Carleton Thoughts

[SoBeCuse]

It is always the case that matchups will define how far you advance in the tournament. Someone wins and the other teams loses. If you get a matchup against a team that is built in a way that allows them to exploit your weaknesses you are more likely to be the team that goes home. But I also don't think people recognize SU's zone for what it is, and that is a very effective defense. Those teams were inept at handling the zone because on those days we played it that well.

Too many people want to paint it as slight of hand that only works against teams that aren't accustomed to it and that its success is more a result of the other team's failure than how effective the defense was. Yes, obviously coaches and players that have played against it have a better chance at being successful against it because they have had more time preparing for it, same goes for any team's defense. But it is also a case of matchups in reverse. Some teams have athletes that are better able to exploit the zone defense that we play. If we run into a team that has a dynamic player that can catch the ball at foul line and turn and hit the 12 footer or kick to an open player that can hit the shot that is available then we will have a more difficult time, but when we are playing good zone defense that is more difficult to do that it looks like when the commentator draw it up.

Right. I'm talking strictly more offensive basketball. I'm never truly worried about our defense and teams handling it. It's going to happen eventually when you get a certain matchup like you say. But I worry about scoring enough consistently to overcome when this situation happens.

 

[rrlbees]

Not getting the fatigue factor people talk about for last night. If we had practiced Wednesday and Thursday, nobody would have been concerned. The players go as hard in practice as they had to Wednesday and Thursday, and for 3-4x as long since nobody played extended minutes. Thursday looked like Bishop Grimes.

Tonight may be a different story.


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[Madbiker]

Things change over the course of a season and you are right its way too early to make any definitive judgments. But my speculations have changed a bit because of this trip.

1) I see SU's lack of transition offense as a concern.

2) I thought (maybe hoped) Keita and Coleman would be our center combo. Now I see Keita as option A, and Rak as option B.

3) I thought Gbinije would be our starting shooting guard, now I think Cooney will be our starting shooting guard.

4) I was impressed by all three freshmen.

-The lack of transition offense might be due to the lack of practices. Keep in mind these guys haven't played together and some of them are in new positions. Gbinije was a forward in high school and at Duke. I think (hope) it improves a lot after a month of practices.
-TC's shooting was so bad that he was actually on the bench from the 10 minute mark. Gbinije was at the 2g along side Ennis. It was only when CJ had to go out at about the 6 minute mark that Cooney came back in and Gbinije moved to take Fair's SF spot. It was good to see TC respond and hit a couple shots.
- DC2's defense is awful. That worries me more than his poor offense. Either he still doesn't know the rotations in the zone or he's just too slow to react and move. That is really a problem.
- BJ Johnson looks like a player. Would like to see him get some time at the 2G. Minutes at the 3 will be tough to come by especially after Roberson joins the squad.
- Ennis was terrific. No worries at the PG this year except for backup.

 

[Quazzum69]

I didn't see the games, but I think there may be a little too much criticism of Rak's and DC's play in an August exhibition. When Coleman struggled last November, most people probably said "it's only November, he will improve over the next five months." There's seven months until the end of this season - he'll improve.

We will be better offensively this season.

Guards: Ennis/Gbinije/better Cooney/Buss > MCW/Triche/bad Cooney
Forward: better CJ/Super Grant/Beast/BJ > good CJ/minimal Grant/streaky Southerland
Center: could they be any worse than last year???

 

[MCC]

If it's not coaching, then why do none of our bigs know how to execute a simple drop step with their back to the basket? I mean, it's unbelievable. You can teach a 10 year old the drop step, and after that, it's just a matter of repetition. Catch, pivot, bank shot from 4 feet. Catch, pivot, bank shot from 4 feet. Do it for 30 minutes, and then change sides of the lane, and pivot the other way. And of course the counter move to the drop step is the jump hook, pivoting toward the middle of the floor instead of to the baseline. This is something every big man should know how to do by the time he's in 1oth grade, if actually works at his game and just doesn't play pick up all the time.

I concur - and the catch and pivot is central to everything else.

Catch, pivot, jump hook.

Catch, pivot, pump fake, duck under for lay in / dunk.

Catch, pivot, pump fake, fall away jumper (ideally banked in).

You can also reach your pivot foot back to the side and nearly behind the defender, then catch and immediately spin baseline for the layin / dunk / reverse layup depending on what the help defense gives you.

Then work catch and turning to your other shoulder. Same moves.

For really advanced post players, you can give the defender a bump and then execute a jump stop a few feet away and shoot unmolested from anywhere in the 8' to 12' range.

Repetition, repetition. Watch film of Olajuwon and Adrian Dantley. Practice your FTs because you'll get a lot of them.

 

[rrlbees]

I concur - and the catch and pivot is central to everything else.

Catch, pivot, jump hook.

Catch, pivot, pump fake, duck under for lay in / dunk.

Catch, pivot, pump fake, fall away jumper (ideally banked in).

You can also reach your pivot foot back to the side and nearly behind the defender, then catch and immediately spin baseline for the layin / dunk / reverse layup depending on what the help defense gives you.

Then work catch and turning to your other shoulder. Same moves.

For really advanced post players, you can give the defender a bump and then execute a jump stop a few feet away and shoot unmolested from anywhere in the 8' to 12' range.

Repetition, repetition. Watch film of Olajuwon and Adrian Dantley. Practice your FTs because you'll get a lot of them.

That's a good majority of the big man drills used at SU among others. Some just never get it due to foot speed/coordination.

Ever see Etan Thomas play? Long NBA career. Never had a drop step or used pump fakes. Now...Otis Hill was one center who had a variety of moves.

People are wasting their time if they think Rak or Baye are ever going to have offensive moves. Now DC might in time but his feet may hold him back.


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[pfister1]

I concur - and the catch and pivot is central to everything else.

Catch, pivot, jump hook.

Catch, pivot, pump fake, duck under for lay in / dunk.

Catch, pivot, pump fake, fall away jumper (ideally banked in).

You can also reach your pivot foot back to the side and nearly behind the defender, then catch and immediately spin baseline for the layin / dunk / reverse layup depending on what the help defense gives you.

Then work catch and turning to your other shoulder. Same moves.

For really advanced post players, you can give the defender a bump and then execute a jump stop a few feet away and shoot unmolested from anywhere in the 8' to 12' range.

Repetition, repetition. Watch film of Olajuwon and Adrian Dantley. Practice your FTs because you'll get a lot of them.

I hate throwing the coaching under the bus on the issue of the development of our big men for a number of reasons.

1. For a variety of reasons it isn't easy to develop a big man with those abilities.
- there is simply a smaller pool of talent to work with (there are fewer 6'9" - 7' people in this world then there are 5'10" -6'8" people). So we tend to begin with rawer talent than we might at other positions.
- we typically have fewer centers on the roster, so when one doesn't work out it may not be as easy to bury him, use another player in his place and not notice that he isn't working out.
- oftentimes guys with the height to play center are awkward and not nearly as athletically advanced as others, they are growing into their height.

2. This simply isn't as easy as the original post made it sound. If it were there wouldn't be so many stiff big men still hanging around the NBA.

3. It isn't as though we've never had centers that have developed some of the offensive post skills that you are talking about. Most recently AO developed good post skills, Hak developed them, Otis Hill did, Seikaly developed them.

4. It isn't as though we haven't seen Rak try some of those moves. You've seen it infrequently for the same reason you don't see him jacking 3s. He hasn't been particularly successful at converting. Is this the coaching or the athlete??
If you have other options (meaning other ways on the court to score) you don't continue to work the ones that you know have a low probability of success. I haven't seen enough DCII to know.

5. I believe that JB values a center that can be a shot blocking presence and defend the middle more highly than he does a center that has a good offensive skillset. That is not to say that he wouldn't want both in a center, but those guys are few and far between. So, when we recruit do we tend to end up with center prospects that are more inclined to develop defensively than offensively? I don't know just a theory.

6. You didn't mention it (and it wasn't mentioned in this thread) but it often comes up in the context of this topic...... you don't have to be tall to be able to teach someone how to play tall. The idea that we need a big man to teach our big men only flies from the psychological perspective in my view.

 

[Orangezoo]

That's a good majority of the big man drills used. Some just never get it die to foot speed/coordination.

Ever see Etan Thomas play? Long NBA career. Never had a drop step or used pimp fakes. Now Otis Hill was one center who had a variety of moves.

People are wasting their time if they think Rak or Baye are ever going to have offensive moves. Now DC might in time but his feet may hold him back.


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i think people are too quick to expect dc2 to immediately be like AO since he is a burger boy. It is the mental piece holding him back for sure. Also AO was a really smart dude which surely benefitted him in his ability to have a nice array of post moves. As you said it is not all practice- footwork takes both muscle memory as well as bball iq and understanding where you are.

 

[SoBeCuse]

Disagree about Etan. He developed a few moves, jump hook, and such. He was a double-digit scorer. I agree that Rak/Baye just will never develop any for whatever reasons. Optimistic that DC2 may. I sometimes need to take a step back and realize, specific to Rak, that it's not his fault he was so overhyped by the recruitniks. He's a great athlete with very little skill and bball IQ. Probably hard to coach that up.

 

[Halfmooncuse]

Here is everything you need to know about the Carleton game if you did not get a chance to watch it.

The basics:

Carleton came out and punched SU in the mouth (not so much with scoring, but with very solid defense and rebounding) and Syracuse folded like a cheap suit. Carleton got out to a 13-3 lead, and was pretty much in control for about 65% of the game, dealing with the few runs SU made very well.

Syracuse was down 9 at half.

Carleton pushed the lead up to 15, and that is when Boeheim started playing the game like it was a regular season game that mattered, and the players followed suit.

Syracuse's D promptly shut Carleton down, and its O scored just enough to win in overtime.

Who is Carleton anyway:

Well, they lost to the national champion Louisville Cardinals by a single point last year and they brought everybody back this year. If I remember correctly, their starting line up included three 5 year seniors and two 4 year seniors.

They destroyed TCU and then destroyed Wisconsin in their last two games.

They are the John Wooden UCLA of Canada, winning 9 of the last 11 championships including a few undefeated seasons. They are something ridiculous like 194-8 over the last five years.

They also have no practice restrictions like NCAA teams do. The team stays together all year, practices, and plays top notch competition all year long.

That is all the good stuff. The bad is they are undersized, they are not athletic by USA D1 standards, and they are not a particularly good shooting team. They are an D1 quality team, but they do not have the quality of a major conference D1 team. They are your typical savvy veteran mid-major team.

The details:

Carleton has their act together on defense. They made very few mistakes, and made Syracuse earn everything. Syracuse took a long while to adjust (they had gotten anything they wanted in the first few games). By the time Syracuse did, Carleton had a big lead.

Carleton did press the whole game, but it was a soft press and that part of their defense did not give Syracuse any trouble. Ennis, Gbinije, and even Cooney handled it well.

On the other end of the court, Carleton had no idea how to attack SU's zone - and even if they knew how to attack it they probably didn't have the players to pull it off. You can always tell when a team is beaten by the zone when they resort to shooting 3's on every possession. Carleton shot a whopping TWENTY 3 pointers in the first half alone!

Luckily for them, Syracuse does not have their act together yet on D. Mind you, there is no way they could with so many new players and so little practice time. Syracuse was leaving Carleton players open for shots without being forced to do so by dribble penetration or good passing. They just missed a ton of assignments. If Syracuse played this team during the season when its players knew how to react in the zone, this game would not have been remotely close.

Carleton only shot a little under 30% from three early. If they had made 40 or 50% of their wide open 3 point shots they would have put the game away early, but as I said before they are not a really good shooting team.

Carleton's early lead came from shutting SU down completely on offense, and dominating the boards early (this turned to domination in SU's favor when Keita got in the game).

By the time Carleton got up by 15, Boeheim had trimmed his rotation to Ennis, Cooney, Gbinije, Grant, Keita.

Fair was playing hurt, and while he did hit a couple shots, he was clearly not himself. Early in the second half he reaggrivated his injury and never came back in. I don't expect to see him tomorrow.

Keita and Grant shut Carleton down inside. Pretty much everything they tried to do inside - and they only had one or two plays that didn't involve chucking up covered threes - resulted in a blocked shot.

Syracuse's offense came primarily from two places. Ennis creating, and making things happen off the bounce, and Grant posting up the 6'4ish player who was trying to guard him.

I thought Ennis was the best player in the game, even though his shooting percentage was probably not very good.

Grant hit a lot of free throws down the stretch to give Syracuse the win.

Important things I noticed:

The most important thing I noticed is how terrible Syracuse played with Coleman at center. They were really like a completely different team. With Coleman in the game, Carleton dominated the boards, and was able to score inside. With Keita or Rak in the game Syracuse dominated the boards and everything Carleton tried to put up in the paint got sent back out.

Right now Keita is our best center. I thought Rak played very well, but man, Canadian refs hate him!

The other important thing I noticed is that Syracuse looked terrible in transition. Even though their D was able to flummox and pretty well shut down Carleton they got very few points out of it. That is very un-syracuse-like, and bears keeping an eye on when the real season gets under way.

Impressions:

Ennis continues to be a revelation. He looks to be a very good player.

Cooney is separating himself from Gbinije right now. Gbinije looks to be a useful bench player who can do a lot of things, but right now he is invisible a lot of the time. Cooney didn't shoot a great percentage in this game, but he did make things happen, both from shooting deep, and off the bounce, and defensively too. I can see him being deadly if he can get his three point shot down, and then pair that up with the blow by and pull up mid range shot you can tell he is working on.

Fair and Grant will be the strength of our team.

Keita is clearly the best center we have, Christmas does seem improved, Coleman looks like a liability right now.

BJ Johnson did not play much, but I thought he looked great in the limited PT he had. BJ played all his minutes at the 3. I was hoping he would get a little bit of run at the 2. I think that Boeheim wanted to test his ball handlers against Carleton's press and that is why he kept Johnson at the back of the zone, but I really think BJ's best chance to see the court this year will be at the 2. Keep an eye on him, he could become a key player before the season is over.

Patterson hardly played at all. He has had the yips this entire time, however I really like the way he plays. Its normal for a freshman to have the yips in his first few games, but that will go away. If he ever can put some O to go along with his D, which is already noticeably good, watch out.

Overall I think Syracuse is looking mighty good for how early in the season it is. They expended a lot of energy tonight, and might have a very difficult time in their game tomorrow. Look for Johnson and Patterson to play a lot more. There is some skill and talent on this team. The important thing will be finding production from the 2 all year long.

How do you see Tyler Roberson fitting in with trhis team. What do you believe he will give us that we may be lacking now.?

 

[General20]

How do you see Tyler Roberson fitting in with trhis team. What do you believe he will give us that we may be lacking now.?

I think Roberson is a perfect fit in SU's system, much in the mold of Grant, Fair, etc. I think that when games matter the only guys getting any kind of run at the forward spot will be Grant, Fair, and Roberson. With Grant and Fair playing starters minutes and Roberson gobbling up all the minutes when either of those two sit.

Not that you asked, but Keita lead us to a final four playing great at center, he was always going to get big minutes. Either Coleman or Christmas will also get pretty big minutes (a center can't play 35 minutes a game). Before these games I was expecting Coleman to win this battle, now I expect Christmas to win it.

For guards you will see Ennis play HUGE minutes. I see Cooney playing starters minutes as the two. Gbinije backs up everybody. BJ Johnson is a dark horse here. I think he has a realistic shot at contributing at the two.

 

[Col. Bleep]

Here's what I see: Rutgers numbers and a Syracuse result.
8 assists and 18 turnovers.
And still a big win.

 

[samspann]

Where did you see that they lost to Louisville by 1 last year?