Duke's 2-3

[longislandcuse]

Could be. It will be interesting to see what K does next season. I doubt he’ll be preseason working on the zone as the base defense. This was an emergency using it and it has worked out great for them. I’m just not sure his pedigree and DNA is all zone.

Duke could deploy five guys out there doing constant jumping jacks and kids will be lining up in droves to go there. Not sure it will matter much. From what I understand and hear though, Syracuse has to put the feelers out to see what kids would be okay with playing all zone. Then they decide who to pursue hard or not. That of course takes some recruits completely out of the picture.

It's funny because the big knock has been on the translation to defense in the NBA, yet we have multiple players who are only in the NBA for their defense... Grant and Wes right off the top of my head.

 

[SoBeCuse]

It's funny because the big knock has been on the translation to defense in the NBA, yet we have multiple players who are only in the NBA for their defense... Grant and Wes right off the top of my head.

Yeah they are good. They were really good help/weak side defenders here and two of the better jumpers we have had in awhile. Good instincts.

What’s Wes’s contract situation? I’m not sure how much longer he’ll be in the league. It’s been a nice run though. He’s not contributing much anywhere else and his 3Pt shooting has been really poor the last few years. He’s also been involved in a few blunders (Not Top 10s) with that inbouding debacle and the latest Harden going down tumble.

 

[SoBeCuse]

It's funny because the big knock has been on the translation to defense in the NBA, yet we have multiple players who are only in the NBA for their defense... Grant and Wes right off the top of my head.

It’s also interesting but how many Cuse players recently could actually be good in M2M? I don’t think many. We’ll never know but some of our length it seems has advantages but also disadvantages in agility/speed. Just my opinion. Obviously these kids played M2M in high school mostly and were recruited to some M2M college programs but I always ponder how they would fare in M2M here or elsewhere.

- Tyus would be fine.
- Frank in M2M would be a disaster playing PG. SG much better, IMO.
- Lydon? Depends where.
- Malachi would be OK
- Ennis is bad.
- Chukwu/Sidibe? I don’t know. Probably not good.
- TT terrible (anywhere)
- Dion is good when he wants to be. Never great, IMO.
- Baye would be pretty good.
- CJ would be bad
- Southerland bad
- Triche would be good
- Fab would be good
- Marek? Maybe with more weight. Potential there.
- Moyer? Uhhh.
- Silent G good and Cooney serviceable. Cooney was great in the zone.
- Roberson I think would be decent.
- Rak would be decent.
- Kaleb can’t play high D1 ball.

 

[longislandcuse]

It’s also interesting but how many Cuse players recently could actually be good in M2M? I don’t think many. We’ll never know but some of our length it seems has advantages but also disadvantages in agility/speed. Just my opinion. Obviously these kids played M2M in high school mostly and were recruited to some M2M college programs but I always ponder how they would fare in M2M here or elsewhere.

- Tyus would be fine.
- Frank in M2M would be a disaster playing PG. SG much better, IMO.
- Lydon? Depends where.
- Malachi would be OK
- Ennis is bad.
- Chukwu/Sidibe? I don’t know. Probably not good.
- TT terrible (anywhere)
- Dion is good when he wants to be. Never great, IMO.
- Baye would be pretty good.
- CJ would be bad
- Southerland bad
- Triche would be good
- Fab would be good
- Marek? Maybe with more weight. Potential there.
- Moyer? Uhhh.
- Silent G and Cooney good
- Roberson I think would be decent.
- Rak would be decent.

Pretty spot on. I'm not even a M2M advocate. I just think JB is becoming a dinosaur in his zone stubbornness or whatever it may be.

The worst thing we can do is collapse on the high post, yet we do it all the time. That leads to a step in 3, which is pretty much the kill shot in CBB, instead of forcing the opponent to make a quick decision, take a semi-contested, rarely practiced 2 point jumper.

If we are truly back, and play the zone how Duke did, with our athletes...we could be deadly on defense.

I don't think we recruit well enough to go against Duke/UNC and play M2M unless we want to hire Tony Bennett and have him install the pack line.

 

[SoBeCuse]

Pretty spot on. I'm not even a M2M advocate. I just think JB is becoming a dinosaur in his zone stubbornness or whatever it may be.

The worst thing we can do is collapse on the high post, yet we do it all the time. That leads to a step in 3, which is pretty much the kill shot in CBB, instead of forcing the opponent to make a quick decision, take a semi-contested, rarely practiced 2 point jumper.

If we are truly back, and play the zone how Duke did, with our athletes...we could be deadly on defense.

I don't think we recruit well enough to go against Duke/UNC and play M2M unless we want to hire Tony Bennett and have him install the pack line.

Right. I, too, never have said just scrap the zone. Just would wish some tweaks here/there, sprinkle in a little M2M/press more. But, again, we were so thin and injured this year. Yeah I don’t really even get how it is beneficial from our guards to have to go in there and meddle behind the guy in the HP then have to turn around and do a 180 to catch up to their guys getting the step-in clean 3 from the dude in the HP. If it’s the same old sit back in the zone 24/7 and let them roll the ball up with the personnel next season then it’s defintely Dinosaur ages for the worse.