I'm very happy everyone is excited about yesterdays scrimmage...I was there ,sorry I didn't post live but here are some of the things I took away from the scrimmage ...first all we played 2 of the bottom D1 schools...we barley beat Marist...I thought our offense looked flat against them...against Binghamton we scored most of our goals against their 3rd string defense...im sorry but I was not impressed ...we have a lot work ahead of us
Definitely came out flat against Marist. Marist came out fired up and took it to Cuse right away. Looked like Cuse just assumed it would steamroll Marist. Should have.
Binghamton wrecked Marist in the first game. Not sure if you were there for that one. I definitely assumed the Marist game would be a bloodbath. It wasn’t. May not be a bad thing. Ego checks are healthy.
Cuse started pulling away from Binghamton when they pushed the tempo and played the way we all seem to want them to play. When they were effective, they dodged hard, moved the ball quickly and scored in all sorts of ways — transition, manup, in close, step downs, dodged from X, shots on the run, 5x5. Just fun to watch.
But you’re right, Syracuse was far from perfect — had quite a few unforced turnovers and some bad shots right to the stick or chest (Trimboli, for one, took a few shots reminiscent of his freshmen campaign). The SSDMs had some rough moments, as did the young long poles. Passes were dropped that would have quickly turned into at least a good shot (Kennedy and #32 dropped passes in the slot, as two examples). Faceoffs were inconsistent, as I noted. It was not perfect, but a lot of kids got on the field and the stars made the kind of plays we want them to. Trimboli, Lipka, Rehfuss, Solomon, Cook, Curry all scored beautiful goals. Helmer was a force with both sticks. Bomberry was a beast. Mellen was Mellen (though he did look a little shaky a couple times).
Will Syracuse win the national championship this year? I don’t know. Yesterday was still September. But yesterday did tell me this team will be fun to watch and has the potential — potential, I repeat; there’s no guarantee — to look a lot like the run and gun teams of the past. I wasn’t a fan of the shot clock when it was proposed. Yesterday changed my mind (although 90 seconds makes more sense, but that’s nit picking).