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Alright, lets do this.
The question you always have to ask yourself in games like this, is, how will what I see here translate against real competition.
This game looked a lot like an exhibition game, which is a good thing because it is obviously being played a lot earlier in the year (and with a lot less practice time) than a normal exhibition game.
Did McGill look like an exhibition team (meaning a DII team)? I'd say they looked a bit worse, but, they played harder (not as concerned with running their own sets and improving as they were with playing SU tough - unless they always play like thugs).
One thing you hear all the time is how freshmen struggle to adapt to the speed of the college game. I thought all three freshmen looked exceptional in this game, especially considering how little practice time they have had . . . but the down side is, this game was played at a snails pace, slower even than a lot of high school games, so judgment needs to be reserved
Still, on face value only, I have seen a lot of very good basketball players look a lot worse in their first exhibition game than all three of our freshmen looked against McGill.
Lets examine the frosh one by one.
Ennis
Who he reminds me of: Moten
Ennis has the kind of smooth, slow, in control, game that Moten had. They don't play all that similarly, but they move very similarly. Ennis has improved tremendously since his junior year in high school, and if he is half as good as Moten was as a freshman, Syracuse is going to be in good shape this year.
How he played: Ennis is not an elite athlete, nor is he overly long, and because of that he will be the only defensive weak spot (other than possibly Coleman) on the team all year. But offensively he might very well be an improvement over MCW. He went the whole game without making a glaring mistake . . .when do you ever see a freshman do that in their first ever game? He looked very good.
Patterson
Who he reminds me of: Mike Hopkins
You always hear that Patterson is Paul Harris with a jump shot, and the two do look a lot alike, but there is almost no basketball similarity. Patterson is not nearly the athlete Paul Harris was, but he can already handle the ball and shoot the ball better than Paul ever could. Harris was a forward in the body of a guard. Patterson is a guard all the way, and he is much smaller than Paul Harris both in height and stature. Patterson is going to be able to stretch the D and hit some 3's. He is going to do some ball handling, but not a ton. He is going to hustle his butt off and be a general pain in the neck to opposing teams. Does that not sound like Mike Hopkins?
How he played: Patterson played much better than I expected. He made mistakes, sure, but compare him to any freshman other than Ennis and he comes away looking pretty good. Overall he was great on D, and a little lost on O. He is quicker and shorter than I was expecting. He doesn't look 6'3, which is how tall I thought he was . . . good thing he has long arms. I came away excited about Patterson and wanting to see more of him.
Johnson
Who he reminds me of: Southerland
Johnson is not the athlete that Southerland is, and he does not have the physical presence that Southerland did, but, he is a very athletic 6'8 forward who is going to be able to hit a lot of 3's and bring a lot of what Southerland brought to the table. The biggest difference here is, Johnson is going to have a much better handle.
How he played: Johnson played the worst of the three freshman, but that is not an insult. All three played well. Johnson made a lot of nice hustle plays both on the O boards and on D. On the bad side, he looked terrible every time he took the ball to the basket (getting blocked a few times) and he missed a few jumpers.
Freshmen, of course, are not the only people you want to watch in a game like this. You also want to watch the sophomores closely to see if anybody made the vaunted "Fab Melo jump."
Coleman
Remember last year when Coleman got blocked a lot by players who were athletically inferior to him? Well in this game Coleman got blocked a lot by players who were athletically inferior to those athletically inferior guys who were blocking him last year. Not a good sign at all. He also played terrible defense an got dominated on the boards.
One mitigating factor is that McGill's very small bigs were extremely physical to the point of being dirty and any retaliation immediately resulted in a whistle for the SU player. All of SU's bigs struggled tonight, and historically most bigs struggle in similar situations. In the next game Coleman will be going up against a 6'11 player who I'm assuming will be a stiff. If Coleman does not look better in that game I will be very disappointed. Pretty frustrating night if you were hoping (as I was) for Coleman to look a lot better than he did last year.
Cooney
He looked exactly the same as last year. He did a lot of good things but missed a TON of shots. The first being an extremely ugly air ball. Towards the end he did hit back to back 3's.
The mitigating factor here is, its way too early to make any kind of judgment, though it was a frustrating night if you were hoping to see improvement from last year.
Grant
He basically dunked over the whole McGill team over and over until they decided to undercut him. Then Grant went to the line a lot because he was always getting undercut. McGill is a team of short, slow, white guys who get good grades and can probably solve complex differential equations. Jeremi Grant has the best height+wingspan+vertical leap combination we have seen since Hakeem Warrick. You don't need a degree in Mathmatics from McGill to be able to do the math here. Grant was dominant.
The mitigating factor here is, we don't yet know what he can do against opposition he can't simply jump over. The early returns are positive though. Only Grant and Fair looked like men playing against boys.
Onto some big picture stuff.
The biggest thing that stood out to me in this game was versatility. Gbinije and Johnson played both the top of the zone and the wing. Patterson, Cooney, and Gbinije all played both on and off the ball. Coleman and Christmas played both on the wing and at center. Fair, Grant, Johnson, and Roberson (when he comes) will all be completely interchangeable as forwards.
Everybody but Ennis has enormous size or length or both. Everybody has a lot of skill and can do multiple things.
I got into a discussion a while back on the recruiting forum about how it seems like Boeheim is no longer recruiting as much towards specific positions, but is now just recruiting size, length, and skill, and letting that skill loose to do what it does (more towards what is trending in the NBA, and away from traditional small point guards, big slow centers, and forwards who are in the middle.). You could see the fruits of this philosophy change very clearly in the game tonight.
It hit me that SU now has three shooting guards in Cooney, Gbinije, and Patterson who are all either freshmen or sophomores, and that none of them is likely to leave early for the NBA. To me this means one of them is going not going to play any meaningful minutes in his career. I will be watching all three carefully to see who ends up standing when the music stops. This is not a battle that will be decided this year. We shouldn't know who the winners and losers are until close to the end of next year, but it will be something fun to keep an eye on.
Small stupid stuff.
Coleman did the opening jump even though Rak was on the court. What's up with that?
Cooney got the start over Gbinije . . . Gbinije played better.
The question you always have to ask yourself in games like this, is, how will what I see here translate against real competition.
This game looked a lot like an exhibition game, which is a good thing because it is obviously being played a lot earlier in the year (and with a lot less practice time) than a normal exhibition game.
Did McGill look like an exhibition team (meaning a DII team)? I'd say they looked a bit worse, but, they played harder (not as concerned with running their own sets and improving as they were with playing SU tough - unless they always play like thugs).
One thing you hear all the time is how freshmen struggle to adapt to the speed of the college game. I thought all three freshmen looked exceptional in this game, especially considering how little practice time they have had . . . but the down side is, this game was played at a snails pace, slower even than a lot of high school games, so judgment needs to be reserved
Still, on face value only, I have seen a lot of very good basketball players look a lot worse in their first exhibition game than all three of our freshmen looked against McGill.
Lets examine the frosh one by one.
Ennis
Who he reminds me of: Moten
Ennis has the kind of smooth, slow, in control, game that Moten had. They don't play all that similarly, but they move very similarly. Ennis has improved tremendously since his junior year in high school, and if he is half as good as Moten was as a freshman, Syracuse is going to be in good shape this year.
How he played: Ennis is not an elite athlete, nor is he overly long, and because of that he will be the only defensive weak spot (other than possibly Coleman) on the team all year. But offensively he might very well be an improvement over MCW. He went the whole game without making a glaring mistake . . .when do you ever see a freshman do that in their first ever game? He looked very good.
Patterson
Who he reminds me of: Mike Hopkins
You always hear that Patterson is Paul Harris with a jump shot, and the two do look a lot alike, but there is almost no basketball similarity. Patterson is not nearly the athlete Paul Harris was, but he can already handle the ball and shoot the ball better than Paul ever could. Harris was a forward in the body of a guard. Patterson is a guard all the way, and he is much smaller than Paul Harris both in height and stature. Patterson is going to be able to stretch the D and hit some 3's. He is going to do some ball handling, but not a ton. He is going to hustle his butt off and be a general pain in the neck to opposing teams. Does that not sound like Mike Hopkins?
How he played: Patterson played much better than I expected. He made mistakes, sure, but compare him to any freshman other than Ennis and he comes away looking pretty good. Overall he was great on D, and a little lost on O. He is quicker and shorter than I was expecting. He doesn't look 6'3, which is how tall I thought he was . . . good thing he has long arms. I came away excited about Patterson and wanting to see more of him.
Johnson
Who he reminds me of: Southerland
Johnson is not the athlete that Southerland is, and he does not have the physical presence that Southerland did, but, he is a very athletic 6'8 forward who is going to be able to hit a lot of 3's and bring a lot of what Southerland brought to the table. The biggest difference here is, Johnson is going to have a much better handle.
How he played: Johnson played the worst of the three freshman, but that is not an insult. All three played well. Johnson made a lot of nice hustle plays both on the O boards and on D. On the bad side, he looked terrible every time he took the ball to the basket (getting blocked a few times) and he missed a few jumpers.
Freshmen, of course, are not the only people you want to watch in a game like this. You also want to watch the sophomores closely to see if anybody made the vaunted "Fab Melo jump."
Coleman
Remember last year when Coleman got blocked a lot by players who were athletically inferior to him? Well in this game Coleman got blocked a lot by players who were athletically inferior to those athletically inferior guys who were blocking him last year. Not a good sign at all. He also played terrible defense an got dominated on the boards.
One mitigating factor is that McGill's very small bigs were extremely physical to the point of being dirty and any retaliation immediately resulted in a whistle for the SU player. All of SU's bigs struggled tonight, and historically most bigs struggle in similar situations. In the next game Coleman will be going up against a 6'11 player who I'm assuming will be a stiff. If Coleman does not look better in that game I will be very disappointed. Pretty frustrating night if you were hoping (as I was) for Coleman to look a lot better than he did last year.
Cooney
He looked exactly the same as last year. He did a lot of good things but missed a TON of shots. The first being an extremely ugly air ball. Towards the end he did hit back to back 3's.
The mitigating factor here is, its way too early to make any kind of judgment, though it was a frustrating night if you were hoping to see improvement from last year.
Grant
He basically dunked over the whole McGill team over and over until they decided to undercut him. Then Grant went to the line a lot because he was always getting undercut. McGill is a team of short, slow, white guys who get good grades and can probably solve complex differential equations. Jeremi Grant has the best height+wingspan+vertical leap combination we have seen since Hakeem Warrick. You don't need a degree in Mathmatics from McGill to be able to do the math here. Grant was dominant.
The mitigating factor here is, we don't yet know what he can do against opposition he can't simply jump over. The early returns are positive though. Only Grant and Fair looked like men playing against boys.
Onto some big picture stuff.
The biggest thing that stood out to me in this game was versatility. Gbinije and Johnson played both the top of the zone and the wing. Patterson, Cooney, and Gbinije all played both on and off the ball. Coleman and Christmas played both on the wing and at center. Fair, Grant, Johnson, and Roberson (when he comes) will all be completely interchangeable as forwards.
Everybody but Ennis has enormous size or length or both. Everybody has a lot of skill and can do multiple things.
I got into a discussion a while back on the recruiting forum about how it seems like Boeheim is no longer recruiting as much towards specific positions, but is now just recruiting size, length, and skill, and letting that skill loose to do what it does (more towards what is trending in the NBA, and away from traditional small point guards, big slow centers, and forwards who are in the middle.). You could see the fruits of this philosophy change very clearly in the game tonight.
It hit me that SU now has three shooting guards in Cooney, Gbinije, and Patterson who are all either freshmen or sophomores, and that none of them is likely to leave early for the NBA. To me this means one of them is going not going to play any meaningful minutes in his career. I will be watching all three carefully to see who ends up standing when the music stops. This is not a battle that will be decided this year. We shouldn't know who the winners and losers are until close to the end of next year, but it will be something fun to keep an eye on.
Small stupid stuff.
Coleman did the opening jump even though Rak was on the court. What's up with that?
Cooney got the start over Gbinije . . . Gbinije played better.
