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[QUOTE="RF2044, post: 2018015, member: 40"]
Give me a break.  Last year's team played pretty good defense, even with limited personnel and some issues in the pivot.  This year's team doesn't.  What's the difference?  The coaching staff didn't forget how to coach in the 8 months since April's final four.

Being out of position, not challenging shooters, not moving their feet, standing around watching the ball swing -- absolutely on the players.

If the point you're trying to make is that the coaches ultimately are at fault for failing to coax an adequate level of defensive play from the group, well duh.  But it isn't because they're doing the wrong things--it's because this team seems allergic to playing defense.  There's only so much you can do as a coach to correct poor performance when everything goes wrong at the same time.

I know that some would like to believe that there's some magic bullet that could be employed to turn everything around, but the root of our problems are far deeper than that--this is a systemic breakdown the likes of which this program has not experienced in nearly 50 years.  An epic debacle that is unprecedented in the Jim Boeheim era.

EDIT--this isn't the first time we've had a "down" year, but in the past those have still been 18+ win / NIT squads, nothing like this.  Usually, even when we lack talent or some key piece of the puzzle, the light switch usually goes on at some point and the team improves and can actually beat teams.  That just hasn't happened this far.  We got run off the floor by SJU and BC.  Incredible how poorly we're playing.
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