Captnhowdy
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http://insider.espn.go.com/mens-col...syracuse-orange-thrive-acc-college-basketball
This is the season that the ACC goes from being a very good basketball conference to being ridiculously good, with the addition of new members Syracuse, Notre Dame and Pittsburgh (with Louisville to follow in 2014-15). In particular, the arrival of Jim Boeheim and his highly regarded 2-3 zone defense promises to bring added luster to what was already one of the nation's most storied leagues.
Just how well will the Orange fare in the ACC? Perhaps not quite as well as the team would have done had Michael Carter-Williams opted to stick around for another season of college. Still, there's reason to believe that a defense comprised of C.J. Fair, Rakeem Christmas,Baye Keita and their ilk could be even stronger than what we saw from the Orange back in the Big East days of (not very) long ago.
Rather, I can envision the Syracuse defense gaining a relative advantage over the rest of the ACC thanks primarily to two factors. First, Boeheim's team will have novelty on its side (though, again, two of the Orange's "new" conference opponents will in fact be familiar faces -- the Irish and the Panthers). While the ACC is no stranger to good or even great defense, that level of D has rarely come in the specific form of a 2-3 zone. And secondly, Syracuse happens to be a defense that forces opponents to shoot more 3s than they otherwise would -- and the ACC happens to be a league that doesn't shoot many 3s. It promises to be one of those proverbial "good matchups" for the Orange.
Let's consider each of these factors, and what they could mean for Syracuse as well as 14 other ACC teams.
Man-to-man, zone, and nuisance value
I don't want to give the impression that the rest of the ACC will be totally helpless in the face of the Syracuse zone. It is, of course, a very good defense. But it's easy to exaggerate its strengths at this particular point in time. When last we saw Boeheim's team, it was playing absolutely incredible defense against NCAA tournament opponents like Indiana and Marquette. On the season as a whole, however, this was merely the Big East's fifth-ranked defense in conference play. Indeed looking at the past seven seasons, we find that Syracuse has had two clear standout teams in terms of defense (2009-10, and 2011-12), but has ranked either fifth- or sixth-best in the league in each of the other five seasons.
That being said, I do think Syracuse is poised to perform at a high level on defense as an ACC program. I've long been of the opinion that if nothing else, opting to play zone gives a team a small but still worthwhile benefit in the form of sheer nuisance value. Simply put, if you're doing something that your opponent isn't entirely comfortable with you doing, that in and of itself is a good thing.
The vast majority of teams in Division I spend the preponderance of their time preparing to face man-to-man defenses. Those teams and their players develop plays that work well for them and give them a level of comfort. Coaches subscribe to and tirelessly proclaim a belief that the more their players work on these plays, the better the team will perform on offense. And at one stroke, the zone stops this progression dead in its tracks.
This kind of nuisance value has nothing to do with anything inherent to the zone as a scheme, mind you. The same dynamic would work in favor of man-to-man defense if most of D-I played zone. But as long as college head coaches continue to prefer man defense by an overwhelming margin, this particular opportunity will continue to present itself. You can throw your opponent off-stride through the simple expedient of playing zone defense.
Of course what's equally important is that Syracuse happens to play zone defense very well. In those two aforementioned NCAA tournament games against Indiana and Marquette, the Orange limited their opponents to just 0.75 points per possession. That was extreme, even by Boeheim's impressive standards, but it does show what Syracuse is capable of doing with its 2-3 zone. The ACC can't say it wasn't warned.
Syracuse does not fear opponents shooting 3s
There's a school of thought that says you don't want your opponents to shoot 3s. Duke, for example, has long achieved success on defense by "chasing shooters off the line." Syracuse, for better or worse, does not subscribe to that school of thought. One element of the Orange's success has often been to make opponents shoot an unusually large number of 3s. Conversely the ACC as a conference does not shoot many 3s. (Only Pac-12 teams launched fewer shots from beyond the arc last season in conference play.) For the most part, ACC teams would rather not attempt 3s, but Syracuse has a habit of forcing those shots to occur. It sets up to be a notable stylistic collision.
Last season the Orange's Big East opponents devoted 41 percent of their field goal attempts to shots from beyond the arc, easily the highest such percentage in the conference and, indeed, in major-conference play overall. Basically the numbers back up what your eyes tell you anytime you watch Syracuse play -- opponents would rather try to shoot over the 2-3 than devote the time and effort necessary to penetrate it.
If you were drawing up a favorable situation from scratch for the Syracuse zone, it would be a new league that doesn't currently have any formidable zone defenses, and, further, a conference that doesn't (yet) shoot many 3s. I don't suppose that the Orange will run the table in the ACC, of course, but I do suspect Boeheim's defense will be slightly more effective than it otherwise would have been during another run through the Big East in that conference's former configuration.
This is the season that the ACC goes from being a very good basketball conference to being ridiculously good, with the addition of new members Syracuse, Notre Dame and Pittsburgh (with Louisville to follow in 2014-15). In particular, the arrival of Jim Boeheim and his highly regarded 2-3 zone defense promises to bring added luster to what was already one of the nation's most storied leagues.
Just how well will the Orange fare in the ACC? Perhaps not quite as well as the team would have done had Michael Carter-Williams opted to stick around for another season of college. Still, there's reason to believe that a defense comprised of C.J. Fair, Rakeem Christmas,Baye Keita and their ilk could be even stronger than what we saw from the Orange back in the Big East days of (not very) long ago.
Stew Milne/USA TODAY SportsC.J. Fair averaged 1.1 blocks and 1.1 steals per game last season for the Orange.
If there is an improvement, it won't be because of any drop-off in the quality of the opponents. As it happens, the average overall strength of the opposing offenses faced by Syracuse in the ACC this coming season should be more or less comparable to what the Orange saw last season in the Big East, so there's little to no advantage to be gained there.Rather, I can envision the Syracuse defense gaining a relative advantage over the rest of the ACC thanks primarily to two factors. First, Boeheim's team will have novelty on its side (though, again, two of the Orange's "new" conference opponents will in fact be familiar faces -- the Irish and the Panthers). While the ACC is no stranger to good or even great defense, that level of D has rarely come in the specific form of a 2-3 zone. And secondly, Syracuse happens to be a defense that forces opponents to shoot more 3s than they otherwise would -- and the ACC happens to be a league that doesn't shoot many 3s. It promises to be one of those proverbial "good matchups" for the Orange.
Let's consider each of these factors, and what they could mean for Syracuse as well as 14 other ACC teams.
Man-to-man, zone, and nuisance value
I don't want to give the impression that the rest of the ACC will be totally helpless in the face of the Syracuse zone. It is, of course, a very good defense. But it's easy to exaggerate its strengths at this particular point in time. When last we saw Boeheim's team, it was playing absolutely incredible defense against NCAA tournament opponents like Indiana and Marquette. On the season as a whole, however, this was merely the Big East's fifth-ranked defense in conference play. Indeed looking at the past seven seasons, we find that Syracuse has had two clear standout teams in terms of defense (2009-10, and 2011-12), but has ranked either fifth- or sixth-best in the league in each of the other five seasons.
That being said, I do think Syracuse is poised to perform at a high level on defense as an ACC program. I've long been of the opinion that if nothing else, opting to play zone gives a team a small but still worthwhile benefit in the form of sheer nuisance value. Simply put, if you're doing something that your opponent isn't entirely comfortable with you doing, that in and of itself is a good thing.
The vast majority of teams in Division I spend the preponderance of their time preparing to face man-to-man defenses. Those teams and their players develop plays that work well for them and give them a level of comfort. Coaches subscribe to and tirelessly proclaim a belief that the more their players work on these plays, the better the team will perform on offense. And at one stroke, the zone stops this progression dead in its tracks.
This kind of nuisance value has nothing to do with anything inherent to the zone as a scheme, mind you. The same dynamic would work in favor of man-to-man defense if most of D-I played zone. But as long as college head coaches continue to prefer man defense by an overwhelming margin, this particular opportunity will continue to present itself. You can throw your opponent off-stride through the simple expedient of playing zone defense.
Of course what's equally important is that Syracuse happens to play zone defense very well. In those two aforementioned NCAA tournament games against Indiana and Marquette, the Orange limited their opponents to just 0.75 points per possession. That was extreme, even by Boeheim's impressive standards, but it does show what Syracuse is capable of doing with its 2-3 zone. The ACC can't say it wasn't warned.
Syracuse does not fear opponents shooting 3s
There's a school of thought that says you don't want your opponents to shoot 3s. Duke, for example, has long achieved success on defense by "chasing shooters off the line." Syracuse, for better or worse, does not subscribe to that school of thought. One element of the Orange's success has often been to make opponents shoot an unusually large number of 3s. Conversely the ACC as a conference does not shoot many 3s. (Only Pac-12 teams launched fewer shots from beyond the arc last season in conference play.) For the most part, ACC teams would rather not attempt 3s, but Syracuse has a habit of forcing those shots to occur. It sets up to be a notable stylistic collision.
Last season the Orange's Big East opponents devoted 41 percent of their field goal attempts to shots from beyond the arc, easily the highest such percentage in the conference and, indeed, in major-conference play overall. Basically the numbers back up what your eyes tell you anytime you watch Syracuse play -- opponents would rather try to shoot over the 2-3 than devote the time and effort necessary to penetrate it.
If you were drawing up a favorable situation from scratch for the Syracuse zone, it would be a new league that doesn't currently have any formidable zone defenses, and, further, a conference that doesn't (yet) shoot many 3s. I don't suppose that the Orange will run the table in the ACC, of course, but I do suspect Boeheim's defense will be slightly more effective than it otherwise would have been during another run through the Big East in that conference's former configuration.
