JB's Presser after BC

[OrangeXtreme]

Two would have helped. He wasn't staying all four.

 

[jdubs30]

jdubs30 Our offense has been a huge problem this year, all due respect. Can't look at the final margins. In what games that we lost did the offense play well?

On our defense, JB even today in the post-game said the d looked good in practice. You know why? Because our d was up against OUR offense. The same exact offense that other teams don't even have to watch film on to know what we are going to do. We have the same offense, same out of bound plays, same everything. No adjustments? Not one backdoor lob to get an easy basket? It's really lazy coaching. Cruise control.

Strictly offensively - I thought the 1st half of Wisconsin was really good. I thought the GTown game we played good enough offensively to win. UConn game was putrid. I'll give a pass for the South Carolina game because with Thronwell their M2M D is really, really good. St. John's wasn;t good either I'll give you that.

This is college basketball - very few teams have a consistently good offensive team. Some out there are obviously very efficient (UCLA, UK, etc) and others are high volume, super fast pace teams that score a lot because of their playing style (OK State). But the landscape of college basketball right now lacks elite offensive squads.

If I had to pick one side to fix, I would absolutely fix the defense first. My point earlier was, while I do think the offense definitely needs work (and a PG), we could win games if our defense improved and our offense stayed at the same level as it is now. If our D this year was on pace with the last few years, we'd be 12-3 I think. The offense is a problem, but it's the D that's killing us.

 

[jdubs30]

I imagine our practices consist of an hour of "knockout" followed by an hour of "horse" then 20 minutes of drawing up plays in chalk outside the Melo Center.

I remember our practices in my rec league when I was 12 was : lay-up line for 10 minutes, everyone shot free throws for 5 minutes, then a 45 minute scrimmage. Then practice was over. That sounds like what JB might be doing now, without the freethrow shooting; on based on today, probably no lay-up line either

 

[iommi]

jdubs30 Offense looked okay against Wiaconsin in the first half because if I remember correctly, AW3 drained a bunch of contested three's. Doesn't mean we ran a good offense or moved the ball well. I'll give you G'town. Our offense was okay. So what do we have, generously 1 and a 1/2 games of decent offense in those games? And that's really being generous.

The defense is putrid, the offense is maybe slightly better than putrid. And I doubt we'd be 12-3 with a better offense. This team doesn't like playing each other. And that's not hocus pocus (JB).

 

[iommi]

I remember our practices in my rec league when I was 12 was : lay-up line for 10 minutes, everyone shot free throws for 5 minutes, then a 45 minute scrimmage. Then practice was over. That sounds like what JB might be doing now, without the freethrow shooting; on based on today, probably no lay-up line either

I laughed out loud. It's so spot on.

 

[jdubs30]

jdubs30 Offense looked okay against Wiaconsin in the first half because if I remember correctly, AW3 drained a bunch of contested three's. Doesn't mean we ran a good offense or moved the ball well. I'll give you G'town. Our offense was okay. So what do we have, generously 1 and a 1/2 games of decent offense in those games? And that's really being generous.

The defense is putrid, the offense is maybe slightly better than putrid. And I doubt we'd be 12-3 with a better offense. This team doesn't like playing each other. And that's not hocus pocus (JB).

I'm with you man. We haven't had a good offense in years though. JB never runs sets or plays. You can tell it's a free-for-all out there. I think this year we have more offensive individual talent than we have had in 3 years or so.

I'd wager if you go back to the past 3-4 years on this board, you'll see a lot of threads complaining about the offense. However, now we are losing games at an alarming rate, and now everything is coming into question. Our D has covered up for our incompetent O for years now.

You're probably right about that 12-3 statement. I was thinking it in a very broad context - if we allowed 62ppg in our losses, what would our record be? I know it doesn't work like that and this team has huge huge problems that are more than just stats on paper.

 

[iommi]

jdubs30 I can't even say Georgetown game was good offense, now that I think about it. It was mostly just Tyler Lydon going off.

I'm really concerned about behind the scenes stuff. This team is a mess. I think Matt Moyer will help this team a lot next year, at least with chemistry and a tough mindset. It's tough to do when you're a redshirt.

 

[Alsacs]

I'm with you man. We haven't had a good offense in years though. JB never runs sets or plays. You can tell it's a free-for-all out there. I think this year we have more offensive individual talent than we have had in 3 years or so.

I'd wager if you go back to the past 3-4 years on this board, you'll see a lot of threads complaining about the offense. However, now we are losing games at an alarming rate, and now everything is coming into question. Our D has covered up for our incompetent O for years now.

You're probably right about that 12-3 statement. I was thinking it in a very broad context - if we allowed 62ppg in our losses, what would our record be? I know it doesn't work like that and this team has huge huge problems that are more than just stats on paper.

Our half court offense I think costed us the 2013 NC.
The 2013 team had the best D ever under JB.
It had MCW/Triche/Fair/Southerland and an elite post defender in Baye Keita.
We had a chit halfcourt offense. Which was inexcusable. After that season I realized how poor our offensive scheme truly is.

 

[jdubs30]

jdubs30 I can't even say Georgetown game was good offense, now that I think about it. It was mostly just Tyler Lydon going off.

I'm really concerned about behind the scenes stuff. This team is a mess. I think Matt Moyer will help this team a lot next year, at least with chemistry and a tough mindset. It's tough to do when you're a redshirt.

It wasn't good offense, you're right - I think we scored enough to win that game though. There's nothing wrong with a player or 2 going off and carrying you to 70 points - it's not ideal, but in years past that'd be enough for us to get the W.

You know more than I do about the inner workings of this team. It's obvious something is off. You would hope that 1 player wouldn't derail the whole team, but it appears that is the case right now?

 

[supp]

You look at d and you look at o and if you're an outside observer, I don't think you can come to any other conclusion than the team is poor fundamentally. Many of them may be new to us but they're largely not new to basketball. So either we're bad at coaching or we're bad at scouting. Either way, it falls on Boeheim. It. is. his. team. I've said this before: this program and and all of the problems it's had in recent years, including the NCAA violations, are the product of a pattern of benign neglect. You cannot run a program at this level at half-speed.

 

[jdubs30]

Our half court offense I think costed us the 2013 NC.
The 2013 team had the best D ever under JB.
It had MCW/Triche/Fair/Southerland and an elite post defender in Baye Keita.
We had a chit halfcourt offense. Which was inexcusable. After that season I realized how poor our offensive scheme truly is.

Agreed. If our D in 2013 was "average" - we probably don't make the tournament. The zone absolutely carried us and dominated that year. And it's weird, because on paper MCW, Triche, Fair and Southerland should be good enough offensively to put up points consistently. Really our offense was good in 2010 and good in 2012. It was OK in 2011. But ever since 2012 really, our offenses have been bad. Which to me is crazy because you see the individual talent we have. 2014 was pretty bad offensively too, we really only had Ennis, Fair and Grant putbacks. Ironically Rak was probably our best individual offensive player since Dion in 2012 (maybe you could argue G last year) - and Rak was a dude who wasn't even used until his last year.

 

[Zelda Zonk]

How games have you won?

Yes. I love that line.

But, i/we only have to agree with one coach who has won more games than JB. Or, ALL of the others who choose to do things differently.

 

[Zelda Zonk]

Link to Bing stuff...?

Found it:
ESPN, from December 2015—
"After the ruling in March, Boeheim announced that he's retiring -- but only after three more seasons. Mike Hopkins, Boeheim's handpicked heir and his assistant for the past 20 years, will take his place. Boeheim says he might not stay all three years. NBA Hall of Famer Dave Bing, Boeheim's teammate and roommate at Syracuse, hints that Boeheim has already decided: "His plan is between friends, and that's all I can say.""

From The Mag: The final act of Jim Boeheim

 

[realorange]

I'm with you man. We haven't had a good offense in years though. JB never runs sets or plays. You can tell it's a free-for-all out there. I think this year we have more offensive individual talent than we have had in 3 years or so.

I'd wager if you go back to the past 3-4 years on this board, you'll see a lot of threads complaining about the offense. However, now we are losing games at an alarming rate, and now everything is coming into question. Our D has covered up for our incompetent O for years now.

You're probably right about that 12-3 statement. I was thinking it in a very broad context - if we allowed 62ppg in our losses, what would our record be? I know it doesn't work like that and this team has huge huge problems that are more than just stats on paper.

We could have allowed 80pts. today. The offense as patchy as it is needs less adjustments than the defense.

 

[tbonezone]

"... JB never runs sets or plays. You can tell it's a free-for-all ..."

well when in doubt just whip it out ...

 

[Zelda Zonk]

Duke, UNC, NC State, Wake, and Virginia all lost yesterday.

Don't they all play m2m?

You'd think that m2m teams were undefeated since Naismith invented the game.

If good m2m teams can lose, why does anyone think we'll have success.

Just to discuss this line of reasoning...
Those teams will all still finish at the top of the league. Whether they lost playing m2m is irrelevant, since no one is suggesting m2m is the formula for an undefeated season. I didn't watch all those games, but what was the defense played AGAINST those losing teams? If it was zone, then there's something to think about.

"Why does anyone think we'll have success." I don't think it's reasonable to think we'll have "success" by switching to man this year. We haven't been able to play it for a long time for some reason. We used to be pretty successful playing, so i don't know what changed other than a complete philosophy change. But, why might we have success? It's not a matter of a thousand forum 'experts' saying we should do it. If (guessing) 92% of college coaches—people who spend their entire lives playing, learning, then coaching, and have their livelihoods dependent upon their successes—have 'studied/assessed' the matter and decided that m2m is the best 'foundation' defense for their programs, then why is it so ludicrous for us to suggest that it's possibly better for us, as well? Because our identity has morphed into us being zone-exclusive? Our identity wasn't forged by zone. Our brand became that, after we had already built and established ourselves.

It's not even a matter of in-game stats. There's a more global effect to what defense we play. We used to be a fast, show-time, up and down, high-flying, scoring team. Gradually, we've become a slow, low-scoring, half-court-inept team. Sorta coincided with the switch to being exclusively zone. And our recruiting, where we used to be in the mix for top 10 kids has slipped to where we're grateful for a 25th-ranked kid, and surprised to still be on a list for someone higher. What changed? With recent final fours, we still aren't a major player for the bigger names? We get kids like Lydon and convince ourselves that we're skilled at finding diamonds in the rough, or that we want who the staff wants, or that our kids are downgraded and Kentucky/Duke kids get ratings boosts. Or, that ratings don't matter at all. Until we get smacked in the mouth, and we can't score from under the hoop, or we can't beat anyone off the dribble, or we aren't athletic enough to switch to man to man, or we can't finish, or we no longer fast break, or we don't dunk, or we don't alley-oop anymore... Zone affects recruiting. It just does. No, there are no links, stats, or whitepapers to prove it. Even if there were, denyers would deny.

Our brand is not what it was. I wish i had the kind of memory that allowed me to reflect back to 2013(?) and how fantastic we were and how we shoulda won it all... But, i still wouldn't see how that helps us. How that's constructive, toward recognizing problems that exist now. Gratitude and perspective are great. Maybe they help some of us through rough patches. And maybe some people take past success as a predictor of future success. But, we are in flux, and whatever there was that 'ensured' consistency in a relative sense over the past years is either no longer a given, or is nothing to take for granted going forward.

Whatever is happening, we're struggling as a team, the fanbase is suffering, and we're all just here commiserating. Luckily, this isn't football. One player/recruit can transform 'the franchise.' We have an arena that is an asset rather than a liability. We have a more recent history of success, and a prominent alum. But, even Carmelo isn't paying off as much as i would hope. Maybe his time of influence is done/waning. Which also concerns me. When he's done, if we don't have NBAers starting and playing important minutes for prime teams, that'll be another recruiting negative. Lots of considerations factor into a 16-17 year old kid's decisions. I'm not suggesting that any one of these things is a death knell. But, if you're a top recruit, and you take the simple Pro/Con or Plus/Minus checklist as a map toward choosing a college, it's hard for me to see how we're not fighting a bit more uphill than we've been used to.

 

[iommi]

"... JB never runs sets or plays. You can tell it's a free-for-all ..."

well when in doubt just whip it out ...

Nuge reference?

 

[Ghost]

Defense is the biggest issue. If you score 81 pts., you shouldn't lose too many games.

The problem with the zone is mainly defenders not closing on shooters. As JB said in the presser, BC not only had shots they had wide open shots.

If you don't have players in the zone that can identify and close on shooters, especially if they have pink hair, I'm not sure they can find them in M2M either.

They're so far away from the shooters they couldn't close out if they wanted to. I've never seen us put a group of walk-ons on the floor that seemed less capable of playing zone. They're so lost it's indescribable.

 

[Jasoncuse]

But when you run a M2M, you don't have to recruit offense as secondary. You don't have to spend half a year perfecting it. You don't allow teams to dictate pace. I get what you're saying but there's a lot of negatives that come along with our zone that aren't based in just looking at shooting percentages.

Ding ding ding!

After far too many years of recruiting for the zone first, and offense secondarily, we saw our O really begin to struggle. Now that we have a team that can't play D, along with underwhelming offensive skills, we are seeing the results. If you are going to recruit for the zone, you better be getting kids that can play it lights out.

 

[Alsacs]

Just to discuss this line of reasoning...
Those teams will all still finish at the top of the league. Whether they lost playing m2m is irrelevant, since no one is suggesting m2m is the formula for an undefeated season. I didn't watch all those games, but what was the defense played AGAINST those losing teams? If it was zone, then there's something to think about.

"Why does anyone think we'll have success." I don't think it's reasonable to think we'll have "success" by switching to man this year. We haven't been able to play it for a long time for some reason. We used to be pretty successful playing, so i don't know what changed other than a complete philosophy change. But, why might we have success? It's not a matter of a thousand forum 'experts' saying we should do it. If (guessing) 92% of college coaches—people who spend their entire lives playing, learning, then coaching, and have their livelihoods dependent upon their successes—have 'studied/assessed' the matter and decided that m2m is the best 'foundation' defense for their programs, then why is it so ludicrous for us to suggest that it's possibly better for us, as well? Because our identity has morphed into us being zone-exclusive? Our identity wasn't forged by zone. Our brand became that, after we had already built and established ourselves.

It's not even a matter of in-game stats. There's a more global effect to what defense we play. We used to be a fast, show-time, up and down, high-flying, scoring team. Gradually, we've become a slow, low-scoring, half-court-inept team. Sorta coincided with the switch to being exclusively zone. And our recruiting, where we used to be in the mix for top 10 kids has slipped to where we're grateful for a 25th-ranked kid, and surprised to still be on a list for someone higher. What changed? With recent final fours, we still aren't a major player for the bigger names? We get kids like Lydon and convince ourselves that we're skilled at finding diamonds in the rough, or that we want who the staff wants, or that our kids are downgraded and Kentucky/Duke kids get ratings boosts. Or, that ratings don't matter at all. Until we get smacked in the mouth, and we can't score from under the hoop, or we can't beat anyone off the dribble, or we aren't athletic enough to switch to man to man, or we can't finish, or we no longer fast break, or we don't dunk, or we don't alley-oop anymore... Zone affects recruiting. It just does. No, there are no links, stats, or whitepapers to prove it. Even if there were, denyers would deny.

Our brand is not what it was. I wish i had the kind of memory that allowed me to reflect back to 2013(?) and how fantastic we were and how we shoulda won it all... But, i still wouldn't see how that helps us. How that's constructive, toward recognizing problems that exist now. Gratitude and perspective are great. Maybe they help some of us through rough patches. And maybe some people take past success as a predictor of future success. But, we are in flux, and whatever there was that 'ensured' consistency in a relative sense over the past years is either no longer a given, or is nothing to take for granted going forward.

Whatever is happening, we're struggling as a team, the fanbase is suffering, and we're all just here commiserating. Luckily, this isn't football. One player/recruit can transform 'the franchise.' We have an arena that is an asset rather than a liability. We have a more recent history of success, and a prominent alum. But, even Carmelo isn't paying off as much as i would hope. Maybe his time of influence is done/waning. Which also concerns me. When he's done, if we don't have NBAers starting and playing important minutes for prime teams, that'll be another recruiting negative. Lots of considerations factor into a 16-17 year old kid's decisions. I'm not suggesting that any one of these things is a death knell. But, if you're a top recruit, and you take the simple Pro/Con or Plus/Minus checklist as a map toward choosing a college, it's hard for me to see how we're not fighting a bit more uphill than we've been used to.

This is how you drop the mic.

I will add rebellions are built on hope.

 

[tbonezone]

plus the days of the zone as a "gimmick" defense are long past. everybody's seen it (esp. in conference) and everybody knows how to attack and destroy it. there is no element of surprise when preparing for syracuse. you know what you're looking at each and every time down the floor. same old.

 

[iommi]

Did you know that it is human nature to think things are getting worse, while things are happening?

It is only when we can look back in time that we can determine whether that is actually true.

This is one way to look at things.

Another way to look at things...

SU is coming off 4 years of penalties. I am not aware of any program who ever was penalized with any significant penalty that didn't suffer as a result. That's why they call them penalties.

SU's penalties were amongst the strongest penalties ever leveled.

SU should be in worse shape.

I agree. The issue is I'm not just looking at what's happening now. I'm looking into our future. Our recruiting is on shaky ground and our coaching future is a huge question mark.

 

[Jack Hall]

Just to discuss this line of reasoning...
Those teams will all still finish at the top of the league. Whether they lost playing m2m is irrelevant, since no one is suggesting m2m is the formula for an undefeated season. I didn't watch all those games, but what was the defense played AGAINST those losing teams? If it was zone, then there's something to think about.

"Why does anyone think we'll have success." I don't think it's reasonable to think we'll have "success" by switching to man this year. We haven't been able to play it for a long time for some reason. We used to be pretty successful playing, so i don't know what changed other than a complete philosophy change. But, why might we have success? It's not a matter of a thousand forum 'experts' saying we should do it. If (guessing) 92% of college coaches—people who spend their entire lives playing, learning, then coaching, and have their livelihoods dependent upon their successes—have 'studied/assessed' the matter and decided that m2m is the best 'foundation' defense for their programs, then why is it so ludicrous for us to suggest that it's possibly better for us, as well? Because our identity has morphed into us being zone-exclusive? Our identity wasn't forged by zone. Our brand became that, after we had already built and established ourselves.

It's not even a matter of in-game stats. There's a more global effect to what defense we play. We used to be a fast, show-time, up and down, high-flying, scoring team. Gradually, we've become a slow, low-scoring, half-court-inept team. Sorta coincided with the switch to being exclusively zone. And our recruiting, where we used to be in the mix for top 10 kids has slipped to where we're grateful for a 25th-ranked kid, and surprised to still be on a list for someone higher. What changed? With recent final fours, we still aren't a major player for the bigger names? We get kids like Lydon and convince ourselves that we're skilled at finding diamonds in the rough, or that we want who the staff wants, or that our kids are downgraded and Kentucky/Duke kids get ratings boosts. Or, that ratings don't matter at all. Until we get smacked in the mouth, and we can't score from under the hoop, or we can't beat anyone off the dribble, or we aren't athletic enough to switch to man to man, or we can't finish, or we no longer fast break, or we don't dunk, or we don't alley-oop anymore... Zone affects recruiting. It just does. No, there are no links, stats, or whitepapers to prove it. Even if there were, denyers would deny.

Our brand is not what it was. I wish i had the kind of memory that allowed me to reflect back to 2013(?) and how fantastic we were and how we shoulda won it all... But, i still wouldn't see how that helps us. How that's constructive, toward recognizing problems that exist now. Gratitude and perspective are great. Maybe they help some of us through rough patches. And maybe some people take past success as a predictor of future success. But, we are in flux, and whatever there was that 'ensured' consistency in a relative sense over the past years is either no longer a given, or is nothing to take for granted going forward.

Whatever is happening, we're struggling as a team, the fanbase is suffering, and we're all just here commiserating. Luckily, this isn't football. One player/recruit can transform 'the franchise.' We have an arena that is an asset rather than a liability. We have a more recent history of success, and a prominent alum. But, even Carmelo isn't paying off as much as i would hope. Maybe his time of influence is done/waning. Which also concerns me. When he's done, if we don't have NBAers starting and playing important minutes for prime teams, that'll be another recruiting negative. Lots of considerations factor into a 16-17 year old kid's decisions. I'm not suggesting that any one of these things is a death knell. But, if you're a top recruit, and you take the simple Pro/Con or Plus/Minus checklist as a map toward choosing a college, it's hard for me to see how we're not fighting a bit more uphill than we've been used to.

You make a lot of great points but i am an empirical guy. And empirically speaking in JBs roughly first 20 yrs, when he played more m2m, he had 2 FFs and no national championships. In his roughly next 20 years where he morphed to playing almost exclusively zone, he had 3 FFs and one NC. To me the ncaa sanctions and the switch to the acc have been the true root of most of our recent struggles, more so than the rigid dependence on the zone. And even then weve had 2 FFs in 4 years (altho worth noting one of them was from Big East). The first time JB has achieved 2 FFs in such a short period of time. You can criticize the zone all you want , much of those criticisms have some validity, but i think most people can recognize that the zone was one of the primary reasons we made those 2 FFs in 4 years, besides the fact we had a plethora of guys drafted by nba on those two teams...

 

[Jasoncuse]

jdubs30 Our offense has been a huge problem this year, all due respect. Can't look at the final margins. In what games that we lost did the offense play well?

On our defense, JB even today in the post-game said the d looked good in practice. You know why? Because our d was up against OUR offense. The same exact offense that other teams don't even have to watch film on to know what we are going to do. We have the same offense, same out of bound plays, same everything. No adjustments? Not one backdoor lob to get an easy basket? It's really lazy coaching. Cruise control.

Yeah, I'm not sure how anyone can claim our O isn't a problem. We scored 50 in two losses, struggled to 60 in a blowout loss to Wisconsin, scored 60 against a bad Johnnies team and got to 81 today with a big 2nd half in another blowout to a bad team. Our O stinks and has for years now. We don't have quality guards and don't run an offense. Heck, we only have two guys shooting better than 50% on 2 pt shots. It's bad all around except against nobodies, so seasonal stats appear decent.

 

[Jasoncuse]

SU should be in worse shape.

You mean it could still get worse?!?!