Gut Reactions

[CU44SE]

Went radio silence and just finished the game.

Juda has to stay on the court. I don’t want him to be Swiss cheese on defense in the first half. But he has to stop picking up quick fouls right away. I think it’s the right decision to not play him with 2 fouls in the first half. But it hurt us today.

Gottta give credit to Bell. I found myself saying we need Bell back in this game. He played well defensively. Most active I have ever seen him here. Made some tough shots. Hes still allergic to rebounding, still just watches the ball when it hits the rim though. He doesn’t box out and doesn’t jump for the ball.

Mccloud went from not knowing how to play basketball last game to being an eraser at the Rim tonight. Was happy with most of his miunutes. Struggled down the stretch, looked gas. Lacks conditioning.

Mintz went out at the 13 minute mark and our offense went in the garbage. No designs for easy buckets. No one tried to get to the rim. Fade away mid range jumpers. Everything was settling for a tough shot. Lot of guards on this team, but not sure many are very good ball handlers besides Mintz.

3 turnovers on inbounds under the basket. Absolutely brutal. Almost had a 4th one that got tipped around a little before we regained possession.

Brown is a very good defender away from the basket. Very good in high ball pressure. Great active hands. Struggles defending the basket.

Don’t think the officials were awful. But I did think we got a couple suspect calls on contact that were not called while Tennessee was getting those calls.

Free throws killed us. We did get to the line quite a bit. But 8-17 is not going to help you beat a high quality opponent. Can’t shoot 47% and expect to win.

Have to finish around the basket. They weren’t even all difficult shots. We shot 37% from 2. I think we actually had a better midrange shooting percentage than we did within 2 feet of the basket. Not going to win many games missing that many shots within 2 feet.

Defense played well. Score doesn’t really do the game justice. Got away at the end trying to press and cut the lead. However, our guys continue to struggle getting back on defense. Tennessee took advantage of it a couple times pushing tempo and getting easy buckets. They were struggling in the half court.

JJ had a rough game. Mintz went out with the fouls and he struggled to initiate the offense and carry the weight. 4-13 from the field and 0-3 from 3, 4 turnovers. Needed him to step up, and unfortunately he didn’t.

Early in the game, I got goosebumps remembering the feeling of Syracuse being good again in the regular season. Haven’t had that feeling during the regular season in a very long time. Didn’t go the way we wanted, but I thought that game easily could have went the other way. If that truly is the 7th best team in the country, I think we’re going to be okay. Still a lot of work to do. And this tournament is going to test us. Doesn't get any easier tomorrow against the Zags. Can’t have a hangover from this loss. Gotta go out and get that W.

 

[FRANKIEFAN]

Judah’s missed free throws and turnovers were ridiculously bad I think he missed 2 twice today. Talented guy and our best player but still. Starling has been a dud.

Maybe we can finally see these two on tomorrow.

 

[ThundrTroll]

Not surprised by Bell's lack of rebounds...he doesn't even jump when he shoots 3's. Regardless, I'll take what he is offering at this point. Reminds me of a less athletic James Southerland.

 

[CU44SE]

Not surprised by Bell's lack of rebounds...he doesn't even jump when he shoots 3's. Regardless, I'll take what he is offering at this point. Reminds me of a less athletic James Southerland.

Sorry, can’t agree with this. Maybe I liked southerland more than most. But he was lengthy, hops, knock down shooter. Prototypical wing defender that rebounded and got weak side blocks. I loved me some J smoove. Great personality too.

Bell is still in my doghouse. Starting to peak his head out a little bit. But still not a huge fan.

 

[ThundrTroll]

Sorry, can’t agree with this. Maybe I liked southerland more than most. But he was lengthy, hops, knock down shooter. Prototypical wing defender that rebounded and got weak side blocks. I loved me some J smoove. Great personality too.

Bell is still in my doghouse. Starting to peak his head out a little bit. But still not a huge fan.

Well, my "less athletic" was meant to cover some of his shortcomings and differences. Southerland definitely grew on me. His lights out performance at Arkansas still stands out!

 

[FRANKIEFAN]

Not surprised by Bell's lack of rebounds...he doesn't even jump when he shoots 3's. Regardless, I'll take what he is offering at this point. Reminds me of a less athletic James Southerland.

His points have been badly needed.

Only guy whose layups don’t bounce in it.

I think he might get better at this.

 

[newmexicuse]

This team clearly has issues.

1. Scoring - we are struggling and that is with Bell playing above his head. Hope Chris has really made the jump, but that remains to be seen. Benny came in on fire and then.......poof...vanished. Pretty clearly Judah needs to be hot for this team to generate any consistent O. Not enough trey shooters for sure.
2. Rebounding - When Justin is your most effective rebounder....nothing more to be said.
3. Brown - He is a nice player. Does a bit of everything, but I was hoping to see some off season improvement in rebounding or scoring or both. I am seeing the same player as last season.
4. McLeod - very good shot blocker, but doesnt do anything else. I guess my delusion that he could at least sometimes be the player that ate up Jesse for a half last season is just that......a delusion. What a difference Jesse would have made.
5. JJ - not terrible, but not what I was hoping for....at least so far.
6. Cope and Cuffe - we need at least one of them to be impactful off the bench every game.
7. Red - he is trying to mix it up and find combos both in terms of which D is being played and which players are on the floor. That will take awhile.

So, if there is to be upside, where will it come from ? - We need consistency from Judah. I do not think Benny will ever be consistent, but we will need "good" Benny the majority of the time. Bell's improvement needs to be real. Justin cant have o'fers from try range. Somehow, we need to develop a toughness that this team lacks.

 

[Sbucketball]

The first thing that needs to happen is Red needs to become stricter with roles. If Maliq or Copeland want to shoot a 3 at an inopportune time, they sit. That can be fixed in ten minutes.

 

[upperdeck]

Huge uptick in Opp and we played a much better game vs a much better D.

We also played much better D until we broke down on the simple stuff.

its a work in progress and need both sides of the ball to get about 25% better over the next 10 games to compete in the ACC.

Hang with Gonzaga for 35 min like we did Tenn and then you start to see some hope forward.

Fts and we are leading Tenn at the half and no one saw that coming.

 

[Nicknack]

If Copeland takes another 3, I'm going to lose my . He and Cuffe did very little last night and that hurt us.

I'll give Brown a pass on his 3 pt shot. I think it was at the end of the clock. This is one guy who knows his role.

Good to see Naheem make an impact on the game. His play yesterday was about what we will probably get from him. Not great but 4 blocks in 21 minutes was excellent.

I really like JT's toughness and willingness to get physical down low getting rebounds. However, he has GOT to score if he's on the court for 28 minutes. We really missed his outside shot yesterday.

Benny... wow. What a way to impact the game like he did coming in and getting 8 pts. Not sure why he didn't get more minutes because he is what we needed a lot more of. Hopefully we will see more minutes today.

JJ shows flashes but his shooting has just not been good enough for a guy logging that many minutes.

If Judah doesn't sit in the first half, we likely have the lead going into half. His free throw shooting was a killer for a guy who gets to the line as much as he does.

Great to see Bell have the game he did. Aside from rebounding, really solid play. It will be interesting to see what we get today. Was yesterday a sign of more good things to come? We will see.

 

[mark79]

Went radio silence and just finished the game.

Juda has to stay on the court. I don’t want him to be Swiss cheese on defense in the first half. But he has to stop picking up quick fouls right away. I think it’s the right decision to not play him with 2 fouls in the first half. But it hurt us today.

Gottta give credit to Bell. I found myself saying we need Bell back in this game. He played well defensively. Most active I have ever seen him here. Made some tough shots. Hes still allergic to rebounding, still just watches the ball when it hits the rim though. He doesn’t box out and doesn’t jump for the ball.

Mccloud went from not knowing how to play basketball last game to being an eraser at the Rim tonight. Was happy with most of his miunutes. Struggled down the stretch, looked gas. Lacks conditioning.

Mintz went out at the 13 minute mark and our offense went in the garbage. No designs for easy buckets. No one tried to get to the rim. Fade away mid range jumpers. Everything was settling for a tough shot. Lot of guards on this team, but not sure many are very good ball handlers besides Mintz.

3 turnovers on inbounds under the basket. Absolutely brutal. Almost had a 4th one that got tipped around a little before we regained possession.

Brown is a very good defender away from the basket. Very good in high ball pressure. Great active hands. Struggles defending the basket.

Don’t think the officials were awful. But I did think we got a couple suspect calls on contact that were not called while Tennessee was getting those calls.

Free throws killed us. We did get to the line quite a bit. But 8-17 is not going to help you beat a high quality opponent. Can’t shoot 47% and expect to win.

Have to finish around the basket. They weren’t even all difficult shots. We shot 37% from 2. I think we actually had a better midrange shooting percentage than we did within 2 feet of the basket. Not going to win many games missing that many shots within 2 feet.

Defense played well. Score doesn’t really do the game justice. Got away at the end trying to press and cut the lead. However, our guys continue to struggle getting back on defense. Tennessee took advantage of it a couple times pushing tempo and getting easy buckets. They were struggling in the half court.

JJ had a rough game. Mintz went out with the fouls and he struggled to initiate the offense and carry the weight. 4-13 from the field and 0-3 from 3, 4 turnovers. Needed him to step up, and unfortunately he didn’t.

Early in the game, I got goosebumps remembering the feeling of Syracuse being good again in the regular season. Haven’t had that feeling during the regular season in a very long time. Didn’t go the way we wanted, but I thought that game easily could have went the other way. If that truly is the 7th best team in the country, I think we’re going to be okay. Still a lot of work to do. And this tournament is going to test us. Doesn't get any easier tomorrow against the Zags. Can’t have a hangover from this loss. Gotta go out and get that W.

Pretty much how I felt. Definitely encouraged in the first half although I wasn’t happy with how our guards were turning the ball over.

To me it felt like we were a bit too young to win a game like this, but that we have the players to do so if we can get them to play together.