Brennan's Wooden Watch | Syracusefan.com

Brennan's Wooden Watch

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Tyler Ennis makes his first appearance of the season, coming in 7th in Eamon Brennan's Wooden Watch for the nation's best college player.

You have to take the good with the bad, though. Ennis' name has replaced CJ Fair's in the watch list.

7. Tyler Ennis, Syracuse: C.J. Fair has been the Syracuse player of choice in recent weeks, and for fair reasons: He is the Orange’s centerpiece, the workhorse on both ends of the floor, and whatever statistical flaws you might find tend to have their roots in his workload. Fair is an awfully good player. And yet, it’s been hard to shake the feeling that Fair isn’t his team’s most important player, and by a rather large margin. That player is freshman point guard Ennis.

Here’s the sneaky truth about Syracuse: For as good as Fair is -- and he’s devastating on the wings of Jim Boeheim’s 2-3 zone -- the Orange could sooner replace him with sixth-man standout Jerami Grant and a combination of minutes from Rakeem Christmas, Michael Gbinije et al. It wouldn’t be easy, but it would be a cinch compared to what would happen if Ennis became suddenly unavailable. Trevor Cooney would have to handle the ball. Grant would have to play point-forward, maybe? It would be a mess.

Naturally, “most irreplaceable” does not always sum to “most worthy of a spot on a player of the year watch list.” So it helps that Ennis has been crazy good. He’s averaging 11.7 points, 5.6 assists, 3.2 rebounds and 2.6 steals per game. His assist rate (31.9 percent) is high, and his turnover rate (11.4 percent) is low, and no member of the Orange creates more steals (5.0) every 100 possessions. Boeheim’s team is unbeaten in early January, and Ennis’ immediate viability as a point guard is the biggest reason.
 
Tyler Ennis makes his first appearance of the season, coming in 7th in Eamon Brennan's Wooden Watch for the nation's best college player.

You have to take the good with the bad, though. Ennis' name has replaced CJ Fair's in the watch list.

I think Fair should be ahead of Ennis personally. While replacing either would be an absolute disaster, it isn't quite as easy as Eamonn makes it in regards to replacing Fair.

So, I personally think Fair should win the Wooden Award and Ennis comes in 2nd.
 
I think Fair should be ahead of Ennis personally. While replacing either would be an absolute disaster, it isn't quite as easy as Eamonn makes it in regards to replacing Fair.

So, I personally think Fair should win the Wooden Award and Ennis comes in 2nd.

Agreed. The combination of players he mentions could replace the defense of Fair, but not close to the offense, and especially the clutch offense when we REALLY need a bucket, that CJ gives us.
 
Ennis is however our best player don't you guys think? I love CJ but I think Ennis ridiculously good regardless of position or who we have to back him up. I suppose that is controversial to some and certainly CJ in his four seasons has made more contribution to the program all together but Ennis to me is the best basketball player on the team.
 
Ennis is however our best player don't you guys think? I love CJ but I think Ennis ridiculously good regardless of position or who we have to back him up. I suppose that is controversial to some and certainly CJ in his four seasons has made more contribution to the program all together but Ennis to me is the best basketball player on the team.

agree . . . it will be a curiosity of Fair's career that he will go down as one of the all time leaders in points and boards and as a two time scoring leader, but will never have been the best player on the team (freshman year it was Ricky, sophomore year it was Dion, last year it was MCW, this year it's Ennis)
 
agree . . . it will be a curiosity of Fair's career that he will go down as one of the all time leaders in points and boards and as a two time scoring leader, but will never have been the best player on the team (freshman year it was Ricky, sophomore year it was Dion, last year it was MCW, this year it's Ennis)

CJ has had a great steady career where his role has constantly grown and he's handled that new role well every time which says a lot about him. He is deserving to be on that list since he was able to put those numbers up in a stretch where we were very successful but to be on that list and have been a college player after the 90's general means that you were excellent as a player but not an NBA talent or clear NBA talent so you played 4 years of college. Again absolutely no know on CJ who I still think will get a shot at the NBA and could stick if he winds up in the right situation because he's actually a better more efficient player in a supporting roll IMO.
 
I think Fair should be ahead of Ennis personally. While replacing either would be an absolute disaster, it isn't quite as easy as Eamonn makes it in regards to replacing Fair.

So, I personally think Fair should win the Wooden Award and Ennis comes in 2nd.
I think I have to respectfully disagree simply because it would be easier to replace Fair's production. I can't fathom any way we could replace what Ennis has brought to the table this year, not just from what he does, but also what he DOESN'T do. I've never seen such a mistake free point guard at this stage of a career. All of those times he's not turning it over give us more opportunities. Even if our point gives it away 3 times rather than 1 from Ennis, that's still two more possessions that he's giving us by simply being exceptional taking care of the ball.

I love CJ but feel like we could fill his production. I can't see us replacing Ennis, is the TL;DR version.
 
POY will come from McDermott, Smart, Parker. I love our guys, but they aren't NPOY worthy. If this was the Heisman where numbers/team success were important we would have a shot. However, college basketball gives the awards to the player with the best seasons and don't really factor in team performance. I think C.J. Fair/Tyler Ennis will be ACC 1st team with Jerami Grant 2nd team, and maybe one of them can edge out Parker for ACC POY, but I doubt they will beat out McDermott.
 
Yeah it wouldn't be easy to replace either guy, but we could come much closer to replacing CJ than Tyler.

Setting that aside, I still think Tyler has been better than CJ. I can do some quibbling with what CJ has done this year (hasn't been super efficient, i was gonna say has been TO prone, but he has really cut those the last few games), but I'm not sure what I could say bad about Tyler's season so far.
 
Just out of curiosity, anyone know exactly how many of Tyler's assists have come from passes to CJ?
 
agree . . . it will be a curiosity of Fair's career that he will go down as one of the all time leaders in points and boards and as a two time scoring leader, but will never have been the best player on the team (freshman year it was Ricky, sophomore year it was Dion, last year it was MCW, this year it's Ennis)
thats it in a nutshell.

hes a great player, possibly the greatest side dish we've had...but when the game is on the line im not sure JB is going to him.

thats not a bad thing, its testament to how good the rest of the guys are and how great JB is (if im an opposing coach and the game is within +/- 5, and theres 2 minutes to go...id turn to my top assistant and say 'listen, im about to get outcoached here and we are going to lose, so write down every minute thing JB does and lets go over it later').

if you are watching Cuse for the 1st time, it would take a bit for you to realize who 'the man' is.

its not like when DC, JW or Melo are walking on the court where you would know before the tip, or at least very quickly...who the man is.
 
thats it in a nutshell.

hes a great player, possibly the greatest side dish we've had...but when the game is on the line im not sure JB is going to him.

thats not a bad thing, its testament to how good the rest of the guys are and how great JB is (if im an opposing coach and the game is within +/- 5, and theres 2 minutes to go...id turn to my top assistant and say 'listen, im about to get outcoached here and we are going to lose, so write down every minute thing JB does and lets go over it later').

if you are watching Cuse for the 1st time, it would take a bit for you to realize who 'the man' is.

its not like when DC, JW or Melo are walking on the court where you would know before the tip, or at least very quickly...who the man is.

Do you really think that at this point, this year, that CJ isn't option one when the game is on the line? I don't believe that is true at all.

Ennis gets the ball first, sure, but his job is to set up CJ right now. And I'm not that big of a CJ fan.
 
Without Ennis, not ten fu$&%ng games. Not ten.

Ok, maybe 15.

W/out CJ, I could still see a 22-24 win season.
 
Do you really think that at this point, this year, that CJ isn't option one when the game is on the line? I don't believe that is true at all.

Ennis gets the ball first, sure, but his job is to set up CJ right now. And I'm not that big of a CJ fan.
YES. im not sure.

i could easily see the play being for Ennis to drive and depending on matchup, have the option being Fair, Cooney, keep it or even hit Grant close to the hoop.

i think we all agree hes not bringing the ball up the court and i dont see him getting the ball with 5 sec to go and told to create either.

hes got that smooth pump fake, but im not sure that would be the play.
 
Every time we are in a bad spot, Tyler Ennis runs a play to get Fair a shot. That's enough for me.;)

Yeah, because he's the point guard. My post isn't anti-Ennis at all. Without question, he'd be the hardest player to replace given the current makeup of our roster. But our best player is C.J. Fair.

Then again, what do I know. Last year, I never thought Fair would be riding the bench at crunch time in favor of a frontcourt combination of Coleman and Christmas. ;)
 
I just quickly went through the play by plays of the handful of close games we have had. By close I mean within 5 points with 5 minutes to go. That includes St. Francis, Minnesota, St. John's and Miami. It is clear that Ennis and CJ are options 1A and 1B. Counting both who takes the first shot each possession (or gets fouled), there is a slight numerical edge to Tyler. But the thing that jumps out is how the ball really is spread around. Cooney, Grant and even Gbinije have been gone to in several must-score possessions. It's a great comfort knowing that there are always going to be 4 guys on the court who can score, and it's Tyler who is going to set it up and find the one with the most high percentage shot.
 
I love him but I really don't think Ennis is in the same conversation as Fair yet
 
POY will come from McDermott, Smart, Parker. I love our guys, but they aren't NPOY worthy. If this was the Heisman where numbers/team success were important we would have a shot. However, college basketball gives the awards to the player with the best seasons and don't really factor in team performance. I think C.J. Fair/Tyler Ennis will be ACC 1st team with Jerami Grant 2nd team, and maybe one of them can edge out Parker for ACC POY, but I doubt they will beat out McDermott.


Smart is fading. Okie State has a few people injured. They are beginning to slide.
 
I prefer not to try to rank one over the other, they are both very important cogs in our team. Frankly, I'm not sure either one is replaceable. However, I know that we don't presently have a back up point guard and we do have young guys like Roberson that could potentially provide offense at the forward spot...so if pushed I would say that Ennis is the more irreplaceable of two.

This might be blasphemy but I don't think either presents as a particularly worthy National POY candidate at the moment. Of the two I think Ennis has more potential to lift his game to a level that could be POY worthy this season, but I'm not expecting him to do so.
 
I prefer not to try to rank one over the other, they are both very important cogs in our team. Frankly, I'm not sure either one is replaceable. However, I know that we don't presently have a back up point guard and we do have young guys like Roberson that could potentially provide offense at the forward spot...so if pushed I would say that Ennis is the more irreplaceable of two.

This might be blasphemy but I don't think either presents as a particularly worthy National POY candidate at the moment. Of the two I think Ennis has more potential to lift his game to a level that could be POY worthy this season, but I'm not expecting him to do so.
I don't think you're alone there. I don't think either is really worthy of being in the NPOY conversation right now. We are a TEAM more than anything else. How else can you explain the fact that our best player and senior "star" is so often described as being a quiet scorer, and people barely notice him until they look at the box score? We have options. Those aren't bad things to have. We don't rely on one guy to carry us.
 
it is arguable that there are 5 key players who are not really replaceable if the current high level of performance is to be maintained:
  • Ennis - already covered
  • Fair - ditto
  • Cooney - we have seen how the offense slows considerably when he struggles
  • Keita and Christmas are the keys to the defense - can't afford to lose either because neither has been effective in every single game
it's curious that the only "replaceable" guy in the top 6 is the one most experts think is the best NBA prospect
 

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