Dajuan Coleman | Syracusefan.com

Dajuan Coleman

That drive going left from the top of the key and finishing with his left was a thing of beauty. Could we a huge weapon and maneuver against other centers. I hope we see that again!
 
Pat Kelly said:
10 pts, 10 boards. Looked great tonight. He's such a force down there, if he can learn to maneuver his body he can be one of the greats, dead serious.
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I honestly think he continued to struggle. Ok, his stats were decent, but he still can't score down low, or even rebound like he should. Even the buckets he gets, he makes difficult. The lefty drive was the a bright spot. And he did have one decent board where I thought he got up a little bit for him. His ft shooting is terrible and he looks extremely out of shape, despite his "improved physique." He's very frustrating to watch. I'd be surprised if his minutes don't decline come conference play.
 
I was really excited to see the rebound and stick back where he didn't bring the ball down. But then after he continued to do his double pump from the hip. If he can just keep the ball up his numbers and minutes will go up dramatically.

Also, once in the first half he was setup perfect to use a left hand jump hook from about 3 feet. Instead he contorted his body to try and use his right hand. Later on the fantastic drive he finished with his left hand. Come on DC...use the left like that more often!
 
There was that one play where the announcer credited him with "the power dribble of all power dribbles", if I remember correctly, because of how hard he dribbled the ball.
 
I thought Coleman was one of the story lines of the game. Someone lit a fire under him. Still doesn't finish easily around the basket but he had a complete game last night on both ends of the floor. A double double says a lot. As others have said, loved the dribble drive for the lay in. That was impressive and showed something I hadn't seen before. Also when he sealed his defender down low and made a quick spin move to the basket. Although I think playing time among the bigs will continue to be game to game, I think he earned some solid minutes and confidence from Boeheim moving forward.
 
CaptainJ said:
There was that one play where the announcer credited him with "the power dribble of all power dribbles", if I remember correctly, because of how hard he dribbled the ball.
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Instead of a clean putback he pounded it into the ground and spun away from the goal - missed the shot and 2 freethrows. Tough sequence to watch.
 
Cuse_NYC said:
I honestly think he continued to struggle. Ok, his stats were decent, but he still can't score down low, or even rebound like he should. Even the buckets he gets, he makes difficult. The lefty drive was the a bright spot. And he did have one decent board where I thought he got up a little bit for him. His ft shooting is terrible and he looks extremely out of shape, despite his "improved physique." He's very frustrating to watch. I'd be surprised if his minutes don't decline come conference play.
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I tend to agree here.I think he plays very hard but this notion everybody seems to have about Dajuan having the best offensive skills of our big men is fallacy.This going to the left and putting up a shot with the right hand into the defender...what is that? He honestly has no soft touch around the rim. He did play better D last night though.
 
If he is out there and giving us 10 and 10 I would say he was doing well. It certainly is an improvement over being out there for a while walking off with 0 and 3 as we saw at times last year.
 
Still not sold on him but he is starting to show signs of putting it together. I will withhold judgment on him and the team until Maui though.

He is a great rebounder though, if he gets his hand on it he grabs it, which is odd seeing how easily he gets stripped. This is the best rebounding team we have had in a long time, gone are the KJo's and Southerland's and AO's.
 
Dejuan plays with more fire than anyone on the team except maybe Keita and Grant...

But its arguable.
 
Garbs said:
Still not sold on him but he is starting to show signs of putting it together. I will withhold judgment on him and the team until Maui though.

He is a great rebounder though, if he gets his hand on it he grabs it, which is odd seeing how easily he gets stripped. This is the best rebounding team we have had in a long time, gone are the KJo's and Southerland's and AO's.
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AO was a solid rebounder.
 
Showed some flashes as most of us have mentioned. The time wasted though as he gets a rebound to put it back or when he gets the ball to make a move is maddening. Usually he's getting stripped, blocked, or fouled because of wasted movements, poor angles, etc. There is no doubt in my mind that no true big man coach is hindering things. Shouldn't be this much of a struggle for him to score in the paint. Might have been his first touch down low in the game but he got great position really deep and all he needed to do was drop a short baby hook but he went the other route.
 
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Cuse_NYC said:
I honestly think he continued to struggle. Ok, his stats were decent, but he still can't score down low, or even rebound like he should. Even the buckets he gets, he makes difficult. The lefty drive was the a bright spot. And he did have one decent board where I thought he got up a little bit for him. His ft shooting is terrible and he looks extremely out of shape, despite his "improved physique." He's very frustrating to watch. I'd be surprised if his minutes don't decline come conference play.
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I thought he rebounded fine last night. Where I think he continues to struggle is with the put-backs. It's almost as if he doesn't understand that he is the biggest frame out there. He needs to play angry. He did better in the 2H, though. There was one play where he got a weakside board, kept the ball high, got the put-back and foul.

I'm surprised you think he looks extremely out of shape. I didn't come away with that impression.
 
He was a force on the boards last night. I saw him rip some rebounds out of Fordham players hands but to be honest all our frontcourt players just dominated Fordham's frontcourt, as they should have. Offensively he repeatedly spun to his left into contact instead of his right away from contact and using a drop step for a layup. Most players learn to "feel" where the opponent's contact is coming from and use it to spin or move away from that contact towards the basket - surprisingly Dajuan does the opposite. He needs room to manuever offensively so I wasn't that surprised that he liked beating his man off the dribble away from the basket - it's not effective close to the basket. He uses the dribble hoping to create room not footwork nor back to the basket body position.
 
Bayside44 said:
Instead of a clean putback he pounded it into the ground and spun away from the goal - missed the shot and 2 freethrows. Tough sequence to watch.
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That was the play that made me grind my teeth. He just seems uncomfortable going up over his left shoulder.
 
I must have watched a different game than most in this thread. Coleman was stripped at least 4 or 5 times at point blank range.

Yes...he got 10 boards, but that was because we were playing a bunch of midgets. Also, he got most of his points (40% of them) from the free throw line after bringing the ball down, then going up soft.

Although the drive in the lane was pretty nice :)
 
He's got a lot of work to do when it comes to delivering on his potential, but I have to consider last night encouraging. Yes he took advantage of inferior personnel, but his ability to do that is an improvement upon last year.
 
SoBeCuse said:
Showed some flashes as most of us have mentioned. The time wasted though as he gets a rebound to put it back or when he gets the ball to make a move is maddening. Usually he's getting stripped, blocked, or fouled because of wasted movements, poor angles, etc. There is no doubt in my mind that no true big man coach is hindering things. Shouldn't be this much of a struggle for him to score in the paint. Might have been his first touch down low in the game but he got great position really deep and all he needed to do was drop a short baby hook but he went the other route.
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If Hop doesn't know that and can't explain to DC4 how to do it, he's not fit to coach any position at any level, much less being heir-apparent to the head coach job at SU. The idea that coaching is holding Coleman back is ludicrous. If he were about 10 times better on offense than he is now, I'd agree that maybe a true big man coach might be better at getting him the rest of the way to NBA-quality. If he can't make a single big-man move at this point of his career he needs either a psychologist or better genes, not a higher-class coach.
 
Cuse_NYC said:
I honestly think he continued to struggle. Ok, his stats were decent, but he still can't score down low, or even rebound like he should. Even the buckets he gets, he makes difficult. The lefty drive was the a bright spot. And he did have one decent board where I thought he got up a little bit for him. His ft shooting is terrible and he looks extremely out of shape, despite his "improved physique." He's very frustrating to watch. I'd be surprised if his minutes don't decline come conference play.
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The drive was nice, and I think I know the rebound you're referring to - weak side, caught it on the way down. And Coleman's got good hands and runs as hard as he can, so that's nice.

But the numbers don't tell the tale. Same old, same old: get a rebound, waste a dribble and lose the ball; get an entry pass, make space, then turn the wrong way into the defender and whip a prayer at the backboard. (Come on, man - just watch Roberson's dribble and layup - that's how to use the body and the dribble.)

There's not much indication that he's making any strides on the block, and that's the only place he's needed offensively. The defense was full of effort but tentative and not terribly effective.

I thought some fans might be excited about his play based on the numbers and the drive/layup (and good for the kid on both of those counts). But he didn't do much that was sustainable or indicative of progress.
 
Cuse_1999 said:
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Also, once in the first half he was setup perfect to use a left hand jump hook from about 3 feet. Instead he contorted his body to try and use his right hand. ...
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Yes, that was something. Created space, had a relatively easy shot. Turned it into a 0% shot.
 
dollarbill44 said:
I thought he rebounded fine last night. Where I think he continues to struggle is with the put-backs. It's almost as if he doesn't understand that he is the biggest frame out there. He needs to play angry. He did better in the 2H, though. There was one play where he got a weakside board, kept the ball high, got the put-back and foul.

I'm surprised you think he looks extremely out of shape. I didn't come away with that impression.
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He needs to play smart. He's been playing angry for a year and that hasn't gotten very far.

I'll add that I'm glad that Boeheim gave Coleman extended minutes. Good for him to get into a rhythm (and not lose confidence); good of Baye to be so willing to ride the pine during developmental time.
 
Its frustrating to say the least. I applaud him for busting his ass and working hard to get into better shape. Its admirable that he plays at a high energy level and has showed improvement with his defensive positioning game to game. (although it still needs lots of improvement) The frustration comes in when he gets 1o and 1o in less than 20min but if you watched you think if he just held the ball high he would have had another 8 points or another 8 ft's. He's improving and showing flashes but he also has some really bad habits and even when he gets away with bringing the ball down and dribbling he often only improves the difficulty level of his shot rather than creating an easier shot. Offensive put backs are usually easiest when you go right back up because everyone is recovering from a missed shot and attempted rebound. The FT shooting is just strange to me, he has decent touch and form but is completely inconsistent with his release. Sometimes standing still, sometimes leaning back, sometimes with legs, sometimes all arm, sometimes relaxed and sometimes mechanical and tight. With his struggles to finish but high rate of collecting fouls he would benefit greatly from shooting around 70% which I would think pretty attainable given his form if he just stuck to one consistent release. 65% at least.

Still after all that complaining I just did DC2 has the potential to give us something different from any of our other bigs. He has to work it out and I think we get at least a season and a half of him being a real offensive threat to go with a board beast before he graduates.
 
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