JJ is the least competitive Syracuse player I have ever seen suit up. | Page 4 | Syracusefan.com

JJ is the least competitive Syracuse player I have ever seen suit up.

JJ has been extremely disappointing in recent games, but the reality remains that we do not have guards so clearly ahead of him that we can push him to a reserve role and be a better team as a result. It all stems from Red. No structure to the offense holds JJ and all of our guards back far more than their skill sets. Red has to be the one to pull JJ when he plays like he did against Clemson and get Kingz in at the 2/more involved in the offense in general, but the problem is bigger than that.

If we are ranking guards by their ability to turn on the jets, dribble by a guy 1v1, and get to the hoop, JJ is likely our best (Kingz is close but he hardly ever does it). When your offense is the most total bs iso nonsense where you have a guy throw himself at the 1v1 matchup and hope for the best with no offball movement or sets, all of a sudden it makes sense why Red plays JJ. Attempts at iso buckets from JJ do not seem so bad when there is zero offensive system to make guys like George or Kingz more effective. George being not the best at creating 1v1 against a defender becomes a massive issue when our offense depends on 1v1 iso ball.

The bullcrap offense is issues 1-100 and a lot of these comments are way too focused on JJ when they should be directed at Red. I do not think the result changes yesterday if JJ plays 20 mins. Not with the BS offense we run.
 
DoctahLexus said:
JJ has been extremely disappointing in recent games, but the reality remains that we do not have guards so clearly ahead of him that we can push him to a reserve role and be a better team as a result. It all stems from Red. No structure to the offense holds JJ and all of our guards back far more than their skill sets. Red has to be the one to pull JJ when he plays like he did against Clemson and get Kingz in at the 2/more involved in the offense in general, but the problem is bigger than that.

If we are ranking guards by their ability to turn on the jets, dribble by a guy 1v1, and get to the hoop, JJ is likely our best (Kingz is close but he hardly ever does it). When your offense is the most total bs iso nonsense where you have a guy throw himself at the 1v1 matchup and hope for the best with no offball movement or sets, all of a sudden it makes sense why Red plays JJ. Attempts at iso buckets from JJ do not seem so bad when there is zero offensive system to make guys like George or Kingz more effective. George being not the best at creating 1v1 against a defender becomes a massive issue when our offense depends on 1v1 iso ball.

The bullcrap offense is issues 1-100 and a lot of these comments are way too focused on JJ when they should be directed at Red. I do not think the result changes yesterday if JJ plays 20 mins. Not with the BS offense we run.
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At this point Kiyan is a better Iso player than JJ. He's also started making his FT's. On this team there's an argument that JJ should be the 8th man, but it's never going to happen. Outside of White there was no one worse on the court Saturday.
 
Cusefan0307 said:
At this point Kiyan is a better Iso player than JJ. He's also started making his FT's. On this team there's an argument that JJ should be the 8th man, but it's never going to happen. Outside of White there was no one worse on the court Saturday.
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JJ should have absolutely played less yesterday. Kiyan is getting a little better on iso and was better there yesterday but has been inconsistent there too. I overall have more faith in JJ making something happen in the lane than I do Kiyan. Both players are equally poor on defense.

If I’m in charge it is George at the 1 and Kingz at the two, with JJ if anything backing up George at pg more often than the shooting guard spot. But again, that only would work out if we actually ran a legitimate offense. Catch and shoot looks for Kingz aren’t going to happen for him at the 3 or the 2 if we run no sets to get him open. George won’t be as effective for us at pg unless we do more to create open looks for guys off ball. I stand by saying the results don’t change much if we cut JJs mins closer to 15-20 yesterday.

The only slight ray of hope I have is that George and Donnie were making some decent plays out of the pick and roll in the second half. Hopefully that is something to build on.
 
Cusefan0307 said:
At this point Kiyan is a better Iso player than JJ. He's also started making his FT's. On this team there's an argument that JJ should be the 8th man, but it's never going to happen. Outside of White there was no one worse on the court Saturday.
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Kiyan’s defense is awful as is JJ’s, but Kiyan is a freshman and has room for improvement as he gains strength and with better coaching (hopefully soon with a new coach). Starling as a mature and peaked, physically strong player, hasn’t improved his defense over the years, so it is time for him to take a backseat.
 
Scooch said:
Elvir Ovcina was so uncompetitive that he literally **skipped a game** to go visit friends. The premise of this thread is moronic.
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His reference page is hard to believe

He was a TERRIBLE three point shooter who got the green light.
 
we need someone in the backcourt to step up and hit 40% deep. don't care who it is but it needs to happen like tomorrow. we currently present zero outside threat and that just clogs the middle.
 
I don't remember which poster made this comparison, but when Fran got hired -- he was able to leverage his rollodex / history with a big time recruit, and landed Kyle McCord -- a kid he had a prior relationship with who transformed the program overnight.

When Red got hired, he leveraged his rollodex with a big time recruit, and landed Starling -- a kid he had a prior relationship with. JJ was an MC'D's AA, and a blue chip prospect who wouldn't play for JB, but was willing to come home for Red. It seemed like a huge recruiting "win" right out of the gate for Red [ditto Chance Westry], but JJ never came close to living up to the McD's billing -- and certainly never put the program on his back like McCord did.
 
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Newhouser said:
If we move Kingz to the 2, Kiyan's minutes drop and Melo is not happy. Hindsight we should have let JJ walk.
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yes on the starling part. no on the melo thing. i'd bet he'd prefer to see us win regardless of kiyan's pt.
 
tbonezone said:
we need someone in the backcourt to step up and hit 40% deep. don't care who it is but it needs to happen like tomorrow. we currently present zero outside threat and that just clogs the middle.
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Yea. And It needs to be decisive as in they push the ball, get in the paint and kick it or just get it to the hot hand and he takes hit shot. There is no reason this team plays with the 105th offensive tempo in the league.

They need to speed up on offense. Easier said than done I guess when the other team is purposely told to put us on the free throw line and slow the game to a crawl. Our guards need to control the pace of the ham and they just dont.
 
wiCuse said:
I think we need to really consider who the least competitive SU players actually were over the years. DeShaun Williams has to be in the top 3. Frank Howard?

Again, JJ doesn't deserve this thread. He shouldn't be playing this much. You'd think this is some youth team and Red is his dad with his minutes and role.
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Was going to say Williams has to be top 3. And not sure I would keep Donte Green off my starting 5 of least caring players. Or maybe this is just players that I struggled to root for even when they were on my team or seemed to be something other than team players.
 
AZOrange said:
It’s really wild
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My son’s high school coach was like that. He never wanted to pull someone for a mistake because that sent a bad message or so he thought. I can remember my son a few times getting 3-4 buckets in a row, a couple steals or boards, and he’d pull him. It was infuriating.
 
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CuseFaninVT said:
He never wanted to pull someone for a mistake because that sent a bad message or so he thought.
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I feel like there are two types of mistakes in sports. Honest human mistakes, like accidentally bobbling a ball out of bounds. And then mistakes you can control, like not getting back in defense, or being selfish. I think it's a mistake to pull players for the former, because they end up getting tight and overthinking everything when they come back in. But by all means pull players for the latter.
 
baggerbob said:
The only player who seems to get a pass even when he isn't helping the team when he is in is JJ.
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I chalk this up to Autry not going away from the scouting report. They scout the other team and say ok Sr Guard against Sr Guard. Problem is that When JJ is off he’s really off and needs to sit. When his head is in the game 100% ok but that’s happening too little lately.
 
Newhouser said:
If we move Kingz to the 2, Kiyan's minutes drop and Melo is not happy. Hindsight we should have let JJ walk.
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Kiyan is shooting 22% from three and is as bad or worse defender than JJ this year. It can't always be about making Melo happy. The rest of the team is not good enough for us to be better without JJ. People zoom in on JJs bad games, but he also was playing relatively well in Vegas/against Tennessee. Meanwhile George and Kiyan have certainly had equally horrendous games like JJ did against Clemson. It is simply not true that our other guards are miles ahead of him. That is the main reason why he is still playing significant minutes. I would reduce them given how poor he has looked more recently, but we cannot afford to have him out of the picture entirely.
 

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