I think it is likely that George will be better than JJ on defense, but don't think we have any guarantee based on the stats that it will be better by a whole lot. We better hope he plays much closer to his last season than his freshman year, where he got a worse rating than any year of JJs career. Again, that will likely happen, based on his improvement at a sophomore, but realistically the gap between his defense and JJs will likely not be massive.
George has been incredible defensively this season. By the eye test, Kyle is far and away the best defender on the team, but George has been excellent. DRtg has Kyle at an ACC leading 59.4, but George is second best on the team with an excellent 65, followed by Betsey and Freeman also in the 60's and a host of guys in the 70's for their defensive efficiency rating.
When your team is the best scoring defense in the county, everybody looks good. On a side note, through three games, Syracuse is number 1 in four defensive categories and top10 defensively in three others. If you predicted that before the season, I would have told you that you were nuts if you told me that would happen even after only three cupcakes!
Every player has contributed, it is team defense, after all. But I think George and Kyle are defensively driving the boat. Against Binghamton, for instance, George and Kyle absolutely dominated defensively. The team had only given up 6 points in 15 minutes of game time when they subbed out. After they left, there was a noticeable dropoff, though not huge.
I think it is unlikely JJ is anywhere near as good defensively as George has been. But luckily, Starling can play with George, and Kyle as well.
I expect Anthony, Kingz and Starling are all going to get minutes, at the expense of Zephir and Fennell. We might see who won that deep guard depth battle between Zephir and Fennell when Starling returns. Zephir and Fennell have combined for 25 minutes a game. That sounds like about exactly what we want Starling to play going forward... We shall see if either reserve keeps some minutes. I doubt it, though both have played pretty well so far.
Statistically, and by watching the games, I think Zephir has beaten out Fennell pretty handily in helping the team this year. In a close game, I want him out there. In a blowout, I want Fennell to get the experience.
