are there...

[Alsacs]

I don’t blame GMac for the bigs development but our staff has done a terrible job developing offense in our bigs and even stressing to the guards to get the ball down low just to atleast stretch the defense out.

 

[AlpharettaCuse]

Alright, so even if we acknowledge it's not 'the standard' to have a former big teaching new bigs — when you look at our program, 1) are you happy with who we're getting at C; 2) are you happy with the Cs' progress; 3) is having GMac schooling your C on the nuances of playing Center the ideal way to address 'the problem' if you think there is a problem; and 4) is #3 the best way to address the issue of not being as attractive to top-level C recruits, when perception is important to a player who hasn't yet experienced the masterful zen-like teachings of GMac as passed down from Hopkins.

I'm looking for an edge, an improvement, an advantage we can use to sell ourselves better. Optics count sometimes. Recruiting is marketing.

We now have a 7'2" guy who hasn't dunked this season, and passes to the corner when he's got the ball under the hoop. And another guy who may be still recovering from injury, but struggles to convert in the paint, even though he seemed to have those kinds of skills in HS. These things aren't new for us, and I don't see those kinds of troubles in other programs.

We landed 3 consecutive Mcdonald’s AA centers in a row after Rick Jackson and AO in Rak, Fab Melo and Dejaun Coleman. Is this really a problem? Who do you want us to hire?

I think Sidibe will be pretty good.

 

[AlpharettaCuse]

I don’t blame GMac for the bigs development but our staff has done a terrible job developing offense in our bigs and even stressing to the guards to get the ball down low just to atleast stretch the defense out.

That’s good, because I think Allen Griffin coaches the centers.

 

[CuseFaninVT]

I’ll take a dunk. Everyone's tired of commentators (rightfully so) and cusefaninvt getting a little jab in how Chukwu is 7’2 and doesn’t have a dunk yet.

FIFY

 

[SoBeCuse]

FIFY

Nicely done.

 

[CuseFaninVT]

Nicely done.

I own it.

 

[NineOneSeven]

I own it.

He did it

 

[CuseFaninVT]

He did it

I saw it was twice! Actually glad for him. It was obvious in the Cornell game that his teammates were trying to get him off the snide and I think JB actually got mad about it. The kids have good intentions. That's really all that matters.

 

[Zelda Zonk]

Gmac isn’t coaching the centers!!!!

Let’s blame Gmac for everything!!!!!

Alright, apologies. Which former point guard is coaching them now, after Hopkins?
The point wasn’t to blame whoever it is. The point was to suggest it’s possibly better to learn from someone who has done it, not someone who has just studied it. In any other area of life, that concept would prolly be embraced.

 

[Todoubled23]

As far as Dimon vs. Wahab...give me Dimon all day. Wanted that kid in orange when he first popped up on the board before he went JUCO. Shot blocking machine, seems serviceable on O, not polished but would have to be accounted for. Kid loves to play defense, need that tenacity down low. I wouldn't care he's not a go to low post scorer.

 

[kcsu]

Two things.
Its always Gmacs fault.
Dont sleep on Chewy!

 

[alphaorange]

So Mike Gminski is not back there coaching the big men?

Seems like they are always producing great centers.

Like who? They haven't had a very good center since the 90s

 

[HOFCeluck]

I like the implication that it never occurred to whoever is coaching the big men to tell Paschal Chukwu to dunk the ball.

 

[AlpharettaCuse]

Like who? They haven't had a very good center since the 90s

Carlos Boozer, Sheldon Williams, the Plumlees, Jalil Okafor, Marvin Bagley

 

[AlpharettaCuse]

Alright, apologies. Which former point guard is coaching them now, after Hopkins?
The point wasn’t to blame whoever it is. The point was to suggest it’s possibly better to learn from someone who has done it, not someone who has just studied it. In any other area of life, that concept would prolly be embraced.

Griffin.

If it was important to have a big man teaching big men, everyone would be doing it. Pete Newell was “prolly” the best big man’s coach ever and he was a guard. It’s not rocket science.

 

[dollarbill44]

You don't need to be a big man to coach bugs. Anyone who went to a decent basketball camp and paid attention as a kid at least was taught the fundamentals. Anyone coaching at a college level should know these fundamentals and the drills to sharpen those skills. It's not rocket science, it's whether or not it's prioritized. PC and BS need to want it enough to put in the extra time on the drills and with the coaches - who also need to be willing to work with them either before or after practice. The good centers we've had spent a LOT of extra time working on their games. I don't know whether these guys spend that extra time or not. More likely, they are rehabbing during their down time because they can't stay healthy.

 

[Brooky03]

Pretend you're a talented high school center and ask yourself why you'd want to play at Syracuse. So you can fight for position every possession while your guards ignore the post?

Whether you're critical of Boeheim or an unquestioned supporter, it's clear that this position is just not a featured part of his offense. Even skilled people like Onuaku got a dozen or so touches a game. Whatever, it's not a judgment - in a zero-sum game that's increasingly micromanaged by coaches who prefer to limit possessions, there won't be enough balls to go around. At Syracuse, the preferred style of play is attractive to wings but not to bigs. Oh well.

Talented bigs get the ball plenty. Boeheim's offense is all about getting players the ball in position to exploit mismatches. When Onuaku, Jackson, or Rak had mismatches, they got fed all night long. The problem is that our centers will have zero games this year with an advantage over their defender. There is no sense in feeding them in the post.

All a talented big would have to do is watch tape of Rak in his senior year to see the potential role they could fill.

 

[OttoMets]

Talented bigs get the ball plenty. Boeheim's offense is all about getting players the ball in position to exploit mismatches. When Onuaku, Jackson, or Rak had mismatches, they got fed all night long. The problem is that our centers will have zero games this year with an advantage over their defender. There is no sense in feeding them in the post.

All a talented big would have to do is watch tape of Rak in his senior year to see the potential role they could fill.

I don't agree with this. A talented big can watch Rakeem for evidence of what I've observed: the 5 is Option 5 in Boeheim's offense. When the four guys around him stunk, he got touches on an 18-13 team. It was truly Boeheim's last resort. For the other three years he was ignored.

Obviously Chukwu's looking less reliable than he's ever looked on offense. If that's going to be used to justify not feeding the post, fair enough. But the offense has virtually never relied on scoring from this position, regardless of the skills of an individual center, whether it's Leron Ellis, Otis Hill, or Onuaku (who, again, took led his team in shots maybe half a dozen times...this has come up in threads about this topic before).

It's a wing-centric offense and a center who wants to be the focal point will always look elsewhere.

 

[Zelda Zonk]

All a talented big would have to do is watch tape of Rak in his senior year to see the potential role they could fill.

Does the recruiting staff provide them with 'old' game footage?
I wonder what kids are watching when making their college choices. I would imagine it would be about catching as many current games as possible, from all the school options, and not so much about delving into 'archival footage' from a few+ years ago. Not meant to be a 'smart alec-y' question, like, at all. I guess i hope our staff puts together film packages to demonstrate how we do exploit bigs, when they're proficient enough.

 

[Ghost]

I don't know that a guard can't coach a big, but I will say that I'm rarely impressed by our centers' fundamentals on offense, along with their improvement over the course of their careers (for all the 'but Rakeem!' and 'what about Arinze' stuff I hear, those guys showed glimpses of those skills as freshmen).

After that negative note, I'll move on and say that I know very little about recruiting but if Boeheim likes those centers, they'll probably be good fits at SU defensively. Maybe not immediate contributors, probably never 10-ppg scorers, but ultimately decent shot-blockers who can captain the defense, hustle to defend a corner three, and step up to deny dribble penetration. My expectations are low, but I'm sure they'll be capable of doing exactly what Boeheim wants them to do.

Yeah, that's about where I sit. I would not touch SU if I was a big man with any offensive aptitude or if I was hoping to develop my offense. No. No. And Nope.

I concur, Arinze was shockingly well developed as a Frosh from what I expected of him coming in.

Christmas was much the same - I remember watching exhibition games when he first stepped on campus and his short jumper, some of his movement seemed pretty well developed -I definitely thought he would be dominant by Soph year, or at least on the way there. The fact that we wouldn't let him touch the ball until all other options were exhausted still irks me. If Ennis/Grant come back Christmas probably puts up the same numbers Senior year as his Junior year and goes down as a hugely disappointing C, that didn't hustle enough, and never lived up to his hype.

 

[AlpharettaCuse]

Yeah, that's about where I sit. I would not touch SU if I was a big man with any offensive aptitude or if I was hoping to develop my offense. No. No. And Nope.

I concur, Arinze was shockingly well developed as a Frosh from what I expected of him coming in.

Christmas was much the same - I remember watching exhibition games when he first stepped on campus and his short jumper, some of his movement seemed pretty well developed -I definitely thought he would be dominant by Soph year, or at least on the way there. The fact that we wouldn't let him touch the ball until all other options were exhausted still irks me. If Ennis/Grant come back Christmas probably puts up the same numbers Senior year as his Junior year and goes down as a hugely disappointing C, that didn't hustle enough, and never lived up to his hype.

Rak averaged something like 11 ppg his senior year in high school. He wasn’t very good offensively, and made tremendous improvements while at Syracuse.

Some of the other centers we’ve had like Seikaly, Otis Hill, and Etan Thomas also came in very raw and left as very good offensively players.

 

[dollarbill44]

I don't agree with this. A talented big can watch Rakeem for evidence of what I've observed: the 5 is Option 5 in Boeheim's offense. When the four guys around him stunk, he got touches on an 18-13 team. It was truly Boeheim's last resort. For the other three years he was ignored.

Obviously Chukwu's looking less reliable than he's ever looked on offense. If that's going to be used to justify not feeding the post, fair enough. But the offense has virtually never relied on scoring from this position, regardless of the skills of an individual center, whether it's Leron Ellis, Otis Hill, or Onuaku (who, again, took led his team in shots maybe half a dozen times...this has come up in threads about this topic before).

It's a wing-centric offense and a center who wants to be the focal point will always look elsewhere.

I feel like you're leaving out an important fact about the shift in Rak's role in the offense his senior year. He was not very good offensively through his junior year. The summer before his senior year he worked really hard on his offense so that he became one of our top weapons. Our wasn't due to the decline of the team as much as it was his improvement once he got serious about it.

 

[AlaskaSU]

The argument that a small can coach a big is irrelevant. The relevant issue is whether a big man recruit would prefer to be coached by a known big man?

 

[Brooky03]

I don't agree with this. A talented big can watch Rakeem for evidence of what I've observed: the 5 is Option 5 in Boeheim's offense. When the four guys around him stunk, he got touches on an 18-13 team. It was truly Boeheim's last resort. For the other three years he was ignored.

Obviously Chukwu's looking less reliable than he's ever looked on offense. If that's going to be used to justify not feeding the post, fair enough. But the offense has virtually never relied on scoring from this position, regardless of the skills of an individual center, whether it's Leron Ellis, Otis Hill, or Onuaku (who, again, took led his team in shots maybe half a dozen times...this has come up in threads about this topic before).

It's a wing-centric offense and a center who wants to be the focal point will always look elsewhere.

Jackson and Onuaku took a lot of shots. I would not agree that they weren't used often on offense. They played on arguably the most balanced team we've had and only saw a gap in field goal attempts with NBA talent Wes Johnson. Rick was a go-to player the following year. Neither was considered an elite recruit.

Rak took time to develop, we all saw how raw he was offensively, but probably could have been used more as a junior. Fab definitely wasn't left wanting for shots his sophomore year. The other centers in this timeframe were just never going to develop an offensive game, which was mostly a known thing when they were recruited.

Are our centers ever going to put up 350+ shots in a season? Unlikely. But that would be a crazy thing to do nowadays anyway, unless we're talking about an elite big man.

Coleman is an example of a guy Boeheim obviously brought in as a scoring center, but he didn't have a single knee on his whole body.

 

[AlpharettaCuse]

The argument that a small can coach a big is irrelevant. The relevant issue is whether a big man recruit would prefer to be coached by a known big man?

That’s a good question. I think that Omar Yurstseven selected Georgetown because of Patrick Ewing. Is Danny Manning picking up 5-star high school centers at Wake Forest? He had that John Collins kid that was really good. Other than Manning and Ewing, are there really many well-known big men coaching?