Color Me Concerned

[cusetown1]

We won without Grant, I feel pretty good about that. The season isn't over and humans develop. We need to get right by tourney time, not this weekend.

Our TWO losses have been close. You're complaining about close wins? When we have a bullseye in our back every night?

The wins make us elite, not the score differential. As a bonus, we are very very seasoned in close games.

Joyless fans is what some cuse fans are.

 

[zhanjuzi]

26-2 and the two losses went to the wire. We can play with anyone.

Yup .. keep winning .. no extra points for style or margin of victory. Nice road win tonight! Virginia should be another great tight game.

 

[iommi]

Joyless fans is what some cuse fans are.

I have a ton of joy and passion. My concerns are reasonable...I didn't say I hate this team. I didn't say we suck. I'm concerned. Our offense has been a grind and it seems to be getting worse. I hope Grant is okay because we are not a second weekend team without him.

 

[anomander]

The one thing I am extremely confident in is that we will show up for big games. We definitely play down to the competition. Our energy level definitely kicks up a few notches when it needs to. I am expecting a good showing this Saturday.

 

[cusetown1]

I have a ton of joy and passion. My concerns are reasonable...I didn't say I hate this team. I didn't say we suck. I'm concerned. Our offense has been a grind and it seems to be getting worse. I hope Grant is okay because we are not a second weekend team without him.

We just won our biggest game of the year IMO.

 

[Marsh01]

I have a ton of joy and passion. My concerns are reasonable...I didn't say I hate this team. I didn't say we suck. I'm concerned. Our offense has been a grind and it seems to be getting worse. I hope Grant is okay because we are not a second weekend team without him.[/QUOTE
Our offense is in a grind because thats what we are. Basically pittsburgh. Mean grind teams. Mediocre offense and win close games.

Imagine when the shots start falling (and they will)

 

[OrangeDW]

Grant not playing, and cooney ice cold and we still won

Survive and advance on the road. Big win

I guess I'm freaking out a little that these two things aren't going to go away.

 

[NKR1978]

Total BS

We didn't win?

 

[SWC75]

The odds are the exact same of losing to a 14-16 seed as getting to an elite 8?

It doesn't seem to make any difference who we play. In the last 5 games, (using current records):

- We beat a 20-7 team 58-56
- We beat a 17-10 team 56-55
- We lost to a 7-20 team 59-62 in overtime
- We lost to a 22-6 team 60-66
- We beat a 15-13 team 57-55

 

[iommi]

marsh, Pittsburgh? The team that gets bounced in the tourney early every year. That's one comparison I don't like.

 

[iommi]

It doesn't seem to make any difference who we play. In the last 5 games, (using current records):

- We beat a 20-7 team 58-56
- We beat a 17-10 team 56-55
- We lost to a 7-20 team 59-62 in overtime
- We lost to a 22-6 team 60-66
- We beat a 15-13 team 57-55

Exactly, it's a trend of ugly offense, good defense and heart attack inducing finishes.

 

[LennX6]

I have a ton of joy and passion. My concerns are reasonable...I didn't say I hate this team. I didn't say we suck. I'm concerned. Our offense has been a grind and it seems to be getting worse. I hope Grant is okay because we are not a second weekend team without him.

I'm not thinking thew same way as I did 2 weeks ago, mainly because of the war of attrition.

 

[007]

Good post, but you can sleep better tonight knowing this: teams don't score squat against us. We are going to Dallas because you have to score more points to beat us and only 1.5 teams have done that this year.

Maryland had a week.

Good post, jack. The D has been exceptional for a few years now. And, it's even more difficult to score against that D in the tourney under lose and go home pressure.

Now, if we could only shoot better than 40%...

 

[victor]

And anyone can play with us... :noidea:

Any one can play with us except we win and they lose.

 

[NineOneSeven]

Man, all I know is I'm mentally exhausted! Lol.

 

[SoBeCuse]

We just won our biggest game of the year IMO.

Big win for sure. Nothing wrong with being a concerned fan. Don't interpret that as joyless or less fans than you are. You can't be that naive not to see some major offensive problems looming. None of us want to see another situation deep in the Tourney where the defense is good enough to win, the offensive execution sucks, and/or a game ends on one of those tunnel vision charges where a SU guy crashes into a defender when a pass or better option is there.

 

[Halo]

Ugly games are just part of the athletic experience. A win is a win. When the shots fall, life is good. Not much can be done when a shooter goes cold, just have to shoot though it. We don't have the personnel or the depth to blow teams out like everyone wants.

 

[TheCusian]

this game did very little to build my confidence that we are indeed elite.

We are by definition elite. We have 2 losses and are ranked #2. Measuring how elite a team is relative. Compared to the rest of CBB, we are in the top percentile.

 

[cusetown1]

Big win for sure. Nothing wrong with being a concerned fan. Don't interpret that as joyless or less fans than you are. You can't be that naive not to see some major offensive problems looming. None of us want to see another situation deep in the Tourney where the defense is good enough to win, the offensive execution sucks, and/or a game ends on one of those tunnel vision charges where a SU guy crashes into a defender when a pass or better option is there.

That's fine but the past couple games our guys have been in foul trouble in the first half. Plus it's February, our grinder month.

 

[SoBeCuse]

The one thing I am extremely confident in is that we will show up for big games. We definitely play down to the competition. Our energy level definitely kicks up a few notches when it needs to. I am expecting a good showing this Saturday.

Agreed and this is a big positive. I just can't figure out these 1H lulls. We started GREAT @Duke and tonight then it just crashes and burns. Opponent gets back into the game allowing grinders the rest of the way.

 

[Marsh01]

marsh, Pittsburgh? The team that gets bounced in the tourney early every year. That's one comparison I don't like.

Style of play. Meat grinding every team.

 

[NorSyr66]

I've come to the realization that this team will play every opponent close the rest of the way, So expect a nail-biter with Virginia and then again with Georgia Tech. Just the way this team goes. Nothing is going to come easy. Grant's back, though, is a concern.

I totally agree. Just the nature of this team to not make any wins easy. I am even starting to get nervous when Syracuse gets up by 10 since I now have learned to expect the hammer to come down. Add to that the free throw discrepancy tonight and and here we are at the buzzer again. Not sure what Grant's back problem is but if it lingers , Syracuse simply does not have enough scorers.

 

[iommi]

Style of play. Meat grinding every team.

I get your point but my point is where does meat grinder team Pitt go in the tourney?:bat:

 

[SoBeCuse]

We didn't win?

On the hacking part. That was some soft M2M D from them, imo. Weak. Very unfortunate that we couldn't sustain momentum and rout these guys even with the fouls and Grant.

 

[DoctorBombay]

I've come to the realization that this team will play every opponent close the rest of the way, So expect a nail-biter with Virginia and then again with Georgia Tech. Just the way this team goes. Nothing is going to come easy. Grant's back, though, is a concern.

Yeah, good thing JB uses his bench to spell his untiring team of ironmen...
Oh, wait.

 

[cusetown1]

You know back in 2012 people said our flaw was lack of half court offense when we were blowing out teams, this year our flaw is not winning by enough with an excellent game managing half court offense.