He's best used in PNR at the top of the key. Pick and pop for an open 3. Otherwise, like you said, operate in the paint or high post. Don't worry, Red will fix this.
No diss on Kiyan but our best free throw shooter should take our technicals and currently that’s Freeman. (was he in the game at the time? I don’t recall) Our best free throw shooter should be rewarded by taking them, not a time to try to build confidence in a shaky free throw shooter even if he was doing better in practice. Just my opinion. I’m certain they have been working on their free throw shooting in practice but these players have to motivate themselves to work on them seriously on their own too to build their own confidence or they will mentally freak or avoid situations where they may need to go to the line. We’re encouraging teams to foul us otherwise as a defensive strategy. Someday soon Kiyan may actually be a player we want at the line in crucial situations,
With our without a pulse
AGREED!
Yes I wish we had played better but a win is a win.
Nothing was Starling's fault - he's just back from a hammy - although that air ball free throw wasn't very special.
The turnover issue and points-off-turnover differential is a great point to make. I noticed that as well and pointed it out. Syracuse feasted off turnovers and fast breaks for the past three games (and that was historically how the program thrived for 4 decades), but we didn’t last night for some reason, even though Monmouth came in as a team that turned the ball over frequently. What happened? Part of it was our lack of energy and aggression on defense. But also Red failed to turn up the full court pressure in the second half, perhaps out of concerns about a number of key players being in foul trouble (because of the awful refereeing).We actually shot very well. If you look at the stats, we shot 54.3% from 2 and 41.2% from 3. Our free throw % was very poor 19/33 or 57.6%. Our rebounding is still an issue despite out rebounding them by 1. That Torres kid played only 22 minutes and had 8 rebounds being tied with a teammate for top rebounders over Freeman and Kyle, our top rebounders with 7. Of course missing 14 free throws gave Monmouth probably 14 more chances for a rebound.
We outshot them, beat them in blocks, had more assists than Monmouth but they had 4 more steals than us and had more points off our 12 turnovers (3 more points) than we did off their 12 turnovers. (18 vs 15) If you look at the stats you’d think we won by more than we did - the extra possessions and lost points that they got from our missed free throws helped close the gap. They took advantage of our miscues.
