General20
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At the end of my Minnesota thoughts, I made the point that Syracuse is a hard team to beat with little or no preparation. In hindsight this was a foolish statement. Historically Syracuse is a hard team to beat with minimal preparation because historically Syracuse plays exceptional defense. This year Syracuse is playing poor defense, and poor defensive teams are never hard to play against.
I like this Cal team, and I have a feeling that when March comes around they will be considered the best of the Maui teams (not counting Syracuse). Against Minnesota (who I don't think has the horses to run the type of system they want to run) I thought Syracuse got a good win against a rather mediocre team. Against Cal I think the exact opposite is true, Syracuse got a rather mediocre win against a good team.
Cal had a lot going against them in this game. First of all their best player Justin Cobbs is completely useless against zone defenses (he went for 18 and 8 but 10 of his 18 came in garbage time when SU had a 10 point lead and the game got sloppy, he only scored 5 points against our zone and missed 8 shots). Secondly, Cal's best big man (who had something like 22 and 11 against SU last year) did not play, and as Syracuse fans we know what a disaster losing your center can be. Remove a teams two best players (both seniors) and that team is usually going to lose.
Cal plays more 3-2 zone than any other defense, but against Syracuse they played man to man exclusively (with the exception of out of bounds plays). According to Matt Park, Boeheim mentioned in a pre game interview that he guessed Cal would choose to employ man defense instead of their preferred zone, and its important to understand why.
My educated guess is this.
Cal saw that they would guard our freshman point guard with their red shirt senior point guard, who happens to be an uber-athletic all Pac 12 performer, and they assumed he would win that battle. Then they saw what Cooney has been doing (making about 50% of his threes) and figured they could blanket him with ultra athletic 6'6 McDonald All American Jabari Bird or 6'4 Jordan Matthews and shut him down.
This seems like a pretty rational game plan to me, and I can't fault them for it. Syracuse is bigger and more athletic at the forward positions, and Cal wanted to neutralize that advantage by disrupting the young Syracuse guards. What actually happened was Ennis and Cooney went off for a combined 51 points on 70% shooting. Yikes.
You may wonder why Cal never switched back to their 3-2 zone, despite struggling in man. I believe Cooney deserves all the credit here. He hit two threes on in bounds plays (the only time Cal was in zone) and Montgomery must have thought he could not risk giving Cooney those kind of looks on a regular basis. Its nice to see Syracuse work on these kinds of plays regularly against mid majors, and then have them play a huge role in a win against a very good team who I believe will crack the top 25 at some point in the season and remain there.
So Cal's senior center was hurt, their senior point guard got lit up on one end of the court and looked impotent on the other end of the court, and Syracuse was noticeably bigger, stronger, and faster at the forward positions. I told you Cal had a lot going against them.
Despite all this, Cal had the lead for long stretches in both the first and second half, and the blame for this falls squarely on Syracuse's defense. I can't put the blame on any one or two people. There were holes all over the place. One of the problems with playing so many games against good teams so early in the season is you don't have time to work on fundamentals, and Syracuse is in desperate need of a few weeks to work on fundamental 2-3 zone defense. Eventually they are going to get it. Some SU teams are better than others, but I've never seen SU play flat out bad defense in March, and I have no reason to believe this team will, but until the light turns on I expect every game to be an adventure.
There was a stretch late in the second half where Syracuse seemed to put it together defensively, and during that stretch Cal looked like a team that had no chance to win - which is exactly what Syracuse should have made them look like from the beginning. Hopefully a valuable lesson was learned here.
Player evaluations
Ennis - This was one of the best performances a Syracuse freshman has ever had, not only because of the numbers he put up, but because of who the numbers were put up against. Justin Cobbs might be the most athletic point we will see all year, and if he couldn't stay in front of Ennis who can? Minnesota played all zone (zone press, then 2-3) and they couldn't stay in front of Ennis either. It really is impossible not to get excited about the future. The negative is that going by the shot charts, Ennis only hit two jump shots. EVERY other basket was a layup, which he has mostly been missing this year. If Solomon was there to protect the basket, would Ennis have missed these lay ups too? That is the only question I have. If Ennis proves he can finish over athletic big men you are looking at a superstar, because I'm convinced nobody can stay in front of him at this point. On defense Ennis is trying to do too much and gets himself out of position way too often. I'm sure his high school team needed him to be everywhere. Syracuse doesn't. Boehiem is bound to break that habit soon enough.
Cooney - When you look at the shot chart, Cooney's makes are coming from all around the three point arc. Even most pros have a spot they are comfortable shooting from. This makes Cooney hard to game plan for and hard to stop. Add to that, the fact that he is looking more and more comfortable driving the lane and finishing around the basket, and now even distributing, and you have a guy that is very hard to stop. At some point you run out of superlatives for how he is playing. I believe he is our best player at this point.
Fair - Syracuse went to Fair early and often. They obviously thought they had a huge mismatch (with Solomon out Cal was covering Fair with a guard). Fair missed something like his first six or seven shots, and that is a big reason why Cal got an early lead. After that Fair was pretty okay, scoring 14 points on around 50% shooting. Obviously when teams put a guard on Fair we want him to dominate. In this game he was not good enough, but if Fair is Syracuse's biggest problem they are going to be just fine. Most of the time I expect Fair to score 20 or more in that kind of situation.
Christmas - Did a few nice things, but was generally invisible, as is his tendency. Christmas has improved his game, and that is a good thing, but I would not expect him to put up huge stats this year.
Coleman - To me he looked tired playing two games in a row. I would not expect Coleman to play many minutes against Baylor or to be very affective in the minutes he gets.
Gbinije - Didn't play much at guard because when either Ennis or Cooney came out Syracuse got a lot worse. Cal was able to disrupt Gbinije in the ways they wanted to disrupt Ennis and Cooney but could not. When Grant fouled out Gbinije filled in at forward and played good defense.
Grant - Had a nice game that included going 5-6 from the line and hitting three mid range jump shots (which is huge for him). Grant got called for a couple of lousy fouls and I think that hurt his intensity on defense. I will never be completely happy with him until he is a shot blocking and steal machine (because he has the athleticism for it). Right now he seems to have to think about where he has to be rather than letting his instincts and athleticism take over. This is nitpicking of course. 19 and 8 is pretty great production for 28 minutes of game time.
Keita - I thought Keita was one of the few defensive bright spots, and by far the best big man in this game. Sometimes offenses fail to score, and sometimes defenses STOP them. Most of the STOPS Syracuse got involved Keita being long and disruptive in some way.
Baylor is tonight, and I expect them to hit a lot of threes. If Syracuse is going to win they are going to have to score a bunch of points and prove that they can finish around the basket against the likes of Isaiah Austin. Should be a good test at this point in the year.
I like this Cal team, and I have a feeling that when March comes around they will be considered the best of the Maui teams (not counting Syracuse). Against Minnesota (who I don't think has the horses to run the type of system they want to run) I thought Syracuse got a good win against a rather mediocre team. Against Cal I think the exact opposite is true, Syracuse got a rather mediocre win against a good team.
Cal had a lot going against them in this game. First of all their best player Justin Cobbs is completely useless against zone defenses (he went for 18 and 8 but 10 of his 18 came in garbage time when SU had a 10 point lead and the game got sloppy, he only scored 5 points against our zone and missed 8 shots). Secondly, Cal's best big man (who had something like 22 and 11 against SU last year) did not play, and as Syracuse fans we know what a disaster losing your center can be. Remove a teams two best players (both seniors) and that team is usually going to lose.
Cal plays more 3-2 zone than any other defense, but against Syracuse they played man to man exclusively (with the exception of out of bounds plays). According to Matt Park, Boeheim mentioned in a pre game interview that he guessed Cal would choose to employ man defense instead of their preferred zone, and its important to understand why.
My educated guess is this.
Cal saw that they would guard our freshman point guard with their red shirt senior point guard, who happens to be an uber-athletic all Pac 12 performer, and they assumed he would win that battle. Then they saw what Cooney has been doing (making about 50% of his threes) and figured they could blanket him with ultra athletic 6'6 McDonald All American Jabari Bird or 6'4 Jordan Matthews and shut him down.
This seems like a pretty rational game plan to me, and I can't fault them for it. Syracuse is bigger and more athletic at the forward positions, and Cal wanted to neutralize that advantage by disrupting the young Syracuse guards. What actually happened was Ennis and Cooney went off for a combined 51 points on 70% shooting. Yikes.
You may wonder why Cal never switched back to their 3-2 zone, despite struggling in man. I believe Cooney deserves all the credit here. He hit two threes on in bounds plays (the only time Cal was in zone) and Montgomery must have thought he could not risk giving Cooney those kind of looks on a regular basis. Its nice to see Syracuse work on these kinds of plays regularly against mid majors, and then have them play a huge role in a win against a very good team who I believe will crack the top 25 at some point in the season and remain there.
So Cal's senior center was hurt, their senior point guard got lit up on one end of the court and looked impotent on the other end of the court, and Syracuse was noticeably bigger, stronger, and faster at the forward positions. I told you Cal had a lot going against them.
Despite all this, Cal had the lead for long stretches in both the first and second half, and the blame for this falls squarely on Syracuse's defense. I can't put the blame on any one or two people. There were holes all over the place. One of the problems with playing so many games against good teams so early in the season is you don't have time to work on fundamentals, and Syracuse is in desperate need of a few weeks to work on fundamental 2-3 zone defense. Eventually they are going to get it. Some SU teams are better than others, but I've never seen SU play flat out bad defense in March, and I have no reason to believe this team will, but until the light turns on I expect every game to be an adventure.
There was a stretch late in the second half where Syracuse seemed to put it together defensively, and during that stretch Cal looked like a team that had no chance to win - which is exactly what Syracuse should have made them look like from the beginning. Hopefully a valuable lesson was learned here.
Player evaluations
Ennis - This was one of the best performances a Syracuse freshman has ever had, not only because of the numbers he put up, but because of who the numbers were put up against. Justin Cobbs might be the most athletic point we will see all year, and if he couldn't stay in front of Ennis who can? Minnesota played all zone (zone press, then 2-3) and they couldn't stay in front of Ennis either. It really is impossible not to get excited about the future. The negative is that going by the shot charts, Ennis only hit two jump shots. EVERY other basket was a layup, which he has mostly been missing this year. If Solomon was there to protect the basket, would Ennis have missed these lay ups too? That is the only question I have. If Ennis proves he can finish over athletic big men you are looking at a superstar, because I'm convinced nobody can stay in front of him at this point. On defense Ennis is trying to do too much and gets himself out of position way too often. I'm sure his high school team needed him to be everywhere. Syracuse doesn't. Boehiem is bound to break that habit soon enough.
Cooney - When you look at the shot chart, Cooney's makes are coming from all around the three point arc. Even most pros have a spot they are comfortable shooting from. This makes Cooney hard to game plan for and hard to stop. Add to that, the fact that he is looking more and more comfortable driving the lane and finishing around the basket, and now even distributing, and you have a guy that is very hard to stop. At some point you run out of superlatives for how he is playing. I believe he is our best player at this point.
Fair - Syracuse went to Fair early and often. They obviously thought they had a huge mismatch (with Solomon out Cal was covering Fair with a guard). Fair missed something like his first six or seven shots, and that is a big reason why Cal got an early lead. After that Fair was pretty okay, scoring 14 points on around 50% shooting. Obviously when teams put a guard on Fair we want him to dominate. In this game he was not good enough, but if Fair is Syracuse's biggest problem they are going to be just fine. Most of the time I expect Fair to score 20 or more in that kind of situation.
Christmas - Did a few nice things, but was generally invisible, as is his tendency. Christmas has improved his game, and that is a good thing, but I would not expect him to put up huge stats this year.
Coleman - To me he looked tired playing two games in a row. I would not expect Coleman to play many minutes against Baylor or to be very affective in the minutes he gets.
Gbinije - Didn't play much at guard because when either Ennis or Cooney came out Syracuse got a lot worse. Cal was able to disrupt Gbinije in the ways they wanted to disrupt Ennis and Cooney but could not. When Grant fouled out Gbinije filled in at forward and played good defense.
Grant - Had a nice game that included going 5-6 from the line and hitting three mid range jump shots (which is huge for him). Grant got called for a couple of lousy fouls and I think that hurt his intensity on defense. I will never be completely happy with him until he is a shot blocking and steal machine (because he has the athleticism for it). Right now he seems to have to think about where he has to be rather than letting his instincts and athleticism take over. This is nitpicking of course. 19 and 8 is pretty great production for 28 minutes of game time.
Keita - I thought Keita was one of the few defensive bright spots, and by far the best big man in this game. Sometimes offenses fail to score, and sometimes defenses STOP them. Most of the STOPS Syracuse got involved Keita being long and disruptive in some way.
Baylor is tonight, and I expect them to hit a lot of threes. If Syracuse is going to win they are going to have to score a bunch of points and prove that they can finish around the basket against the likes of Isaiah Austin. Should be a good test at this point in the year.
