Search results

People still say there was no Plan B for Quade Green even though we got that transfer from USF and Jalen Carey when Quade went to Kentucky. I know it didn't work out but we got a veteran double figure scorer and a top 50 recruit. In my opinion that's a great plan B. There is always a plan B...

Great post. The other sport I really like besides college basketball is soccer, and in that sport you have always had to buy your players. Just like in college, there are a handful of teams that just have way more resources than anybody else and spend without regard. The rest of the teams...

Besides being a great shooter like Buddy I think the two are similar in one other important way. They abuse smaller defenders. By Buddy's senior year he was pretty much automatic with a smaller defender on him. He might have averaged 25 a game had teams not been able to guard him with a taller...

He's only visiting 3 schools and posting a couple pics of each. It's us adults that are making a circus of it. People got it in their head that he would commit while visiting, but clearly he's going to make all his visits and choose after. I understand that mindset. Its exactly how I made my...

Would we really he sad about Maliq going to Duke? I like him and all, but he's a lot less talented than the guys who are actually going to start for Duke next year.

People forget, but Rautins got a lot of crap here until his senior year which was just so good nobody could complain about it. People dug into that nepotism foxhole and stayed there despite Rautins being a good player. He had to be great for people to give up on it.

I'm sure Red doesn't need help understanding X's and O's he needs help teaching it to the kids. It's really not a simple thing. In every game there are thousands of small decisions that need to be made, and these kids need to he able to make the right ones at lightning speed. Even the best...

I think I can connect a few dots (and make a few educated guesses) about this hire. We lose our assistant who works with the guards ... This guy turned two guards from low D1 guys into high major guys, so he seems to be able to recruit/develop guards. We have a team of guys who can score but...

If you want to say Mack's numbers came against a harder schedule so you think there is a slightly better chance of him coming good I'm fine with that. But team SOS is definitely not a strong indicator of individual talent, I think we can all agree on that. And people don't seem to be saying...

Player A: 17.2, 4.0, 4.8, 41% shooting Player B: 17.6, 4.3, 3.9, 43% Why, exactly, are people acting like there is a huge difference between Mack and Leffew? I don't think it's because all these people happen to follow both Harvard and Mount St. Mary and have strong opinions about their...

And Boeheim is absolutely right. Its easy to defend a good passer who isnt a threat to score. They are dinosaurs, like fullbacks in football.

I'm no expert on Freeman, I've only seen him play a couple times, so take this with a grain of salt, but from what I've seen when he has a bigger guy guarding him, he mostly tries to take him off the dribble, and when he has a smaller guy on him he mostly tries to post up (sometimes shooting...

This is super interesting. Most people obviously play better at home than on the road. Red might have found some real value if his road stats are similar next year but his hime stats improve from that road stat line instead of dropping.

I do think the comparison to Burns is apt. He even imporved his output in the tournament the way Burns did. NC St plays a shot blocker next to Burns who doesn't score much. We will have Freeman, who I don't think you can count on defensively because most freshmen take a while to adjust...

I'm not making any predictions about Reynolds specifically, more talking about how I think a 'combo guard' or maybe more specifically a non-pass-first point guard can work with next year's team, so long as he can handle the ball.

I think it's a possibility, but I'm in the camp of not wanting to expect too much from Westry considering he hasn't played the last two years. He has a skill set that would really help us however, without a doubt. I also think Estrella is pretty much the perfect guy to pair with Brown assuming...

I wouldn't mind seeing more offense go through Brown. We need Reynolds and Starling to do the ball handling, which I think they can. But we might not be using Brown correctly if we have an old school PG who needs the ball in his hands all the time.

Reynolds, Bell, and the Starling from the second half of last season might be the best shooting team we've ever had, and they'd be a lot more athletic than Girard, Boeheim, and Swider, the current best shooting team we've ever had.

This makes perfect sense to me. Syracuse athletics can't have unlimited resources, to some extent there has to be a competition between sports for dollars. If football gets more there is probably less for basketball.

The secret of UConn's success has always been to spend a ton on basketball. Their athletic department might be broke but the school certainly isn't and they value basketball as much or more than any other school. UConn made the choice that they don't care if every other sport goes down in...

Why did he redshirt? Did he get hurt?

Heat only scored 88. He was their second leading scorer and the Heat only shot 9-41 from 3 without him. Maybe he will find a place in the rotation? I know Pat Riley likes him.

You stole mine. An exclamation point on a performance where we humiliated the team that beat us in the championship the year before. Such a good feeling. But since you took that one, I'll bring up the time Hakeem Warrick dunked from the free throw line, during a game, against Georgetown, and...

He went from being maybe the worst player in the ACC to an above average one in the course of the same season. You just don't see that. I won't doubt him moving forward. I expect him to be very good too.

Is the answer 2003? Melo, GMac, Edelin definitely didn't have any tournament experience they were freshmen. They made the NIT the year before so Warrick, Pace, Forth who were sophomores had no experience. Did Duany or McNeil actually play in the tournament? If they did, it wasn't much.

Yep. People have been pining for a stud bug who can rebound, defend, and score in the post. Its a wonderful dream, but there are only a small handful of these guys out there and every team wants one. They come with high price tags and a ton of competition. I don't think we can rely on that...

This is a really good post. I just want to add some context to his D. From my perspective Bell improved a lot defensively from Freshman to Sophomore year. Because we had to play the year mostly without a real power forward, Bell guarded power forwards a lot, and he's not built to do that...

I'm not sure if this is a serious question, but I'll answer it. 1) the NCAA tournament is the championship everyone is playing for and it gets a lot of positive attention so everyone takes it seriously and shows up. The NIT is a meaningless exhibition and the players know it so they don't show...

We need a breakdown maybe? These guys are hurt: 1) Westry 2) Hima 3) McLeod Suspended: 4) Williams Redshirt: 5) Patterson Have it on good authority these guys are out the door: 6) Mintz 7) Copeland 8) Taylor 9) Carey (also banged up) Maybe would play: 10) Bell Would play: 11) Starling...

I agree with you, I'd like to watch this team play in the NIT. But if rumors are to be believed (and they are coming from everywhere, so no reason to doubt it) we will have 3 maybe 4 players available for this tournament. Surely we can't play with only 3 players. The problem here is not SU's...

The purpose of all this conference realignment is the big brands making sure they don't have to share with the little guys, people act like it's all about football, but the NCAA tournament is a billion dollar entity. They aren't just going to forget about it and leave a billion dollars on the...

If you went by the bpi, Syracuse would be about 5-20 this year. They had us losing to Georgetoen by double figures. Luckily it's a lousy metric and usually wrong.

It's not an unreasonable opinion. I think Freeman could be elite at doing what Taylor is doing now, and Taylor is scoring 6 or 8 points in about 20 minutes the last few. An offseason of weight training and maturity will probably make Brown an improved defensive presence down low. Not to...

This is such an interesting situation. As much as Brown brings to the table, he has a weird skillset to build a team around. Essentially he can only score close to the basket and only defend away from the basket. Ideally we'd bring in a center who is a great rim protector, and also a 3...

A lot can change before next year obviously, but I do think a frontcourt of Brown, Freeman, and Bell is likely to get pushed around defensively, if that is who we end up having. That said, they are also pretty likely to be amazing offensively. Maybe we just lean into it and be a more offensive...

This is pretty much where I am at. Clemson is going to score against us. We need to be able to outscore them. Need the guys to hit shots, get to the line, do whatever it takes to put up 80+ points. I think Starling could be huge in this one. During this stretch, he's the one guy I would say...

Nope not really. Mostly Brown set real screens and Mintz used it to try to get to the hoop. He had a short guard on him and I think they wanted to exploit that. Seems that play will be more opponent specific, and not something we totally base our offense around.

One thing I noticed is that early in the year, we couldn't get everybody contributing at the same time. Bell started the year scoring and shooting, but Copeland didn't do much. Then Copeland started contributing a lot and Bell completely stopped scoring. It's important to note that Starling...

I'm a little late in this, but I noticed something in this Virginia Tech game I found interesting and wanted to discuss. SU made a small adjustment, that it seems to me lead to a drastic change in their offense. As usual, Mintz takes the ball up. As happens often, Brown sets a screen just...

I agree. He's got some kind of magic formula going that I'd be hesitant to mess with. Off the top of my head I can't think of any other Syracuse basketball player who was so clearly the fan favorite and the favorite among all his teammates. Something really special could happen with him.

I am not so sure I see a lot of anti-Red agenda around here. Seems like everyone wants him to be successful, and most are willing to give him a fair shot. There is important context behind those numbers you are not acknowledging. Last year we were a horrible defensive team, but we were...

Haven't seen anybody say it yet but the way I see it, Notre Dame deserves more credit for the comeback than Syracuse deserves blame. I've been more critical of Syracuse's D than most, but the biggest difference between the first half and second half was Notre Dame going 2-6 from three in the...

Is this really about politics for everyone? For me it's about booing a TV screen. People, she's not really there, she can't hear you.

I have a bit of a problem with this. Okay Bell is our best shooter, but he averages 11 ppg. Our offense does not revolve around getting him shots at all costs. It never has and it never should. Our offense revolves around Mintz, Starling, and Copeland driving to the basket. Bell's job on this...

Mintz plays for fouls. I don't particularly like it, but that's what he does. He didn't get calls on several drives he always gets calls on. That was part of the problem. Red made a ballsy but correct call to give the ball to Copeland in the end and take it out of his leading scorers hands...

I want to share something Draymond doesn't know. I'm surprised nobody seems to be mentioning it. NC St is a team that plays 3 guards and 2 bigs. The first half they were guarding Bell with one of the guards, and he went 8-8 from 3 because he set his feet, and with his height and quick release...

This is right. Tons of talent, but we don't know how healthy he is going to be moving forward, especially understanding that most of his talent comes in the form of being a great athlete. The good news is he appears to be practicing with the team again so Red should have a pretty good idea on...

I do! But even without that, there is such an easy fix. Have an official in a replay booth somewhere, just to watch replays and make a quick ruling. Making the officials on the court conference with each other, then walk to the scorers table, do the replay themselves, conference with each...

Sure but that is taking the whole season into account. Context matters. Nobody knew how to play us early in the season and they were unintentionally playing right into our strengths on D. That changed and our D fell apart. The last month or so it's been horrible, and that is what I'm speaking to.

Count me as someone who doesn't see this as a program changing win. For a good while now Syracuse has been really quite a good offensive team (who saw that coming early in the year?) who struggles defensively, and rebounding the ball. Those same patterns held true in this game. The D still...