General20
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I'm going by memory so feel free to correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe Syracuse is undefeated in the Big East/ACC challenge, the Big East/SEC challenge, and now the ACC/Big 10 challenge. Apparently you don't want to challenge Syracuse.
You are going to hear the same story from everyone after this game – Crean still can't figure out Boeheim's zone – don't believe it. As Syracuse fans we know that up to this point in the season Syracuse's defense hasn't been very difficult for anybody to figure out. If Cornell scored against Syracuse with relative ease, surely Indiana is capable of doing the same. The difference is, this was not the same defense that Cornell faced, and the thing everyone should (but probably wont) be talking about is Syracuse's continued improvement overall, especially on defense.
When you look at Syracuse's season thus far the improvement is exponential. The season opener was the low point (with Syracuse falling 14 points behind Cornell who is now 0-9). The next two against Fordham and Colgate weren't much better. After that, Syracuse found itself trailing late to St. Francis, but considering St. Francis represented a big step up in competition, I'd say the game represented a small improvement in Syracuse's play. In Maui, Syracuse played three games against three major conference opponents and stepped their game up big, looking fantastic on offense and poor on defense.
If you go back and look at my Baylor Thoughts you will see that I predicted the upcoming practice time would lead to improvements on defense. I also predicted that defensive improvements would lead to blow-out wins. I love when Syracuse makes me look smart. This game represented another step in Syracuse's evolution - probably the biggest yet because it was the one where they put everything together.
Indiana came out trying to run an actual offense, but looked so slow and clumsy doing it that they quickly regressed into throwing up bad shots and sending everybody to the offensive glass. Indiana is not very skilled offensively and it seemed to me that Crean came in knowing they would struggle to score and planning to muck the game up. This worked fairly well at first when the rebounds fell their way. Indiana is a pretty big team whose starting line up consists of one small guard in Ferrell and four wings who are 6'7 or taller, but even a big team that leads the country in rebounding cant turn offensive boards into a sustainable offense, and Syracuse actually ended up out rebounding Indiana.
At half time Boeheim made all the right adjustments, the biggest being contracting the zone and taking away passes into the post. The team responded, and the result was a shut out of historic proportions. The game got a little embarrassing, and Indiana got desperate (and dirty). The officials tried to keep control of the game by calling even the slightest contact inside a foul, and honestly if they hadn't Indiana's final score would have been in the 30's. Indiana only scored 13 points from the field in the second half, and six of those thirteen came from garbage time lay-ups Syracuse willingly allowed in an effort to avoid undeserved fouls.
I honestly can't remember a major conference team being shut down as thoroughly as Indiana was in the second half of this game. Compare Indiana's 37% from the floor and 29% from three to Baylor who shot 55% from the floor and 47% from three and you see the kind of defensive improvement I am talking about. Baylor is better than Indiana, but a twenty point field goal percentage difference has way more to do with Syracuse than who their opponent is. As a Syracuse fan you really could not have asked for more than to see SU continue their evolution by putting together a complete game and winning big.
On the other side of the court, Indiana came out playing a man to man defense that generally switched off on screens (which makes sense since almost everybody on their team is 6'7 or 6'8 so there are not a lot of mismatches to exploit).
In the second half Crean tried a gimmick press and a gimmick 1-3-1 zone out of desperation. Neither defense worked, but their 1-3-1 was especially bad. It seemed like everyone was open all the time.
Despite Indiana's size and obvious athleticism Syracuse shot 51% from the field, and 46% from three. I don't think it was Syracuse's best offensive performance, but usually young players struggle defensively and Indiana is very young.
Syracuse is not a finished product by any means. Their defense needs to improve and so does their offense, but they are quickly moving in all he right directions. The only question that remains is how high they go before topping out. I will end this with a comparison.
November 16 - Syracuse 69 – Colgate 50
December 3 - Syracuse 69 – Indiana 52
What better way to illustrate how far Syracuse has come in just a few weeks.
Player evaluations:
Ennis – Would you be surprised if I said he improved more than anybody in the week since Maui? His numbers look about the same, but his defense is on a whole new level. In Maui, Ennis found himself lost in space far too often, not knowing quite where to be in the zone. I saw none of that against Indiana, in fact, Ennis showed great instincts cheating inside to strip Volneh when Indiana tried to force the ball down low. The only caveat here is, Indiana had few shooters and few offensive options, making it easy for a Ennis to figure out where he should be, but there is no doubt improvements were made. Offensively the big thing you want to see from Ennis is finishing around the basket (since nobody seems to be able to stay in front of him). In this game he was 5-7 in the paint. Mission accomplished.
Cooney – Indiana switched a lot on defense, but tried to keep Troy Williams on Cooney. If you didn't watch the game (or sportscenter) Troy Williams is an ultra athletic 6'7 wing who had the play of the day with a follow up dunk over Fair and Grant that superman would be envious of. You might think that Williams length and athleticism would bother Cooney, but it didn't. Cooney ran Williams ragged, sprinting past screens, stopping on a dime and shooting with a quick release. I've said it before but Cooney makes incredibly difficult shots, and if he keeps making them I'm not sure anybody is going to be able to stop him. I mentioned to a friend before the game that if Cooney got hot, Indiana would not stand a chance, and that was true - he hit more threes than the entire Indiana team. Cooney is also playing fantastic defense, getting steals while maintaining good positional defense, something only the best of the best do.
Fair – Fouls bothered Fair in this game (as they bothered everyone on the back line of the zone) but discounting that I thought he played well. Indiana assigned their best defender (the senior Sheehey) to Fair, and asked him to crowd Fair and force him to put the ball on the floor. This didn't seem to bother Fair much. He had the best success of his career with dribble penetration, scoring 15 points on fifty percent shooting, and earning seven trips to the line. The damage could have been even worse because Fair had two threes that went half way down only to somehow pop out (goodbye soft Maui rims). Because he sat a lot towards the end with foul trouble, all of Fair's 15 points were important ones that came when the game was still in doubt.
Christmas – Coleman – Keita – I'm going to lump these guys together because they split the center minutes almost evenly (14 for Kieta, 14 for Coleman, 12 for Christmas) and took turns bearing the brunt of Volneh's dirty play and Hess and crew's quick whistles – each ending up with 4 fouls. I thought all three guys fought hard and acquitted themselves well, and for the first time all year we really needed all three. Christmas's blocks were a difference maker in this game, Keita showed the same fire that helped him shut Indiana down last year (although he got more fouls for his trouble this time around), and Coleman was surprisingly effective. I thought Coleman might struggle against Volneh's length but he showed a tenacity on the boards and a willingness to fight for position down low BEFORE catching the ball that is going to be the key to college success. For the first time he reminded me a bit of Arinze.
Gbinije – Played the 1, 2, and 3 positions and looked good defensively in each. He is useful for maintaining defensive continuity whenever someone needs to go to the bench. Every jump shot or drive to the basket he makes is a bonus.
Grant – Had the worst game of anybody on the team. He had four nice points off offensive rebounds, but canceled those out by making two big defensive blunders. He was the only player who looked lost on defense in this game. Keep an eye on Grant's defense. Right now its not very good, but he has the physical tools to be great (think a forward version of MCW). If everything clicks for him, he can take Syracuse to a new level defensively – and if they want to make big noise in March that is probably going to have to happen.
You are going to hear the same story from everyone after this game – Crean still can't figure out Boeheim's zone – don't believe it. As Syracuse fans we know that up to this point in the season Syracuse's defense hasn't been very difficult for anybody to figure out. If Cornell scored against Syracuse with relative ease, surely Indiana is capable of doing the same. The difference is, this was not the same defense that Cornell faced, and the thing everyone should (but probably wont) be talking about is Syracuse's continued improvement overall, especially on defense.
When you look at Syracuse's season thus far the improvement is exponential. The season opener was the low point (with Syracuse falling 14 points behind Cornell who is now 0-9). The next two against Fordham and Colgate weren't much better. After that, Syracuse found itself trailing late to St. Francis, but considering St. Francis represented a big step up in competition, I'd say the game represented a small improvement in Syracuse's play. In Maui, Syracuse played three games against three major conference opponents and stepped their game up big, looking fantastic on offense and poor on defense.
If you go back and look at my Baylor Thoughts you will see that I predicted the upcoming practice time would lead to improvements on defense. I also predicted that defensive improvements would lead to blow-out wins. I love when Syracuse makes me look smart. This game represented another step in Syracuse's evolution - probably the biggest yet because it was the one where they put everything together.
Indiana came out trying to run an actual offense, but looked so slow and clumsy doing it that they quickly regressed into throwing up bad shots and sending everybody to the offensive glass. Indiana is not very skilled offensively and it seemed to me that Crean came in knowing they would struggle to score and planning to muck the game up. This worked fairly well at first when the rebounds fell their way. Indiana is a pretty big team whose starting line up consists of one small guard in Ferrell and four wings who are 6'7 or taller, but even a big team that leads the country in rebounding cant turn offensive boards into a sustainable offense, and Syracuse actually ended up out rebounding Indiana.
At half time Boeheim made all the right adjustments, the biggest being contracting the zone and taking away passes into the post. The team responded, and the result was a shut out of historic proportions. The game got a little embarrassing, and Indiana got desperate (and dirty). The officials tried to keep control of the game by calling even the slightest contact inside a foul, and honestly if they hadn't Indiana's final score would have been in the 30's. Indiana only scored 13 points from the field in the second half, and six of those thirteen came from garbage time lay-ups Syracuse willingly allowed in an effort to avoid undeserved fouls.
I honestly can't remember a major conference team being shut down as thoroughly as Indiana was in the second half of this game. Compare Indiana's 37% from the floor and 29% from three to Baylor who shot 55% from the floor and 47% from three and you see the kind of defensive improvement I am talking about. Baylor is better than Indiana, but a twenty point field goal percentage difference has way more to do with Syracuse than who their opponent is. As a Syracuse fan you really could not have asked for more than to see SU continue their evolution by putting together a complete game and winning big.
On the other side of the court, Indiana came out playing a man to man defense that generally switched off on screens (which makes sense since almost everybody on their team is 6'7 or 6'8 so there are not a lot of mismatches to exploit).
In the second half Crean tried a gimmick press and a gimmick 1-3-1 zone out of desperation. Neither defense worked, but their 1-3-1 was especially bad. It seemed like everyone was open all the time.
Despite Indiana's size and obvious athleticism Syracuse shot 51% from the field, and 46% from three. I don't think it was Syracuse's best offensive performance, but usually young players struggle defensively and Indiana is very young.
Syracuse is not a finished product by any means. Their defense needs to improve and so does their offense, but they are quickly moving in all he right directions. The only question that remains is how high they go before topping out. I will end this with a comparison.
November 16 - Syracuse 69 – Colgate 50
December 3 - Syracuse 69 – Indiana 52
What better way to illustrate how far Syracuse has come in just a few weeks.
Player evaluations:
Ennis – Would you be surprised if I said he improved more than anybody in the week since Maui? His numbers look about the same, but his defense is on a whole new level. In Maui, Ennis found himself lost in space far too often, not knowing quite where to be in the zone. I saw none of that against Indiana, in fact, Ennis showed great instincts cheating inside to strip Volneh when Indiana tried to force the ball down low. The only caveat here is, Indiana had few shooters and few offensive options, making it easy for a Ennis to figure out where he should be, but there is no doubt improvements were made. Offensively the big thing you want to see from Ennis is finishing around the basket (since nobody seems to be able to stay in front of him). In this game he was 5-7 in the paint. Mission accomplished.
Cooney – Indiana switched a lot on defense, but tried to keep Troy Williams on Cooney. If you didn't watch the game (or sportscenter) Troy Williams is an ultra athletic 6'7 wing who had the play of the day with a follow up dunk over Fair and Grant that superman would be envious of. You might think that Williams length and athleticism would bother Cooney, but it didn't. Cooney ran Williams ragged, sprinting past screens, stopping on a dime and shooting with a quick release. I've said it before but Cooney makes incredibly difficult shots, and if he keeps making them I'm not sure anybody is going to be able to stop him. I mentioned to a friend before the game that if Cooney got hot, Indiana would not stand a chance, and that was true - he hit more threes than the entire Indiana team. Cooney is also playing fantastic defense, getting steals while maintaining good positional defense, something only the best of the best do.
Fair – Fouls bothered Fair in this game (as they bothered everyone on the back line of the zone) but discounting that I thought he played well. Indiana assigned their best defender (the senior Sheehey) to Fair, and asked him to crowd Fair and force him to put the ball on the floor. This didn't seem to bother Fair much. He had the best success of his career with dribble penetration, scoring 15 points on fifty percent shooting, and earning seven trips to the line. The damage could have been even worse because Fair had two threes that went half way down only to somehow pop out (goodbye soft Maui rims). Because he sat a lot towards the end with foul trouble, all of Fair's 15 points were important ones that came when the game was still in doubt.
Christmas – Coleman – Keita – I'm going to lump these guys together because they split the center minutes almost evenly (14 for Kieta, 14 for Coleman, 12 for Christmas) and took turns bearing the brunt of Volneh's dirty play and Hess and crew's quick whistles – each ending up with 4 fouls. I thought all three guys fought hard and acquitted themselves well, and for the first time all year we really needed all three. Christmas's blocks were a difference maker in this game, Keita showed the same fire that helped him shut Indiana down last year (although he got more fouls for his trouble this time around), and Coleman was surprisingly effective. I thought Coleman might struggle against Volneh's length but he showed a tenacity on the boards and a willingness to fight for position down low BEFORE catching the ball that is going to be the key to college success. For the first time he reminded me a bit of Arinze.
Gbinije – Played the 1, 2, and 3 positions and looked good defensively in each. He is useful for maintaining defensive continuity whenever someone needs to go to the bench. Every jump shot or drive to the basket he makes is a bonus.
Grant – Had the worst game of anybody on the team. He had four nice points off offensive rebounds, but canceled those out by making two big defensive blunders. He was the only player who looked lost on defense in this game. Keep an eye on Grant's defense. Right now its not very good, but he has the physical tools to be great (think a forward version of MCW). If everything clicks for him, he can take Syracuse to a new level defensively – and if they want to make big noise in March that is probably going to have to happen.
