General20
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It was the best of halves it was the worst of halves, it was the half of wisdom, it was the half of foolishness, it was the half of belief, it was the half of incredulity . . . you know the rest (I hope). A bad Cornell team - and yes they are BAD and will be a middle of the pack to lower half Ivy League team - pretty well dominated the first half, and Syracuse did what it was suppose to do in the second half.
The question is, what changed?
The three biggest things that I noticed were:
Cornell out rebounded Syracuse 16-19 in the first half, while Syracuse out rebounded them 22-7 in the second half.
Cornell shot 43% from three in the first half and under 19% from three in the second half.
Syracuse pressed a lot of the first half, and played zone almost the entire second half.
The best explanation for the first two on this list is that Baye Keita only played a disjointed six minutes in the first half while in the second half he played ten minutes which might not seem like a ton more, but they were a continuous ten minutes that coincided with the most important time in the game when Syracuse really put the hammer down and pulled away.
For accuracy, I must say that some of Cornell's three point numbers must be attributed to the fact that most teams eventually shoot themselves out of the game against our zone (and they made some very tough shots in the first half), but my eyes told me that the D was a completely different animal with Keita on the floor. This was mostly due to communication rather than any specific skill he brought (although he was by far our best rebounder which helped).
When the zone is working, all five players move together. Its extremely structured. Everybody knows where there are suppose to be and they shift as one to adjust to the offense. Its pretty easy to tell just from the structure of our zone how it is being played. In the first half it looked like a mess and Cornell had their way with it. In the second half the structure returned, and from what I noticed that happened only when Keita got on the floor for an extended stretch.
To me there were two heroes in this game. Cooney (obviously) was the offensive hero. If he was the player many on this board thought he was we would have lost this game and it might not have even been close. But I think its important to point out that there are two sides to a basketball game and Keita was just as much of a defensive hero as Cooney was an offensive hero.
For the record, the lineup Cornell had no answers for was Ennis, Cooney, Fair, Christmas, Keita.
I found it hard to believe that Syracuse pressed so much (allowing so many open threes) when they hardly pressed at all in any of the exhibitions.
I think we learned a few things about this team in this game.
First, and most importantly, there is no battle between Gbinije and Patterson for playing time. Gbinije is our third guard and Patterson is out of the loop.
Second, Christmas is way ahead of both Coleman and Roberson for playing time.
That clears a lot up on how our team will look this year.
Ennis and Cooney will start at guard with Gbinije filling in for both.
Fair and Grant will get the vast majority of time at forward with Christmas filling in for either.
Keita and Christmas will split most of the center minutes.
Those are our big 7. The bench does not look like a strength on this team so I think those guys will bear the lions share of the minutes in the games that count this year.
Roberson is the kind of talent where if things click for him he will play no matter what, but right now he is a long way away. Coleman will be given every chance but he is fighting an uphill battle. Patterson and Johnson look like they will be squeezed out.
Now, things change, and especially in the next three games everybody is going to get a chance, but at this moment in time seven guys are going to play 99% of the minutes in games that are in doubt.
Here is a quick player performance review:
Ennis - Other than rebounding well, he played terrible. He did nothing offensively (he got a bunch of assists, but those come pretty easy when you have a shooting guard who doesn't miss, he really didn't generate any offense) and he stunk defensively. When I saw him play in high school I worried about Ennis being able to adjust to the speed of the college game. Its a bad sign, I think, that after playing amazingly well in six slow paced exhibition games, he struggled against a slightly faster D1 team. I certainly would never give up on a freshman after his first game, but you have to wonder if the difference in speed between the exhibition games and Cornell bothers him, how the difference in speed between say a Cornell and a North Carolina will affect him.
Cooney - What is there to say? 7 for 8 from three, and four steals. He is a very good player. Try to keep that in mind when his shot doesn't fall. No shooter is hot every day. He is fantastic and is going to have a great career here.
Fair - 6 for 11 from the field sounds great. 6 for 7 from the line sounds great. 19 points sounds great. 7 turnovers seems . . . hard to believe. He forced way too much today, but this was his first day as a go to scorer. I think he has improved in all the right ways, and Fair has never forced the issue before and I am not convinced he would have today if Grant was around to help shoulder the load. I'm not going to worry about him forcing too may shots/drives until I see that it becomes a chronic issue (I don't think it will).
Christmas - I was very happy with Christmas's performance. I could nitpick and say that he (and Fair) could have done better at rebounding but I think they were busy chasing around Cornell's many little shooters who all seemed to be hot and willing to shoot from NBA range. He was aggressive, he gave us some scoring and we were much better with Christmas at forward than we were with Roberson, Johnson, or Gbinije.
Coleman - The defense suffered with Coleman at center. Because of that he didn't play much. Not much else to say here. Right now he is behind Christmas and Keita for playing time. The one caveat I will give is, more than any other player, we can't truly judge Coleman until he is playing against guys his own size in Maui.
Gbinije - The nicest surprise of the day. Gbinije looked lost in 6 exhibition games, then he comes out and is rock solid against a team that punched us in the mouth early. I wish I could find +/- numbers for SU someplace, but I bet if I could they would show that Syracuse performed much better as a team with Gbinije and Cooney at guard than they did with Ennis and Cooney. Gbinije was better than Ennis all the way around today, but he is much much better defensively and Ennis is going to have to give more offensively to justify his playing time.
Roberson - I thought this was the best he has played for Syracuse so far (although that is not saying much). The kid is going to be a heck of a player, but he needs some time. To my surprise he was the first player off the bench (I didn't realize Grant was not playing at the time). Boeheim is going to give him a chance in every non ACC game. The question is, can he put it all together that quickly?
Keita - I spent a long time talking about his defense, so I wont repeat it all. I will only say this, Keita has always played well against small teams like Cornell that can extend the zone in all sorts of crazy ways. Christmas and Coleman might (and hopefully will) perform better against more traditional opponents. We will have to wait until Maui to see.
Johnson - Went three for five with seven points which is pretty good for a first time out (although a lucky banked in three made that stat line look a lot better). I was most impressed by Johnson's defense. He blocked a couple of shots and overall looked like he belonged out there. Cornell did not have the horses to exploit Johnson's lack of bulk. I love his skill set, but I think it will be a year before Johnson is ready to break out.
Patterson - Only played six minutes in this game and that tells the whole story. Boeheim did not trust him on the court until the game was completely out of hand. The one caveat here is there was no reason to play Patterson with Gbinije playing so well.
The question is, what changed?
The three biggest things that I noticed were:
Cornell out rebounded Syracuse 16-19 in the first half, while Syracuse out rebounded them 22-7 in the second half.
Cornell shot 43% from three in the first half and under 19% from three in the second half.
Syracuse pressed a lot of the first half, and played zone almost the entire second half.
The best explanation for the first two on this list is that Baye Keita only played a disjointed six minutes in the first half while in the second half he played ten minutes which might not seem like a ton more, but they were a continuous ten minutes that coincided with the most important time in the game when Syracuse really put the hammer down and pulled away.
For accuracy, I must say that some of Cornell's three point numbers must be attributed to the fact that most teams eventually shoot themselves out of the game against our zone (and they made some very tough shots in the first half), but my eyes told me that the D was a completely different animal with Keita on the floor. This was mostly due to communication rather than any specific skill he brought (although he was by far our best rebounder which helped).
When the zone is working, all five players move together. Its extremely structured. Everybody knows where there are suppose to be and they shift as one to adjust to the offense. Its pretty easy to tell just from the structure of our zone how it is being played. In the first half it looked like a mess and Cornell had their way with it. In the second half the structure returned, and from what I noticed that happened only when Keita got on the floor for an extended stretch.
To me there were two heroes in this game. Cooney (obviously) was the offensive hero. If he was the player many on this board thought he was we would have lost this game and it might not have even been close. But I think its important to point out that there are two sides to a basketball game and Keita was just as much of a defensive hero as Cooney was an offensive hero.
For the record, the lineup Cornell had no answers for was Ennis, Cooney, Fair, Christmas, Keita.
I found it hard to believe that Syracuse pressed so much (allowing so many open threes) when they hardly pressed at all in any of the exhibitions.
I think we learned a few things about this team in this game.
First, and most importantly, there is no battle between Gbinije and Patterson for playing time. Gbinije is our third guard and Patterson is out of the loop.
Second, Christmas is way ahead of both Coleman and Roberson for playing time.
That clears a lot up on how our team will look this year.
Ennis and Cooney will start at guard with Gbinije filling in for both.
Fair and Grant will get the vast majority of time at forward with Christmas filling in for either.
Keita and Christmas will split most of the center minutes.
Those are our big 7. The bench does not look like a strength on this team so I think those guys will bear the lions share of the minutes in the games that count this year.
Roberson is the kind of talent where if things click for him he will play no matter what, but right now he is a long way away. Coleman will be given every chance but he is fighting an uphill battle. Patterson and Johnson look like they will be squeezed out.
Now, things change, and especially in the next three games everybody is going to get a chance, but at this moment in time seven guys are going to play 99% of the minutes in games that are in doubt.
Here is a quick player performance review:
Ennis - Other than rebounding well, he played terrible. He did nothing offensively (he got a bunch of assists, but those come pretty easy when you have a shooting guard who doesn't miss, he really didn't generate any offense) and he stunk defensively. When I saw him play in high school I worried about Ennis being able to adjust to the speed of the college game. Its a bad sign, I think, that after playing amazingly well in six slow paced exhibition games, he struggled against a slightly faster D1 team. I certainly would never give up on a freshman after his first game, but you have to wonder if the difference in speed between the exhibition games and Cornell bothers him, how the difference in speed between say a Cornell and a North Carolina will affect him.
Cooney - What is there to say? 7 for 8 from three, and four steals. He is a very good player. Try to keep that in mind when his shot doesn't fall. No shooter is hot every day. He is fantastic and is going to have a great career here.
Fair - 6 for 11 from the field sounds great. 6 for 7 from the line sounds great. 19 points sounds great. 7 turnovers seems . . . hard to believe. He forced way too much today, but this was his first day as a go to scorer. I think he has improved in all the right ways, and Fair has never forced the issue before and I am not convinced he would have today if Grant was around to help shoulder the load. I'm not going to worry about him forcing too may shots/drives until I see that it becomes a chronic issue (I don't think it will).
Christmas - I was very happy with Christmas's performance. I could nitpick and say that he (and Fair) could have done better at rebounding but I think they were busy chasing around Cornell's many little shooters who all seemed to be hot and willing to shoot from NBA range. He was aggressive, he gave us some scoring and we were much better with Christmas at forward than we were with Roberson, Johnson, or Gbinije.
Coleman - The defense suffered with Coleman at center. Because of that he didn't play much. Not much else to say here. Right now he is behind Christmas and Keita for playing time. The one caveat I will give is, more than any other player, we can't truly judge Coleman until he is playing against guys his own size in Maui.
Gbinije - The nicest surprise of the day. Gbinije looked lost in 6 exhibition games, then he comes out and is rock solid against a team that punched us in the mouth early. I wish I could find +/- numbers for SU someplace, but I bet if I could they would show that Syracuse performed much better as a team with Gbinije and Cooney at guard than they did with Ennis and Cooney. Gbinije was better than Ennis all the way around today, but he is much much better defensively and Ennis is going to have to give more offensively to justify his playing time.
Roberson - I thought this was the best he has played for Syracuse so far (although that is not saying much). The kid is going to be a heck of a player, but he needs some time. To my surprise he was the first player off the bench (I didn't realize Grant was not playing at the time). Boeheim is going to give him a chance in every non ACC game. The question is, can he put it all together that quickly?
Keita - I spent a long time talking about his defense, so I wont repeat it all. I will only say this, Keita has always played well against small teams like Cornell that can extend the zone in all sorts of crazy ways. Christmas and Coleman might (and hopefully will) perform better against more traditional opponents. We will have to wait until Maui to see.
Johnson - Went three for five with seven points which is pretty good for a first time out (although a lucky banked in three made that stat line look a lot better). I was most impressed by Johnson's defense. He blocked a couple of shots and overall looked like he belonged out there. Cornell did not have the horses to exploit Johnson's lack of bulk. I love his skill set, but I think it will be a year before Johnson is ready to break out.
Patterson - Only played six minutes in this game and that tells the whole story. Boeheim did not trust him on the court until the game was completely out of hand. The one caveat here is there was no reason to play Patterson with Gbinije playing so well.
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