General20
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There are two things I want to convey to the people who were not able to watch this game. First, I want to explain why High Point was able to keep the game close for 25 or so minutes. Second, I want to show how weird this game was.
High Point is your typical mid major team with one exception. They have a player named John Brown who is 6'8 and has high major athleticism (think of him as a poor man's Jerami Grant). He was averaging 20 a game coming in, but Syracuse had no problem shutting him down – he only had 2 points in the first half on 1-7 shooting. So it was weird that in the first half High Point was able to keep things close.
They fell behind by double digits relatively quickly then subbed out all five starters and went with five bench players (weird). It was the five bench players who were able to narrow the lead (weird). Mostly on deep threes and a variety of circus shots that included a banked in three, a thirty foot three, a blind floater, a guy who drove the lane only to have the ball stripped right to a teammate for a layup, and a fade away from the top of the key that banked in two full seconds after the shot clock expired but still counted, and was even awarded three points for a while despite the shooter not being behind the three point line (weird).
It would be an understatement to call High Point's offense unsustainable, and really it was a basketball miracle that their shots fell as often and for as long as they did. In the second half, High Point's karma ran out and Syracuse went on something close to a 30-0 run. High Point missed the few shots they took, and the rest of the time fell victim to Tyler Ennis who was in some kind of defensive feeding frenzy that involved stealing the ball repeatedly.
You could not call this an impressive performance for Syracuse, and they did have some defensive lapses (especially while pressing) but 10 unlikely points by High Point made it seem a lot closer than it really was, and I didn't see any structural flaws in the team we need to worry about biting us down the road. Because of this, I don't think there is much we can take from this game. The best I can give you is, SU's press was disorganized, and looked like they don't work on it much in practice, although this news should not come as a surprise to anybody.
Somebody asked me to start making pre-game thoughts so it might be fun to reexamine those:
Christmas and Coleman are making obvious progress, especially offensively, and I have now heard both Boeheim and Hopkins talk about how the team needs to do a better job feeding them the ball. Seems like the High Point game is a good time to practice, right? My guess is Keita gets a relatively small amount of minutes (right around 10), and Christmas and Coleman each play a lot, and get plenty of scoring opportunities.
Syracuse's first play of the game was the double screen to Fair that they kept going to against St. John's, but after that the team did look repeatedly for Coleman and Christmas down low. If Coleman and Christmas had performed at all, my prediction would have been right. Unfortunately Christmas had a poor game and Coleman had a disaster (his worst game of the season). If you don't earn your time you are going to sit, and that is what happened with Coleman and Christmas.
Ennis gets some well deserved bench time (he's going to have to play all 40 min against Nova) with Gbinije getting some good run at the point and Patterson getting his chance there too.
Ennis played 29 minutes which is certainly less than usual, but more than I was expecting. This is due to the game being close for longer than I expected.
Don't be surprised if Grant takes the most shots. He is going to be the x-factor in our game against Nova. They might want to prepare him by having him work on a few things.
Grant only took four shots, but this is deceptive. First, he sprained his ankle (word is he should be fine) which limited his minutes. Second, High Point could not stop Grant without fouling him, so he added 6 foul shots to his four regular shots. In all Grant had 7 scoring chances in 17 minutes of play (where the pace of the game was slow), which shows a nice aggressiveness.
Cooney gets back on the horse by hitting a few threes.
5 for 6 from three, so, this worked out nicely.
Everybody will be looking to see how Patterson, Roberson, Johnson play, and they will get plenty of PT, so lets make some predictions here.
All three continue to to have limited responsibility on offense (shoot when you are open) which is standard for freshmen. All three continue their trend of low field goal percentages.
These guys did not get a chance to play as much as I expected and as a result did not shoot much. Roberson played a good amount early (when Grant was benched for missing a defensive assignment) and didn't look very good.
Player evaluations:
Ennis – The bad, he shot 50% on mostly lay ups. He is going to have chances to score at the basket against Nova, and we are going to need him to convert. The good, his 5 steals really put a dagger in High Point.
Cooney – Took 5 good shots, and hit them all. Took one tough three and one tough two and hit the two. Just another in what is becoming a long list of epic shooting performances by Trevor. Sometimes its fun to see video game numbers put up in these mid major games, and Trevor had one. His effective shooting percentage (which gives threes more credit than twos because they give you more points) was 121.4%. Nobody else in the game (for either team) who took 5 shots or more got over 50%.
Fair – That double screen to get Fair a shot along the baseline is becoming SU's favorite play, and for good reason. Steady as always, Fair had 15 points on 50% shooting.
Chrsitmas – 8 minutes at center - Started the game off playing poorly, and was taken out early and forced to sit for a long time. To his credit, when Christmas came back in the game he played better and proved he learned to establish post position as close to the basket as possible. He pushed High Point's center (who was a big guy) way under the basket and was rewarded with a good entry pass and an easy two points. For a lot of the game High Point flooded the court with little shooters and in those games Christmas is not an ideal wing defender – expect limited minutes there against Nova.
Coleman – 13 minutes at center - Other than a nice block in the second half, nothing went right for him. He fumbled a few passes, generally found himself in all the wrong spots, and missed two makeable shots the only two times he did get in good position. With the exception of “my 3 sons” Coleman was the only guy on the team with a negative +/- at -5.
Gbinije – Was solid on both ends of the floor. At this point its all a matter of pressure with Gbinije. When the other team does not apply it, he looks good. When the other team does apply it, he looks bad (offensively) his defense is going to keep him in the rotation either way. Interesting side note, even though Grant turned his ankle and also got benched for a stretch Boeheim did not give Gbinije any minutes at forward, instead choosing to go with Roberson or Christmas. Not sure this means anything going forward, especially with the way Roberson played.
Grant – Scored an efficient 10 points in 17 minutes of play. Hit all 6 free throws he took. High Point decided to give Grant a TON of room and invite him to shoot as much as he wanted. Grant's first shot was a mid range jump shot that he buried, but he did not fall in love with it and aggressively attacked the basket, despite the High Point players standing under it, with good results.
Roberson – Got 11 good minutes in this one, including some in the first half when the game was close. Unfortunately Roberson did almost nothing with those minutes, missing the only two shots he took, and only snagging one rebound (despite being the best natural rebounder on the floor). His problem is, he is not sure where he is suppose to be which prevents him from making decisive movements. He always seems to be about a foot or two away from where he should be. On D, this results in giving the offense a slightly better shot than they should have, and not quite being in ideal rebounding position. I still think when the light turns on for him the improvements will come quickly, but he is running out of time to prove himself.
Keita – 19 minutes at center – His performance was noticeably improved against St. John's on the defensive side of the ball, and this continued against High Point. Right now he is playing the best basketball of our three centers by a pretty wide margin, and it is showing in his +/- which was +26 in this one (second only to Ennis, who has an unfair advantage in +/- being the only point guard on the team).
Patterson/Johnson – Played 5 and 4 minutes respectively, and each hit a shot. Not much you can take away from small minutes like this in garbage time.
High Point is your typical mid major team with one exception. They have a player named John Brown who is 6'8 and has high major athleticism (think of him as a poor man's Jerami Grant). He was averaging 20 a game coming in, but Syracuse had no problem shutting him down – he only had 2 points in the first half on 1-7 shooting. So it was weird that in the first half High Point was able to keep things close.
They fell behind by double digits relatively quickly then subbed out all five starters and went with five bench players (weird). It was the five bench players who were able to narrow the lead (weird). Mostly on deep threes and a variety of circus shots that included a banked in three, a thirty foot three, a blind floater, a guy who drove the lane only to have the ball stripped right to a teammate for a layup, and a fade away from the top of the key that banked in two full seconds after the shot clock expired but still counted, and was even awarded three points for a while despite the shooter not being behind the three point line (weird).
It would be an understatement to call High Point's offense unsustainable, and really it was a basketball miracle that their shots fell as often and for as long as they did. In the second half, High Point's karma ran out and Syracuse went on something close to a 30-0 run. High Point missed the few shots they took, and the rest of the time fell victim to Tyler Ennis who was in some kind of defensive feeding frenzy that involved stealing the ball repeatedly.
You could not call this an impressive performance for Syracuse, and they did have some defensive lapses (especially while pressing) but 10 unlikely points by High Point made it seem a lot closer than it really was, and I didn't see any structural flaws in the team we need to worry about biting us down the road. Because of this, I don't think there is much we can take from this game. The best I can give you is, SU's press was disorganized, and looked like they don't work on it much in practice, although this news should not come as a surprise to anybody.
Somebody asked me to start making pre-game thoughts so it might be fun to reexamine those:
Christmas and Coleman are making obvious progress, especially offensively, and I have now heard both Boeheim and Hopkins talk about how the team needs to do a better job feeding them the ball. Seems like the High Point game is a good time to practice, right? My guess is Keita gets a relatively small amount of minutes (right around 10), and Christmas and Coleman each play a lot, and get plenty of scoring opportunities.
Syracuse's first play of the game was the double screen to Fair that they kept going to against St. John's, but after that the team did look repeatedly for Coleman and Christmas down low. If Coleman and Christmas had performed at all, my prediction would have been right. Unfortunately Christmas had a poor game and Coleman had a disaster (his worst game of the season). If you don't earn your time you are going to sit, and that is what happened with Coleman and Christmas.
Ennis gets some well deserved bench time (he's going to have to play all 40 min against Nova) with Gbinije getting some good run at the point and Patterson getting his chance there too.
Ennis played 29 minutes which is certainly less than usual, but more than I was expecting. This is due to the game being close for longer than I expected.
Don't be surprised if Grant takes the most shots. He is going to be the x-factor in our game against Nova. They might want to prepare him by having him work on a few things.
Grant only took four shots, but this is deceptive. First, he sprained his ankle (word is he should be fine) which limited his minutes. Second, High Point could not stop Grant without fouling him, so he added 6 foul shots to his four regular shots. In all Grant had 7 scoring chances in 17 minutes of play (where the pace of the game was slow), which shows a nice aggressiveness.
Cooney gets back on the horse by hitting a few threes.
5 for 6 from three, so, this worked out nicely.
Everybody will be looking to see how Patterson, Roberson, Johnson play, and they will get plenty of PT, so lets make some predictions here.
All three continue to to have limited responsibility on offense (shoot when you are open) which is standard for freshmen. All three continue their trend of low field goal percentages.
These guys did not get a chance to play as much as I expected and as a result did not shoot much. Roberson played a good amount early (when Grant was benched for missing a defensive assignment) and didn't look very good.
Player evaluations:
Ennis – The bad, he shot 50% on mostly lay ups. He is going to have chances to score at the basket against Nova, and we are going to need him to convert. The good, his 5 steals really put a dagger in High Point.
Cooney – Took 5 good shots, and hit them all. Took one tough three and one tough two and hit the two. Just another in what is becoming a long list of epic shooting performances by Trevor. Sometimes its fun to see video game numbers put up in these mid major games, and Trevor had one. His effective shooting percentage (which gives threes more credit than twos because they give you more points) was 121.4%. Nobody else in the game (for either team) who took 5 shots or more got over 50%.
Fair – That double screen to get Fair a shot along the baseline is becoming SU's favorite play, and for good reason. Steady as always, Fair had 15 points on 50% shooting.
Chrsitmas – 8 minutes at center - Started the game off playing poorly, and was taken out early and forced to sit for a long time. To his credit, when Christmas came back in the game he played better and proved he learned to establish post position as close to the basket as possible. He pushed High Point's center (who was a big guy) way under the basket and was rewarded with a good entry pass and an easy two points. For a lot of the game High Point flooded the court with little shooters and in those games Christmas is not an ideal wing defender – expect limited minutes there against Nova.
Coleman – 13 minutes at center - Other than a nice block in the second half, nothing went right for him. He fumbled a few passes, generally found himself in all the wrong spots, and missed two makeable shots the only two times he did get in good position. With the exception of “my 3 sons” Coleman was the only guy on the team with a negative +/- at -5.
Gbinije – Was solid on both ends of the floor. At this point its all a matter of pressure with Gbinije. When the other team does not apply it, he looks good. When the other team does apply it, he looks bad (offensively) his defense is going to keep him in the rotation either way. Interesting side note, even though Grant turned his ankle and also got benched for a stretch Boeheim did not give Gbinije any minutes at forward, instead choosing to go with Roberson or Christmas. Not sure this means anything going forward, especially with the way Roberson played.
Grant – Scored an efficient 10 points in 17 minutes of play. Hit all 6 free throws he took. High Point decided to give Grant a TON of room and invite him to shoot as much as he wanted. Grant's first shot was a mid range jump shot that he buried, but he did not fall in love with it and aggressively attacked the basket, despite the High Point players standing under it, with good results.
Roberson – Got 11 good minutes in this one, including some in the first half when the game was close. Unfortunately Roberson did almost nothing with those minutes, missing the only two shots he took, and only snagging one rebound (despite being the best natural rebounder on the floor). His problem is, he is not sure where he is suppose to be which prevents him from making decisive movements. He always seems to be about a foot or two away from where he should be. On D, this results in giving the offense a slightly better shot than they should have, and not quite being in ideal rebounding position. I still think when the light turns on for him the improvements will come quickly, but he is running out of time to prove himself.
Keita – 19 minutes at center – His performance was noticeably improved against St. John's on the defensive side of the ball, and this continued against High Point. Right now he is playing the best basketball of our three centers by a pretty wide margin, and it is showing in his +/- which was +26 in this one (second only to Ennis, who has an unfair advantage in +/- being the only point guard on the team).
Patterson/Johnson – Played 5 and 4 minutes respectively, and each hit a shot. Not much you can take away from small minutes like this in garbage time.
