Wow guys feeling a lot of love. A family party caused me to miss the Colgate game, and I did go back and watch it later but I didn't have much time to write anything about it. I promise I will get one up for the St. Francis game.
Just a quick recap of Colgate:
Boeheim says every year that everybody looks good when their shots are falling, so logically the reverse is true as well, that players look bad when their shots miss, and to me this seemed more than anything like a game of missed shots (for everybody other than Ennis and Fair).
I tend to subscribe to the theory that early season play is a good indication of future play (if you know what to look for), so in that sense its not a good sign that Syracuse has three mediocre performances on its resume so far. On the other hand, if you think about the biggest early season question marks we had for this team:
Can Fair be a go to guy?
Can Ennis handle the point?
Will Cooney and Christmas step their games up and be solid contributors?
Can Gbinije handle being a back up point guard?
It seems like most, if not all, of these questions have been answered in a positive way, as much as they can be answered at this early early point in the year.
My biggest worry is the high percentage our opponents are shooting from three point range.
If you look at the bad stretches for Syracuse, first half against Cornell, second half against Fordham, and pretty much the entire Colgate game, the opposition was playing zone D the vast majority of the time.
At this point Syracuse is not executing against zone D, but they are a young team and struggling against zones is typical of a young team.
If I remember correctly, St. Francis plays a high pressure D (more like Villanova). I expect that Syracuse will look better against them than we have so far this year even though St. Francis is quite a bit better than any team we have played so far. If that is the case I don't think we have much to worry about in regards to poor early season performances.
The thing I will be looking for most, how does Gbinije play as a point against a team that pressures him.
Oh and by the way cuseincincy, my bocce posts are off the charts good . . . you just can't appreciate them unless you were there (and probably drunk).
