Dean Francis new podcast out there...

[OttoinGrotto]

For example, tonight he revealed we're giving EJ Montgomery a bag and he'll be here in the fall.

Whoa dude, spoiler alert!

 

[Cuseball]

Well what a punch in the gut. Some issues with the style of play/offense towards the end of the season were apparently factors as well which is what I feared.

That’s complete BS. Total guesswork and opinions with no backing.

Just a kid after himself and not caring about anything else

 

[Day2]

He’s 17. But at his level of BB, he should know that he was part of the SOLUTION to SU’s slow style of play this year, not an excuse to perpetuate it. I wish he’d quit making stupid excuses for shafting the school he was “committed” to because he wanted a bag of agent money.

Exactly. All of that nonsense about our system is just a pretext.

Well, we all know about his character now. And we can actually say we’re better off with a straight face. Wasn’t expecting that.

I’ll be shocked if he makes it. My guess is he’ll quit the G-League by mid-season and play somewhere overseas until the draft. Doesn’t appear to have the mental wherewithal for this experiment. Didn’t face the right competition in HS either. Could be in for a rude awakening real quick.

 

[SU Dreaming]

I know one thing is 100% and i said it this morning, the staff found out 1 minute before the Yahoo report , the rest, some of it makes sense and some is w/out merit, not saying anything bad, just mean it his his thinking, not factual in some cases, but overall his angle is very interesting

 

[SU Dreaming]

ok thought it was good until the last 10 minutes, give me a break, monday morning QB. risk, reward, such is life, much easier to sit back and talk about it after it happens

 

[cuseattle]

ok thought it was good until the last 10 minutes, give me a break, monday morning QB. risk, reward, such is life, much easier to sit back and talk about it after it happens

Maybe make your own pod so no one can listen to it.

 

[Cuseball]

ok thought it was good until the last 10 minutes, give me a break, monday morning QB. risk, reward, such is life, much easier to sit back and talk about it after it happens

Yep, real easy to Monday morning QB. Just some opinions after the fact

 

[orange79]

Maybe make your own pod so no one can listen to it.

So, no one can disagree with St. Francis?

 

[cuseattle]

So, no one can disagree with St. Francis?

I didn't say that.

 

[Fly Rodder]

So, no one can disagree with St. Francis?

What’s the alternative story?

His pod jibes with recent history and the general perceptions of the staff/SU outside of Onondaga county.

 

[orange79]

What’s the alternative story?

His pod jibes with recent history and the general perceptions of the staff/SU outside of Onondaga county.

Who cares what his alternative theory is? People are allowed to disagree with others.

 

[pearl31]

What’s the alternative story?

His pod jibes with recent history and the general perceptions of the staff/SU outside of Onondaga county.

it jibes fine but there's plenty of conjecture (in every one of his pods)
he provides a great service and obv has some real connections, but... yeah

 

[Cusefan0307]

I don’t see what was so bad about the last ten minutes. We aren’t doing a great job of signing guys or keeping guys on the roster. That’s pretty factual.

 

[Dave]

Who cares if there is a perception that our "style of play" is an impediment? I don't really mean who cares, but what could have been done about it? It was an incredible coaching job by a Hall of Fame coach who impressively displayed that he still has it. Our offensive limitations were exacerbated by the fact that we generally limited to 15 seconds to try to get into an offense. The alternative? We trade toe to toe with much more highly powered offenses and don't limit possessions and we get blown away. Honestly, no one would have noticed if we played traditional Syracuse style offensively and just were a bad team? Would it have been better in creating recruit perceptions to follow that route. We incredibly overperformed in terms of the actual results. I am in awe of our coach because of his adaptability and ability to strategize outcomes. I wouldn' t trade JAB for DB. Would any of you? Really?

 

[Alsacs]

Who cares if there is a perception that our "style of play" is an impediment? I don't really mean who cares, but what could have been done about it? It was an incredible coaching job by a Hall of Fame coach who impressively displayed that he still has it. Our offensive limitations were exacerbated by the fact that we generally limited to 15 seconds to try to get into an offense. The alternative? We trade toe to toe with much more highly powered offenses and don't limit possessions and we get blown away. Honestly, no one would have noticed if we played traditional Syracuse style offensively and just were a bad team? Would it have been better in creating recruit perceptions to follow that route. We incredibly overperformed in terms of the actual results. I am in awe of our coach because of his adaptability and ability to strategize outcomes. I wouldn' t trade JAB for DB. Would any of you? Really?

Incredibly overachieved?
We had a good tournament performance. JB’s zone gets all the credit.
However we had talent.
We had a 5 star and 4 star starting backcourt.
We had the Canadian HS player of the year and 4 star Euro in the front court.
We had a 7’2 C and good backup with upside who was hurt.

There was a lot of talent in our rotation. We just didn’t have depth or experience. The talent wasn’t subpar.

The problem is we are losing our best player and still won’t have much depth next year.
While scrapping to make the tournament for the 5th year in a row.

 

[Alsacs]

So, no one can disagree with St. Francis?

Just wondering did you listen to the podcast?

 

[SoBeCuse]

Yep, real easy to Monday morning QB. Just some opinions after the fact

Right, do you have a source like Dean does who is obviously very close to the team and program? Don’t shoot the messenger man. Dean may give some opinions as we all do about the players/coaches/scheme but why dis the pod and the info he is sharing from his source? There’s a perception out there like it or not.

 

[Madbiker]

Questions about our style of play? That's total bs. Square that with the number of 1st rounders the program has put in the NBA the last several years. Isn't it like 6 straight years with a 1st rounder? We're minting millionaires. That's what these guys care about.

 

[Dave]

Incredibly overachieved?
We had a good tournament performance. JB’s zone gets all the credit.
However we had talent.
We had a 5 star and 4 star starting backcourt.
We had the Canadian HS player of the year and 4 star Euro in the front court.
We had a 7’2 C and good backup with upside who was hurt.

There was a lot of talent in our rotation. We just didn’t have depth or experience. The talent wasn’t subpar.

The problem is we are losing our best player and still won’t have much depth next year.
While scrapping to make the tournament for the 5th year in a row.

Can't agree with you. Talent on the court isn't measured by stars apportioned in a guesstimate of future success. We all know FH's struggles. He impoved dramatically and exceeded the expectations of most. He is still a fairly slow and lackadaisical performer, as measured against top PG's. His handle was careless all too often. Battle was great, OB was great. Put it this way. Using your formula, stack us up against Duke. We were in that game, just about to the end. Yes. Incredible overacheivers due to a style of plqy which allowed for it. Great coaching.

 

[SoBeCuse]

Who cares if there is a perception that our "style of play" is an impediment? I don't really mean who cares, but what could have been done about it? It was an incredible coaching job by a Hall of Fame coach who impressively displayed that he still has it. Our offensive limitations were exacerbated by the fact that we generally limited to 15 seconds to try to get into an offense. The alternative? We trade toe to toe with much more highly powered offenses and don't limit possessions and we get blown away. Honestly, no one would have noticed if we played traditional Syracuse style offensively and just were a bad team? Would it have been better in creating recruit perceptions to follow that route. We incredibly overperformed in terms of the actual results. I am in awe of our coach because of his adaptability and ability to strategize outcomes. I wouldn' t trade JAB for DB. Would any of you? Really?

Incredibly overachieved?
We had a good tournament performance. JB’s zone gets all the credit.
However we had talent.
We had a 5 star and 4 star starting backcourt.
We had the Canadian HS player of the year and 4 star Euro in the front court.
We had a 7’2 C and good backup with upside who was hurt.

There was a lot of talent in our rotation. We just didn’t have depth or experience. The talent wasn’t subpar.

The problem is we are losing our best player and still won’t have much depth next year.
While scrapping to make the tournament for the 5th year in a row.

I see both sides of it. Personally I think our overall talent level was subpar. If our big three were that great we wouldn’t have been a bubble team. Plenty of teams play 3 on 5 but do it with more passing and movement.

I give Boeheim a lot of credit as well as the players for not giving up. A very taxing season. But, I think it’s a fallacy to think Boeheim did some incredible or transcendent job with this team. He completely scrapped the offense, slowed the game down, and put all the focus into the defense. The right thing to do but not rocket science. I mean I think there were more creative ways things could’ve been done on offense but generally I don’t think we had the horses. However, when late in the season you are still looking completely lost on offense and making the kinds of turnovers we were making late in games; that’s a problem. Having one guy dribble down the shot clock and either charge or force up a tough shot make or miss; that’s kind of an embarrassment. We encountered some teams who froze up and were inept dealing with the zone for the majority of the Tourney games and we barely hung on offensively.

Compare us to Kentucky who had been playing as good as anybody the last month of the season. More talent at Kentucky yes. But they barely shot 36% from 3. Better inside players who are stronger and can finish better. Have some post moves. Nothing special even but Gabriel/Vanderbilt/PJ Washington are much better than Marek/Sidibe/Chukwu. They didn’t even need to give Richards minutes. They really played downhill and attacked the basket. SGA is a MUCH more dynamic version of Frank. Two different planes. We clearly lack talent.

So, I truly think it was a success of a season based on the personnel. The staff and players deserve a lot of credit but I just don’t think it was some masterful job by Boeheim. We squeaked by then got on a little run.

 

[bballbeadle]

The thing that hit home with me is thinking about how an arrogant, “me first” player might mix with our team and the trouble that could cause. Not to mention with JB! As sad and angry as I might be by his decision, methinks we avoided big time drama down the road. Much prefer drama now to drama during the season.

 

[pearl31]

the truth hurts, indeed

 

[Consigliere]

Look. I am firmly in the camp that the sanctions created an incredible challenge to the program. To have continued a winning tradition, even if the results might have been somewhat below our standards during the last few regular seasons while overachieving significantly in our last two NCAA Tournament appearances is a testament to the team's heart and the coaching staff's ability to adapt.

The one shortcoming I see is that we have not adapted well to the one-and-done culture. Seems like there are two approaches:
I. Become an NBA lottery factory like Kentucky, Duke, and increasingly Arizona and Kansas or -
II. Build a program on slightly less talented players who will bring some continuity like Villanova, Xavier, Gonzaga, Virginia.

First option is tough because we do not run a plug-and-play system. Very few upper echelon recruits have the ability or the desire to fully embrace the principles of the zone when they first step on campus.
Second option has been challenging because players that seem to have been multi-year contributors show enough early on to enhance their profiles and get NBA consideration. I think part of this is that due to the zone, we focus recruiting on kids with the measurables the NBA craves, part is that opportunities with a short rotation are abundant and part, as K said, because "all Jim's payers get better."

As a result we've kind of ended up with an in between philosophy that keeps us successful but a notch below the top tier talent factories. Of course all of that can change on one given day - hence the post season success - but ultimately it catches up with you.

Going to be an interesting transition as the one-and-done environment is sunset but I'm optimistic that the end result will be very good for us.

 

[longislandcuse]

Phenomenal podcast IMO. I don't know that the zone issue is thattttt played up, because we put kids into the NBA on the reg and if we were anchoring the zone with KAT/AD types, those dudes would be just as dominant in the NBA coming from Cuse as they would out of Kentucky.

If Baz and his camp were worried about pace, Bruh... y'all just corny. You and Carey would obviously change the offense. That's 2/5 of the offense changing.

I'd take soph OB over a freshman diva Olive Oyl, no matter how high he's rated, if it came to that.

The last 10 minutes didn't bother me at all. Our recruiting style is shenanigans lately. Last minute moves, chasing divas and turning down good players who want to be here. Makes no sense. They do need to sit down and decide what their strategy is now that we're coming out of sanctions because this is just nonsense and constant drama.

 

[Dave]

I

I see both sides of it. Personally I think our overall talent level was subpar. If our big three were that great we wouldn’t have been a bubble team. Plenty of teams play 3 on 5 but do it with more passing and movement.

I give Boeheim a lot of credit as well as the players for not giving up. A very taxing season. But, I think it’s a fallacy to think Boeheim did some incredible or transcendent job with this team. He completely scrapped the offense, slowed the game down, and put all the focus into the defense. The right thing to do but not rocket science. I mean I think there were more creative ways things could’ve been done on offense but generally I don’t think we had the horses. However, when late in the season you are still looking completely lost on offense and making the kinds of turnovers we were making late in games; that’s a problem. Having one guy dribble down the shot clock and either charge or force up a tough shot make or miss; that’s kind of an embarrassment. We encountered some teams who froze up and were inept dealing with the zone for the majority of the Tourney games and we barely hung on offensively.

Compare us to Kentucky who had been playing as good as anybody the last month of the season. More talent at Kentucky yes. But they barely shot 36% from 3. Better inside players who are stronger and can finish better. Have some post moves. Nothing special even but Gabriel/Vanderbilt/PJ Washington are much better than Marek/Sidibe/Chukwu. They didn’t even need to give Richards minutes. They really played downhill and attacked the basket. SGA is a MUCH more dynamic version of Frank. Two different planes. We clearly lack talent.

So, I truly think it was a success of a season based on the personnel. The staff and players deserve a lot of credit but I just don’t think it was some masterful job by Boeheim. We squeaked by then got on a little run.

I don't think we really have a major disagreement. I just think that the slow down style, eat the clock, for a programwhich has never employed it, is only obvious in retrospect. If we tried to run with the thoroughbreds and been blown out, it would have been dismissed as being attributable to slower horses. It was really, for us, a revolutionary style of play.