Big/Important two game stretch this week

[JeremyCuse]

If we want to have any shot of making the tourney this year need to find away to get a couple of wins this week against two good opponents.

Oakland actually played our Wed opponent Toledo on Saturday and lost 87-74.

Oakland is missing their center who is serving the final game of a four game suspension but they appear to have two elite scores who are both averaging over 20 pts a game and both transferred from big time Div 1 schools (Illinois and Texas). Martez Walker the Texas transfer is shooting the three ball at over 45% this year, I am hopeful we will key on him early.

Rough stretch here with 3 games in 5 days, especially with Toledo being right before Thanksgiving and appearing to be the best of the three teams. The Rockets appear to be a pretty good offensive squad this year. Hope we take care of business but wouldn't be shocked if we ended up splitting the two games.

Also just a FYI, not only are we playing Kansas this year but we our early schedules are earily similar, they also play Texas Southern, Oakland, and Toledo.

 

[OrangeXtreme]

Also just a FYI, not only are we playing Kansas this year but we our early schedules are earily similar, they also play Texas Southern, Oakland, and Toledo.

That's because we're all in the same Hoophall Miami Invitational Tournament.

 

[JeremyCuse]

That's because we're all in the same Hoophall Miami Invitational Tournament.

LOL, I figured something was up. Between the Bills and Syracuse football I am struggling to keep my sanity.

 

[DonLightfoot]

Nice review, thanks for sharing.

 

[Janner]

If we want to have any shot of making the tourney this year need to find away to get a couple of wins this week against two good opponents.

Oakland actually played our Wed opponent Toledo on Saturday and lost 87-74.

Oakland is missing their center who is serving the final game of a four game suspension but they appear to have two elite scores who are both averaging over 20 pts a game and both transferred from big time Div 1 schools (Illinois and Texas). Martez Walker the Texas transfer is shooting the three ball at over 45% this year, I am hopeful we will key on him early.

Rough stretch here with 3 games in 5 days, especially with Toledo being right before Thanksgiving and appearing to be the best of the three teams. The Rockets appear to be a pretty good offensive squad this year. Hope we take care of business but wouldn't be shocked if we ended up splitting the two games.

Also just a FYI, not only are we playing Kansas this year but we our early schedules are earily similar, they also play Texas Southern, Oakland, and Toledo.

I completely agree. I think these games are going to be a test both mentally and physically given the short turnaround and relative inexperience of this team. A bad night on the floor, or a hot opponent, could very easily result in a loss here. The Dome crowed will likely be sparse with the students gone and the lack of a "name brand" opponent so I worry a bit about focus and energy at the start of the games (we've struggled our first 4-6 min). That said, these potentially could be 2 nice wins come Tourney time, all things considered. Oakland is projected to contend for their conference title and Toledo looks like they might do the same this year. This is a nice opportunity for this team to play some solid comp, continue to grow and walk away with a couple decent wins. It'll be a very interesting couple games.

 

[JarHeadJim]

LOL, I figured something was up. Between the Bills and Syracuse football I am struggling to keep my sanity.

 

[shandeezy7]

I completely agree. I think these games are going to be a test both mentally and physically given the short turnaround and relative inexperience of this team. A bad night on the floor, or a hot opponent, could very easily result in a loss here. The Dome crowed will likely be sparse with the students gone and the lack of a "name brand" opponent so I worry a bit about focus and energy at the start of the games (we've struggled our first 4-6 min). That said, these potentially could be 2 nice wins come Tourney time, all things considered. Oakland is projected to contend for their conference title and Toledo looks like they might do the same this year. This is a nice opportunity for this team to play some solid comp, continue to grow and walk away with a couple decent wins. It'll be a very interesting couple games.

I think the crowd on Wednesday will actually be relatively strong. We usually draw big crowds around the holidays, with all of the people home from out of town and likely having their only chance to catch a game all year.

 

[SBU72]

LOL, I figured something was up. Between the Bills and Syracuse football I am struggling to keep my sanity.

Two ways to look at it. Best way is that the SU b-ball team almost gave up fewer points than either the Bills or the football team. Or that the SU football defense gave up FEWER points than the Bills!

 

[JeremyCuse]

View attachment 115464

LOL, god is that accurate.

 

[JeremyCuse]

I think the crowd on Wednesday will actually be relatively strong. We usually draw big crowds around the holidays, with all of the people home from out of town and likely having their only chance to catch a game all year.

I think your right, its likely tonight that will be sparsely attended. I think getting a win tonight will help build more momentum for Wed night and could get a pretty good crowd which well help as Toledo appears to be the best opponent we will have faced to date. The night before thanksgiving is usually the busies bar night of the year so we might get a good crowd of walkup looking to catch the game before heading out on the town.

 

[Eric15]

We are only 9 point favorites against Oakland tonight. This is not a game where we just show up, go through the motions, and overwhelm a greatly inferior opponent. We have to play two half of good basketball or we'll lose.

 

[JeremyCuse]

I completely agree. I think these games are going to be a test both mentally and physically given the short turnaround and relative inexperience of this team. A bad night on the floor, or a hot opponent, could very easily result in a loss here. The Dome crowed will likely be sparse with the students gone and the lack of a "name brand" opponent so I worry a bit about focus and energy at the start of the games (we've struggled our first 4-6 min). That said, these potentially could be 2 nice wins come Tourney time, all things considered. Oakland is projected to contend for their conference title and Toledo looks like they might do the same this year. This is a nice opportunity for this team to play some solid comp, continue to grow and walk away with a couple decent wins. It'll be a very interesting couple games.

I think both of these teams could end up being nice wins by the end of the year as you noted. I think its important SU gets the W tonight, going into that Toledo game off a loss could end in disaster. SU has clearly played lower level competition but the teams outside of maybe Cornell haven't been bottom of the barrel squads. Iona and Texas Southern are decent teams who will likely win or at least challenge for conference titles, ditto for Oakland and Toledo. Personally I would have preferred a Colgate type for Wed night but like you said its a great opportunity for this team to grab some quality OOC wins and continue to grow/challenge themselves and hopefully get a W out of it.

 

[JeremyCuse]

We are only 9 point favorites against Oakland tonight. This is not a game where we just show up, go through the motions, and overwhelm a greatly inferior opponent. We have to play two half of good basketball or we'll lose.

I think that will be the case for both games this week. Oakland is an experienced squad with two Senior players scoring at a high clip with one shooting nearly 50% from three. Going to have to turn them over a lot and stay on the shooters. Wouldn't shock me at all if this game is within a possession or two late.

 

[MSOrange]

These two games definitely caught my attention as trap games as I was doing my iggy prediction. I didn't do much research on either team because I was really looking for games to predict victories and didn't want to look for more reasons to convince myself otherwise.

 

[rrlbees]

LOL, I figured something was up. Between the Bills and Syracuse football I am struggling to keep my sanity.

Chew on this. In the last 2 weeks, SU and Buffalo football has given up 221 points combined. An average of 55.25ppg.

 

[JeremyCuse]

These two games definitely caught my attention as trap games as I was doing my iggy prediction. I didn't do much research on either team because I was really looking for games to predict victories and didn't want to look for more reasons to convince myself otherwise.

When I saw the schedule I thought if SU was going to lose an OOC game besides the obvious ones this stretch was going to be tricky. I think if they can have a good defensive performance tonight and get the W it sets up well for Toledo. A loss tonight I think puts us in a real bad spot. Would be a great game for Moyer to break out a little bit.

 

[JeremyCuse]

Chew on this. In the last 2 weeks, SU and Buffalo football has given up 221 points combined. An average of 55.25ppg.

Just unthinkable a few weeks ago, the free fall for both teams pretty much at the same time has made it even worse. When both were rolling about a month and a half ago part of me knew the bottom would fall out at some point because both programs/teams usually disappoint but I didn't know the bottom could extend this far. It's been a pretty dismal last month of sports for me.

 

[Knicks411]

Seriously though guys, very important 2 game stretch coming up.

 

[CuseLifer11]

Good thread. Well spoken. Totally agree. We will look back on these two games as the reason we missed the tourney, should we lose either

 

[JeremyCuse]

Good thread. Well spoken. Totally agree. We will look back on these two games as the reason we missed the tourney, should we lose either

If Oakland and Toledo really have a big year, those wins could come in handy if we falter versus the big boys of the OOC and obviously the conf schedule.

 

[CuseLifer11]

If Oakland and Toledo really have a big year, those wins could come in handy if we falter versus the big boys of the OOC and obviously the conf schedule.

100%. Huge games for a young team. Looking forward to the games. Again, good thread. Makes ya think...

 

[billsin01]

I completely agree. I think these games are going to be a test both mentally and physically given the short turnaround and relative inexperience of this team. A bad night on the floor, or a hot opponent, could very easily result in a loss here. The Dome crowed will likely be sparse with the students gone and the lack of a "name brand" opponent so I worry a bit about focus and energy at the start of the games (we've struggled our first 4-6 min). That said, these potentially could be 2 nice wins come Tourney time, all things considered. Oakland is projected to contend for their conference title and Toledo looks like they might do the same this year. This is a nice opportunity for this team to play some solid comp, continue to grow and walk away with a couple decent wins. It'll be a very interesting couple games.

Yup -- we've had 32, 33 and 38 points in our first halves as a whole (most of the struggles coming in the first four or five minutes as you point out). That puts us at an average of 34+ points per first half. By contrast we've averaged 41.7 in our second half -- and that's with a pretty fair amount of mopup time vs. Cornell and a couple minutes of mopup vs. Iona. Getting off to a better start would seem to be an important thing as we start to see better opponents.

 

[weedsportwarriors]

Jeremy, where are your seats for basketball?

 

[JeremyCuse]

Jeremy, where are your seats for basketball?

Sent you a PM.

 

[bballbeadle]

Dear lord, I had no idea these games were going to be more competitive than the others! Now y'all have gotten me riled up and antsy.

Hey, but at least I'm not a Bills fan!