Game thoughts...

[Jake]

Lots of problems stood out today. Defensive rebounding was atrocious. 38 minutes of fair and Southerland at the forward positions won't work if they don't fight hard on the glass. Really thought we should have seen more of Dajuan in the middle of each half just to eat space.

Half court offense sucked. Southerland just could not get free and it really screwed up the spacing on the court. We cannot live on a steady diet of CJ and triche trying to beat people on the dribble drive. It's not what we do. Even though those two had decent games. I'm not blaming Brandon, but those two passes he let go through his hands were just fin killers. At least one occurred with a chance to take the lead. Gotta execute better as a senior.

Agree with Bees, CJ has become a black hole. The offense comes to a screeching halt when he gets the ball.

Michael. If he makes his free throws we win and nobody is complaining about his play. Temple did a good job of taking away passing lanes and forcing Michael into taking shots he hasn't had to take up until now. I don't really blame Brandon Michael and CJ for forcing shots today because we weren't getting much from other players.

We are getting nothing on the blocks, Rak has to get more aggressive on both ends. He's just not giving us the energy plays we need from him.

Good learning experience. Temple definitely gave us their best effort of the season. We are still settling in on who will play what roles in crunch time. Need someone to step up with a bit of mf'er in their game. Not sure who that'll be. Would love to get DC more run to find out if he can do it.

 

[Oakland]

Lots of problems stood out today. Defensive rebounding was atrocious. 38 minutes of fair and Southerland at the forward positions won't work if they don't fight hard on the glass. Really thought we should have seen more of Dajuan in the middle of each half just to eat space.

Half court offense sucked. Southerland just could not get free and it really screwed up the spacing on the court. We cannot live on a steady diet of CJ and triche trying to beat people on the dribble drive. It's not what we do. Even though those two had decent games. I'm not blaming Brandon, but those two passes he let go through his hands were just fin killers. At least one occurred with a chance to take the lead. Gotta execute better as a senior.

Agree with Bees, CJ has become a black hole. The offense comes to a screeching halt when he gets the ball.

Michael. If he makes his free throws we win and nobody is complaining about his play. Temple did a good job of taking away passing lanes and forcing Michael into taking shots he hasn't had to take up until now. I don't really blame Brandon Michael and CJ for forcing shots today because we weren't getting much from other players.

We are getting nothing on the blocks, Rak has to get more aggressive on both ends. He's just not giving us the energy plays we need from him.

Good learning experience. Temple definitely gave us their best effort of the season. We are still settling in on who will play what roles in crunch time. Need someone to step up with a bit of mf'er in their game. Not sure who that'll be. Would love to get DC more run to find out if he can do it.

The second half offense was MCW, BT, and CJ driving one on one, two, three... the number of defenders didn't seem to matter. I missed the SDSt game, so I have never seen SU play like this before. I'd like to know if this is what JB wanted the team to do.

As far as CJ being a black hole, some annoucer said that about 2-3 games ago. It surprised me, but I now see what he meant.

 

[Gabjon]

I think this is what we need from CJ 90% of his touches are from 15ft and in he needs to look to score every time. 8-12 fg; 8-8ft with 1TO is a very efficient night. CJ has to make teams pay for how they are face guarding James. CJ had a clear mismatch out there and he was aggressive and we needed that now we need to get Rak going defensively and we'll be ok.

 

[BostonOrange]

Lots of problems stood out today. Defensive rebounding was atrocious. 38 minutes of fair and Southerland at the forward positions won't work if they don't fight hard on the glass. Really thought we should have seen more of Dajuan in the middle of each half just to eat space.

Half court offense sucked. Southerland just could not get free and it really screwed up the spacing on the court. We cannot live on a steady diet of CJ and triche trying to beat people on the dribble drive. It's not what we do. Even though those two had decent games. I'm not blaming Brandon, but those two passes he let go through his hands were just fin killers. At least one occurred with a chance to take the lead. Gotta execute better as a senior.

Agree with Bees, CJ has become a black hole. The offense comes to a screeching halt when he gets the ball.

Michael. If he makes his free throws we win and nobody is complaining about his play. Temple did a good job of taking away passing lanes and forcing Michael into taking shots he hasn't had to take up until now. I don't really blame Brandon Michael and CJ for forcing shots today because we weren't getting much from other players.

We are getting nothing on the blocks, Rak has to get more aggressive on both ends. He's just not giving us the energy plays we need from him.

Good learning experience. Temple definitely gave us their best effort of the season. We are still settling in on who will play what roles in crunch time. Need someone to step up with a bit of mf'er in their game. Not sure who that'll be. Would love to get DC more run to find out if he can do it.

Agree with most of that. Particularly with the DC part. Re Fair I'm not sure he has really 'become' a black hole. He's never displayed much passing ability but I also don't see him as a selfish player or even a ball stopper. He is kind of like a poor man's Hak as far as his offensive game.

 

[SWC75]

With a normal game from CJ, we lose by 15. He was hardly the problem today.

 

[Col. Bleep]

Temple's defensive game plan was smart and simple: take the country's top assist guy out of his game.
They kept MCW's passing options covered and forced him to shoot himself.
If they were going to be beaten, MCW would have to do it.
And he couldn't.
Yes, he got to the line and it's a different game if he makes his foul shots.
But he didn't.

Fair needed to step up offensively to try to give Temple more to worry about and I thought he did a terrific job.

It would be nice if we had some plays we could run...like the curl we used to call for Andy Rautins.

 

[Col. Bleep]

Defensively for us, the bigs didn't get the job done, especially on the glass.
And the way we let Wyatt have his way in the paint in the first half was awful.

Despite the shortcomings, it still came down to a few plays.
Fair stepping on the sideline before a drive.
Triche missing a big open 3-pointer.
They finally miss a FT, get the rebound, miss the put back, get the rebound again and score.
One of those comes out differently and maybe its a different game.

 

[rrlbees]

With a normal game from CJ, we lose by 15. He was hardly the problem today.

Who said he was the problem? Hr played great. But he has been a black hole all year. When everything is going in, it looks great.

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[SWC75]

Defensively for us, the bigs didn't get the job done, especially on the glass.
And the way we let Wyatt have his way in the paint in the first half was awful.

Despite the shortcomings, it still came down to a few plays.
Fair stepping on the sideline before a drive.
Triche missing a big open 3-pointer.
They finally miss a FT, get the rebound, miss the put back, get the rebound again and score.
One of those comes out differently and maybe its a different game.

It's the same game with a different result. We would still have the same problems to deal with.

 

[SWC75]

Who said he was the problem? Hr played great. But he has been a black hole all year. When everything is going in, it looks great.

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He's not really an assist man, any more than Southerland is. He did have a couple of nice passes from the top of the key to the bigs vs. Detroit. JB should consider using him in that role.

 

[BlueCurtain]

Rak can't get into a rhythm in the post when he's yanked for <insert whatever reason JB conjures>. He's our only post presence this year until DC figures out how to contribute. They were getting manhandled on the glass and it would have been nice to see if he could make a difference.

 

[CU44SE]

Rak can't get into a rhythm in the post when he's yanked for <insert whatever reason JB conjures>. He's our only post presence this year until DC figures out how to contribute. They were getting manhandled on the glass and it would have been nice to see if he could make a difference.

JB tried to play him extensively, early in the game we kept forcing the ball into him. He wasn't doing anything with his opportunities. He was slow getting up and down the court. Just watched the ball instead of boxing out. I could go on, but I wont. He needs to play aggressively, instead he plays timid. If he played the way Lee did for Temple today, Christmas would be unstoppable.

 

[pearl31]

Good grief. What if CJ hadn't been a "black hole" today?
How can people possibly criticize his game today?

 

[Jasoncuse]

How is CJ any more of a black hole than Triche, Southerland or even MCW? This is the offense that JB runs. It's all one-on-one's if a guy gets the ball in decent position to make something happen. If Southerland gets the ball facing up to the basket, he's hoisting a shot. If Triche is moving at all with the ball he's going to try to get to the lane. MCW seems to want everything to go through him. So how exactly is Fair any different?

 

[CusefanATL]

Temple's defensive game plan was smart and simple: take the country's top assist guy out of his game.
They kept MCW's passing options covered and forced him to shoot himself.
If they were going to be beaten, MCW would have to do it.
And he couldn't.

thats a little too easy... MCW won't go 3/17 again if he tried to...

I am the guys biggest critic, but c'mon... this wasn't temple playing great D. This game was 100% MCW missing FT's and bunnies. Just ask him and/or Boeheim.

I have ZERO concern for this loss. It all comes down to MCW. My hope is that this brings him back to earth. He needs to have a nice long talk with his mom, dad, priest (if he is as religious as we thought) and put his head back on straight. I really dont care about a few mistakes here and there. i feel like i am a good person and TRUST ME i have done worse than steal a robe and trip a ref.

I am very confident he will... but he is the man on this team. When you are the man on the team, you have to act like it. I have a feeling he will.

 

[STEVEHOLT]

We made their "center" look like ing moses malone...so I hesitate to agree with the ZERO concern concept, although I am not that concerned.

this team goes only so far if we cannot get a post presence. I dont care if we have to lose 9 more games in trying to do that. we'll go farther in the tourney than if we lose 3 games and dont develop one

 

[longislandcuse]

Temple played as well as they can possibly play and we probably played as bad as we can and it still came down to a few plays down the stretch that made the difference. We played horrible so don't mistake me for blaming the loss on the refs but it seemed like that officiating crew was a combination of the Ohio State game and the Knicks/Bulls game meshed together into a triumvirate of piss-poor officials. I completely agree that Rak/DC2 need to get more playing time. Rak got pulled in the second half after like 2 minutes because why...he missed a really hard alley oop try? I don't get it. A 4/5 of Fair/Southerland and Keita is not going to cut it against teams like Temple (ugh really did I just say "teams like Temple"). What a sh***y loss but this still seems like a team that going into the tourney may be better than last year, it's just that along the way we may have to deal with games like this.

 

[SarasotaPaul]

Temple played as well as they can possibly play and we probably played as bad as we can and it still came down to a few plays down the stretch that made the difference. We played horrible so don't mistake me for blaming the loss on the refs but it seemed like that officiating crew was a combination of the Ohio State game and the Knicks/Bulls game meshed together into a triumvirate of piss-poor officials. I completely agree that Rak/DC2 need to get more playing time. Rak got pulled in the second half after like 2 minutes because why...he missed a really hard alley oop try? I don't get it. A 4/5 of Fair/Southerland and Keita is not going to cut it against teams like Temple (ugh really did I just say "teams like Temple"). What a sh***y loss but this still seems like a team that going into the tourney may be better than last year, it's just that along the way we may have to deal with games like this.

Rak got pulled cause he stopped after the miss, didn't hustle back on D and they had an easy bucket because of that. He does too many things like that. Lack of hustle or concentration.

 

[Dcuse]

Wow. If you're gonna throw out the "Black Hole" moniker on CJ, yesterday certainly wasn't the game to do it with. Puts the ball up 20 times(including ft's) and makes 16. That's a black hole I'll take.

 

[orangefan13]

I feel strangely worried after this game. We ran everything out of the high post. Everything. no post up isolation, little to no three point shooting when southerland isn't wide open and no dribble penetration to wear temple down from our press.

Honestly I am more concerened with that then winning or loosing any game right now. When your one dimentional its nearly impossible to look like the best. I just don't like the gameplan. We continue to do that and all it will take is a good well rounded team on offense to put pressure on us and have momentum like last night.

Still we lost because of ft's, mcw missing so many shots, and poor outside shooting stoping our perimeter dribble penetration. But I just like to look like the better team then the one with more efficient stats. Its a funner brand of basketball as well.

 

[tbonezone]

was i watching michael worldb.free williams at the garden ? didn't know he somehow developed a jumper in the off week.

 

[hoopsupstate]

I just wish he had a short a leash with Triche, CJ and MCW as he does with Rak and Coleman.

 

[GardenOrange]

Big guys played defense flat footed all game. I think Coleman needs to play more. We need him on the floor. Let him play through more mistakes. Also, if Southerland is not shooting it well, he may as well go to the bench. His D and rebounding are horrible.

Did we scout Temple at all? Didn't seem like it.

 

[IthacaMatt]

Who said he was the problem? Hr played great. But he has been a black hole all year. When everything is going in, it looks great.

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I don't see as reluctant to pass. He only has a couple moves, and when they're guarding James closely, we need him to score. Not sure what you're expecting from him that he wasn't doing.

I think Keita did very well when he was out there. Christmas was up and down, some good minutes and then defensive lapses. He's kind of like a Mookie Watkins / Terrence Roberts kind of player - makes some nice defensive plays, plays better when he plays with more emotion. Too inconsistent. Coleman can't guard anybody out there. That's keeping him off the floor.

Let me add that Cooney needs to do something to calm the F down before he goes out there. They were trying to pump him up for his good defense, but back-t0-back first attempt air balls from 3 these past 2 games is What territory after how good he looked in the 3 prior games.

 

[Gabjon]

Big guys played defense flat footed all game. I think Coleman needs to play more. We need him on the floor. Let him play through more mistakes. Also, if Southerland is not shooting it well, he may as well go to the bench. His D and rebounding are horrible.

Did we scout Temple at all? Didn't seem like it.

James was our leading rebounder in the game...