Reply to thread

Message: [QUOTE="billsin01, post: 3188013, member: 837"] Excellent write-up -- good even-handed analysis. I'd say my opinions differ slightly on some of the players but overall I'm in agreement with about 90% of this. Good read. As far as the wrapup of the Cornell game -- I agree entirely on the switch and also execution of the game plan on Cornell's part. Really did a nice job of confusing us. One of the issues I thought was that they did an excellent job of playing the drive -- they would play the drive until right around the elbow/free-throw line, then the help defender would back off and play the passing lane. That's probably the basic design of the 2-1-2, but either way they did it well understanding, IMO, that our guys aren't likely to drive all the way to the bucket. That gave Girard and Buddy fits at times and Goodine didn't handle it well either. That's going to happen at times. Thought, along with your observations, that we did a better job in the second half of taking advantage of Marek and Sidibe inside. Guerrier had a nice dish to Marek, we found sidibe a few times. Really hope we continue to try get some post touches and look to these guys to finish. With as many shooters as we have and the way we share the ball, this will lead to good things even if we aren't finishing a ton down there. The other thing I love with Girard is how he pushes the ball. It's infectious -- Buddy had a great pass up the court at one point, Marek has been pushing the tempo when he's getting the ball and Bourama is looking to outlet quickly. We are going to be dangerous in secondary break situations. We saw that in one situation where we pushed the ball up quickly after a girard rebound (an underrated skill of his -- he was on the opposite elbow, anticipated where the ball would come down and quickly grabbed it) and pushed it up to Buddy (I think) who hit the trailing Hughes for a wide open look from three. All 10 guys were over halfcourt so not really a fastbreak, but Cornell didn't have time to set up defensively and it was a big thing. Even when we had a turnover when Girard tried to push it up to Hughes who stepped on the sideline - I'll take it. Just love the tempo and activity when that kid is on the floor. As for the player evals -- [B]Girard/Buddy [/B]-- I actually don't mind Girard defensively b/c I think his activity and rebounding are I just think the reality offensively is that we're going to need to move the ball and move without the ball to generate consistent offense. These guys do that. Now, to be fair in this eval, we aren't going to be as good defensively overall with these two. That much is true. But offensively I think teams have to worry about these dudes shooting enough that Marek/Hughes/Sidibe/G should have opportunities inside. Again, not sure we have the ceiling of a 24-26 win team overall. But think that could be good enough to get to 21 perhaps, which is solid b/c we also should have a nice foundation to build on. [B]Sidibe's[/B] defense has been weak but he's pretty active on both ends. Feel like more minutes and more reps should help in that regard and if he can avoid silly fouls (you too, Marek) we should be OK -- not great -- but OK down there. I have generally liked [B]Braswell's[/B] play on the court but agree on his effort vs. Colgate. I'm inclined to believe that perhaps an injury is the reason why. We shall see I guess, but still hopeful that a healthy Braswell could at least deliver decent minutes in a pinch. Need [B]Marek[/B] to continue asserting himself -- needs to have more than four shots against a cornell. We have seen him do it, just need him to continue progressing. Overall, it's important to note that's a game we won by 8 points a year ago and we only managed 63 points. Had 72 in this one and I think we had the potential for more. We're going to need to outscore teams but I can understand people's concern about our ability to generate offense against more talented teams. It's a wait and see kind of situation but I actually think we will get over .500 in the acc. Very interested to see how we do after the Bucknell game. [/QUOTE]

Verification: What is a Syracuse fan's favorite color?