Death by defense

[Sgt Cuse]

You're right, jordoo--there is definitely room to improve. The team won't stop practicing between now and March--the assumption is that this practice isn't a waste of time.

There's no reason to believe that G and Roberson can't increase their productivity through hard work over the next 5-6 weeks. Players often produce more by March than they do in January. If one or both of these young men do, it will help the other players.

For example, if Roberson can enter games and fulfill a legitimate role, Fair and Grant can get a little more rest, we can absorb more foul trouble (I don't even want to think about injuries), and defenses may not be able to sag off of him to help on others. Nothing suggests that Roberson is incapable of improvement, so there's a solid chance that we could see this happen.

The good news is that G and Roberson don't need to be stars this year--just effective in their time on the floor. They can't merely take up space in their minutes, though; they have to be effective on both ends for the squad to reach its full potential. I'm interested to see if they step up to the challenge. If one or both do, the team will definitely improve...hopefully enough to carry us to the Final Four.

It's a long shot for bench players to get more time in March than January at SU, and I believe that remains true in this case as well. The gap between MG and Tyler is way too big for any 6 week program to dent, same with Roberson and CJ. Yes, MG and Roberson can improve but the gap looks too wide, and also Cooney and Grant can improve as well.

There's only 12 regular season games left. And each of those are in-conference, while SU/JB are trying to capture their first ACC crown. It looks possible they will all be big games from here on in.

I'm starting to think JB may start cementing his style for the rest of the season now. Giving MG and Roberson some minutes in the first half and watching for progress. Second halves will be almost all top 5 plus BMK from here out. I am usually very much pro-bench, however I now find myself thinking this is the right thing to do with this group.

IMO, the improvement of MG and/or Roberson is inconsequential to our odds of making it to the FF. SU/JB is putting all the money on the top 6 to deliver us to the promised land.

 

[SoBeCuse]

21 would be crushing in a 60 possession game like we are playing these days. ouch.

No kidding. We will need to score points against Duke. They are playing much better the past couple of games. They will get 60 on us. We need to be able to get 65+ against them, imo. Please let this happen.

 

[mayselc]

I have started to believe the "switch" to a half court offense is deliberate. Past teams that relied on fast breaks and up tempo offense had a hardtime when thye had to go to a half court like at the end of the half or late in the game when SU ws trying to run clock. This year the team seems more efficient when thay have to do that and that helps whenteams slow things way down.

I agree. This is the best half-court offense we've had since the 2010 team. Three guys that can get their own shot (Ennis, CJ and Grant) and the other two can score when they get the ball in good spots.

We may get bunches of easy points off turnovers, but we don't run off misses that much this year. Probably because we crash the boards more than in previous seasons.

 

[Full_Rebar]

The focus on rebounding yesterday was impressive. If Miami doesn't hit 60% from 3, it's a comfortable win. Not many teams are going to shoot that well and only commit 5 turnovers against SU. Credit to them for playing a clean game.

 

[SaltLakeOrange]

The demise of our offense has been greatly exaggerated and infact it doesn't exist. Look at the numbers.

Agreed. We are very efficient this year on offense. But, we can't continue to have 4-5-6-7 minute droughts. To me that speaks of a lack of focus. When we play focused, see Nova, we are absolutely unbeatable.

 

[hoopsupstate]

The difference with this team is that they don't take the first ok shot they get, they only take good shots. The only person who takes tough shots is Grant when he drives into crowds, but he usually comes away with some foul shots. The is the most efficient team on offense in a long while. When teams shoot the three well like Miami did yesterday, it keeps up from getting out on the break. I think I read yesterday that teams are taking over 20 seconds to get a shot off against off. That's the longest in the nation.

 

[PeteCalvin]

The demise of our offense has been greatly exaggerated and infact it doesn't exist. Look at the numbers.

As JB said in his presser yesterday, teams have been playing the slowdown game against us the past few seasons, which limits our easy transition points and keeps the game scores lower. Not much we can do about that. We have had to rebound better and force more steals to counter the :30 seconds of blah offense our opponents run.

 

[HarrisonJBounel]

Like Coach and others have said we are getting good shots usually but just taking awhile to do so. Ennis seems to probe and use up most of the shot clock. We're just not used to seeing this. It's like we're a classic Wisconsin style tempo team now.

Yeah, I cannot recall any fast break points yesterday. Some semi-transition opportunities, or the one where TE kinda forced the action in traffic, but none of the classic breakaways, two-on-ones, or three-on-ones for a slam as in years past.