a large part to do with him winning 1 NC and not multiple (notice how i didn't say just 1- So hard to win a NC). But with his defense and talent I believe he would have multiple NCs if he was better coaching offensively in the half court.

 

[FrancoPizza]

I do think he is a basketball genius because he is a smart guy who has been doing the same thing for a very long time. As a result his understanding of the game has evolved.

Please enlighten us as to how the Syracuse halfcourt offense has evolved over the past 30 years.

 

[Townie72]

Please enlighten us as to how the Syracuse halfcourt offense has evolved over the past 30 years.

What hasn't changed is the incessant carping about JB from guys like you. You can set your watch by it.

 

[two3zone]

What hasn't changed is the incessant carping about JB from guys like you. You can set your watch by it.

Not crapping on JB, but how has the offense evolved? You don't have the skirt the question.

 

[Oráiste]

Not crapping on JB, but how has the offense evolved? You don't have the skirt the question.

we've had a couple of down seasons, mostly due to unanticipated early departures & exacerbated by sanctions. But other than that, Syracuse has been on a roll. I remember seeing posts keeping track of wins that showed we had the 3rd or 4th most wins in the nation the last few years. That has probably declined the last 2 years, but probably still top 10. Plus the best series of deep NCAA runs I can remember.

I could understand the concern if we were 4 or 5 years into a slide, but why would there be a requirement for such a successful program to "evolve" in the middle of such a good run & with sanctions about to run their course?

 

[Townie72]

Not crapping on JB, but how has the offense evolved? You don't have the skirt the question.

The offense has always matched the personnel available to run it and the rules in place (e.g. 3 pt'ers). What you can do with Sherman Douglas at the point feeding inside players is vastly different from when you have less skilled PGs feeding less skilled 4's and 5's.

The evolution comes from JBs adjustments to what happens on the floor not wholesale shifts in patterns.

 

[ssbriefcase]

I'd just like to have a center (not just TL) who the offense can actually run some offense through, i.e., has some post moves, etc. Provides another option on offense. This would open up the court more and allow the guards and wings to drive and dish, shoot an open shot, etc. more. Right now we don't have this in DC2 and esp. PC. This isn't absolutely essential to a successful season and deep tournament run, but sure would be nice to have.

Let's let the offense gel here in the OOC schedule. Hopefully, it shows better synergy as the season plays on.

We had plans for this recently. One went to iu, and the other didn't qualify.

 

[Alsacs]

JB is an elite defensive coach but our half court offense is vanilla. We don't have an offensive identity. Our offense relies on the talent making plays in ISO.
This isn't about one game it's about playing style. If our 2013 offense was 10% better in the half court we cut down the nets.
Our offense the last 2 years has been pure garbage.
JB doesn't scheme for offense.

 

[007]

JB is an elite defensive coach but our half court offense is vanilla. We don't have an offensive identity. Our offense relies on the talent making plays in ISO.
This isn't about one game it's about playing style. If our 2013 offense was 10% better in the half court we cut down the nets.
Our offense the last 2 years has been pure garbage.
JB doesn't scheme for offense.

The problem with the O the last 2 seasons had more to do with very poor shooting than half court sets. They were able to get enough good looks to be more productive. If there was "garbage" it was the field goal percentages.

 

[jgeorge322]

I said earlier in a thread this year about JB's problem of coaching offensively in the half court. A lot of posters replied saying he hasn't had the PG or talent in recent years to have an efficient half court offense. Well this year, the talent is not the problem and this should be a solid team in the half court.

In past years, in the half court offensively, Syracuse has ranked:

• 139th efficiency wise in (2015-2016) .893 PPP (Points Per Possession)
  
• 173rd efficiency wise in (2014-2015) .853 PPP :bang:
• 123rd efficiency wise in (2013-2014) .9 PPP
• 161st efficiency wise in (2012-2013) .845 PPP
• 76th efficiency wise in (2011-2012) .894 PPP

So, you're telling me, in the past five years Syracuse has basically been below the bottom half in the ENTIRE NCAA DIVISION 1 in half court efficiency every single season. That to me, is extremely concerning and definitely is JB's biggest problem as a Coach. I was at the game yesterday, the lack of spacing, concepts, and details were baffling. We produced almost zero open looks the entire game on the offensive end. That falls squarely on coaching and the ability to create advantages for your players. USC had to guard no long closeouts, no post touches, no quality PNR concepts. Syracuse was incredibly easy to guard yesterday. Syracuse would literally come down on possessions and have our wings cross the floor and that would be the only offensive action we would have for the first 20 seconds in the shot clock. JB HAS TO LOOK INTO THIS AND CREATE OPEN LOOKS FOR HIS PLAYERS. THIS TEAM IS FAR TOO TALENTED TO RANK 150th IN THE HALF COURT EFFICIENCY WISE!!!! I saw a lot of posts throwing our players under the bus yesterday. It's not them. It's primarily coaching. JB is one of the best defensive coaches in the country. 2-3 zone is not the problem people!!!! It's the ability to produce in the half court that has been Syracuse's biggest problem as shown in the evidence above. The staff HAS to do a better job creating actions that are harder to guard. Running your shooters off screens on the baseline for 25 seconds is not hard to guard. Incorporate some PnR concepts and spacing. Run some ballscreen sets out of horns (everyone does this now). The spacing in the offense stinks and we have no actions. The staff simply has to do a better job coaching in this aspect if this team wants to make a run in the tournament.

This would be a great thing to pose at a press conference although jb may go nuclear on the questioner

 

[cuseinseattle]

Who is jake

He was a professional wrestler who had a great fued with the million dollar man Ted Diabase.

 

[cuseattle]

What hasn't changed is the incessant carping about JB from guys like you. You can set your watch by it.

I haven't read everything through yet. Still, a correct statement.
There is always a guy that waits for the first loss to say what is wrong. Often, that guy.

 

[orangefan13]

This team is one of the best shooting teams in the country we have 8 guys that can hit the shot beyond the foul line.

There should be a stat on how many good looks you get a possession. Its a different game when south carolina gives you .5 good looks per possession and against a cupcake we could get 4-5. Messing around against the cupcakes and passing up all the good looks to there is 10 seconds on the clock and you have to execute could be a nice addition to bettering our offense, and our one on one play. Forget the stats. As much as I hate to admit it winning by 10 a couple games back might have been better practice then putting up 101 and being up by 50 at one point.

And it could teach our defense to depend on getting stops after long drawn out offensive possessions. We say our defense was ok but we gave up 45% and never demand a stop on any single possession. Countless times against plays that came from the high post and long threes in the corners I didn't know who was at center lydon or our bigs, we were that out of position.

Dajuan, Roberson, Gillon and White are Seniors. Its their team, I don't think Gillon and White have learned that about JB yet. They should take this loss personally.

 

[OttoMets]

The offense has always matched the personnel available to run it and the rules in place (e.g. 3 pt'ers). What you can do with Sherman Douglas at the point feeding inside players is vastly different from when you have less skilled PGs feeding less skilled 4's and 5's.

The evolution comes from JBs adjustments to what happens on the floor not wholesale shifts in patterns.

It's not always the case, and that's what generated this observation (shared by many who understand the game). One only has to look as far back as 2014, with Boeheim trying to knock the square peg of his isolation offense into the round hole of a team captained by a forward who couldn't use his off hand or back down a smaller defender, to recognize that he sometimes struggles to adapt his preferred offense to fit the abilities of his personnel.

Sometimes it works very well, sometimes it doesn't, but it's not true that Boeheim always alters the blueprint to accommodate his talent.

 

[hungrychuck]

This would be a great thing to pose at a press conference although jb may go nuclear on the questioner

The questioner would not even get to finish the question before being told he doesn't "know anything about college basketball."

 

[We Are Syracuse]

Hate to bring this back up, but I think it's time to move on if this season continues its path. JB is supposed to be done either this year or next. BRING IN SOME NEW BLOOD and a coach who has the ability to coach in the half court offensively. Our half court offense is comically bad.

 

[NineOneSeven]

Only people who are completely blind and don't understand a lick of basketball can disagree with this.

 

[We Are Syracuse]

Only people who are completely blind and don't understand a lick of basketball can disagree with this.

Just takes you to use your eyes and know basketball. This team has zero execution in the half court. The development of players here recently has been alarmingly bad