I have something to admit

[bballbeadle]

Before this tournament my brother in law who's a high school coach and had multiple kids go D1 (he's 46), said this was Boeheims worst team ever after he saw the Elon game. He remembered coaching against Lydon before he went prep and said the kid was soft and would shy away from big moments. Seeing him in shock every time Lydon would grab a rebound against one of uconn and aTm's bigs was priceless. Even the so called basketball experts had no clue we had this potential.

Did your BIL see last year's team?

 

[pfister1]

Nice mea culpa but I'll take the other side of this.

You NEVER know what you are going to get with freshmen. Paul Harris was superman. Flynn was here just because of Harris. Ennis came out of nowhere.

And I don't yet see a 3 seed. We shot 45% from 3 against UConn and A&M. Is that sustainable? Can we grind out games where we don't shoot well?

I think we need to find some more depth and an inside game before we start thinking about that rarified air in March.

Much to like about this team but still a ways to go.

I was really down our chances to have much success this season. Having watched the three games in the Bahamas I have changed my outlook a bit. It hasn't convinced me that we will compete for the ACC title or that we are definitely an NCAA caliber team, but it has convinced me that we can be a LOT better than I originally thought and possibly compete in the top half of the ACC or make some noise in the NCAA.

Now for the rest of the season where we find out whether what we saw this weekend was the beginning of the emergence of a really good team. Let's hope so, because it was fun basketball to watch.

 

[Cusefan0307]

Did your BIL see last year's team?

I said the same thing! He is a bit of a pessimist. He never thinks his team will win more than five games every year either. Now he just thinks aTm and Uconn are terrible.

 

[WalkON]

I still believe it is very early in the year. 2 weeks ago many on here believed we'd be just as bad as last year and now everyone has us beating kentucky. I think we really have to let the next few games play out and get into acc play. Lydon and Malachi have done great things...I hope they continue this and honestly there's nothing that says they won't or can't. Lydon has that stroke that says it's going in every time. I really like this team and I wish we had more production from our inside guys but I'm content with how we've been playing. Everyone talks about next year but we have to focus on this year because what we think next year will be may be very different than what actually happens. Focus on this year and keep fighting. This team can be very good but let's give them a few more weeks before we call them national champs.

 

[Zelda Zonk]

You're right. He's brilliant for 30 years of seemingly basic small lineup tweaks that make him a HOF coach. Pinning it all on one year is a stretch. Good thing we have history to stack up next to this year otherwise we might have questions over the mans intelligence.

A Strawman's leap, to suggest I "have questions over the man's intelligence."

Read the actual argument. I'm sure you enjoy the slurps that typically accompany praise/defense of JB, but try sticking to the actual discussion. To simplify/restate it: it's a pretty low standard (using the word "brilliant") to describe what JB did, which was pretty much to only accept the obvious. But, maybe this is just a matter of 'lexiconic relativity.' I find it hard to call any basketball coach a "genius," etc. Not JB, not K... Wooden? Nah. It's still just basketball. Hell, Luke Walton is undefeated and just set the NBA record. What's his level of intelligence?

Whatever. None of those questions posit that these people are 'unintelligent,' which is what your specious refutation indicates.

 

[Dave85]

I will happily admit that I was dead wrong on my expectations for this years team. The way I looked at it we were basically trading Lydon, and Malachai for an All-ACC Center in Rakeem. I felt Lydon was going to be pretty good, and again I will happily admit I was wrong on my expectations for Malachai, who I thought would have a Freshman year similar to that or Roberson's.

I also think this year is a perfect example as to my Jim Boeheim is a HOF HC. I know everyone, including myself, can get on him with his quick hooks, short benches, and his yelling at players. But the adjustments he made from last year to this year show just how brilliantly he sees the game. He saw what we were last year, and the pieces coming back. Our ineffectiveness from outside was a major problem, and I hate to pile on, but I think JB realized that Kaleb just wasn't capable of being a PG on one of the top teams in the country. He basically bailed on what most people assumed would be our PG of the future, and gave the ball to Mike G, who hasn't exactly been great at PG here. A very good shooting guard, but to give him all the ball handling responsibilities is a whole different thing. I also think people questioned why we didn't recruit another Center (and to be fair Bryant probably would be here if not for the NCAA), but we are now totally reliant on the 3ball (which is scary to think about if this was said same time last year). It's fun to watch having 3 or 4 three point shooters on the floor at all times. Having 2 fifth year Seniors in the backcourt at a school like Syracuse is unheard of. I think the combination of young, and veteran guys, mixed with their styles of play is a perfect combination. I am ashamed to admit that I thought this years team would have a similar record to last years team, which wouldn't have made the NCAA tournament. Now I think the sky's the limit for this team. I think this is easily a top 12 team in the country, and has of good as a chance of anyone to win 6 straight when it really matters.

It's good to have national title hopes again, and I fully expect this to be a team with a top 3 seed come March.

Let's go Orange!

I love this post. Let's hope this team keeps playing great offense. But JB said if our shooting is off we are going to have a tough time beating "anybody". That is foreboding. But we have a lot of great shooters who seem pretty resilient. This could be a very good ORANGE year!!! LGO!!!

 

[STEVEHOLT]

I still believe it is very early in the year. 2 weeks ago many on here believed we'd be just as bad as last year and now everyone has us beating kentucky. I think we really have to let the next few games play out and get into acc play. Lydon and Malachi have done great things...I hope they continue this and honestly there's nothing that says they won't or can't. Lydon has that stroke that says it's going in every time. I really like this team and I wish we had more production from our inside guys but I'm content with how we've been playing. Everyone talks about next year but we have to focus on this year because what we think next year will be may be very different than what actually happens. Focus on this year and keep fighting. This team can be very good but let's give them a few more weeks before we call them national champs.

I agree. To have the opinions changed so drastically over a couple games is a bit of an overreaction. Let it play out a bit more before drawing conclusions. I have no idea if this is an NCAA tourney team come year end. They could lose 3 out of the next 4 and look terrible. Who the hell knows. They have very young players who tend not to look like the same player one game to the next.

Im willing to go so far as saying that we are probably better than I thought we were a week ago, but thats about as far as I push it for now.