General20
Basketball Maven
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Before the game I mentioned that I think Kansas is both the best team in the country and the team that is best suited to score against our zone. If you saw Kansas play against Kentucky, take my word for it, that game was an outlier. They played bad (if by bad you mean still good enough to beat Kentucky) in the first game of the season, but they are really good.
Generally if you're going to beat the best team in the country you need a few breaks to go your way. What we got was our best player playing through an injury, our second best player getting into early foul trouble, and the back up to both of them leaving the team a day earlier. Not what I would call a recipe for success.
Syracuse hung in the game early with tough defense, and good rebounding, but this was not a game you can win with defense alone, you've got to score to beat Kansas. Two things held us back from scoring in the first half. First was Battle's outside shooting. He got several good looks and missed them all while Kansas slowly piled up a lead. Second was the fact that we committed several charges going to the basket (some were good calls others not as much). Regarding the charges, it shouldn't be too much of a surprise that it took Syracuse a half to adjust to the speed and athleticism of Kansas's defense. Rather, I think we should celebrate the fact that this young team adjusted, figured out how to get to the basket, and won the second half (if you don't count the last 3 minutes where we were pressing and fouling and Kansas scored the last 6 points of the game).
There were two turning points in this game. One in each half. In the first half Mykhailiuk banked in a three, then barely caught a tipped lob where he got fouled, then Chukwu missed a dunk and got a technical trying to put his miss back in. All together that's a 12 point turnaround, in a minute or two of basketball time, all on extremely unlikely occurrences. That's the kind of bad luck you can't have when you play a better team.
In the second half, Syracuse hit a couple threes opening up the D a little, and probably more importantly they figured out how to get to the basket and convert. They cut the lead to 7 and that's when Graham took the most difficult shot anybody took all game (a fade away 3 from about 28 feet out with Battle's hand in his face) and made it. Huge momentum killer.
A quick note on our defense. We held Kansas to 10% lower than their season average from 3, and we shut down scoring in the post. Our defense played good. By far the best they've played all season in my opinion. I heard a lot of people complaining about all the lobs converted against us but its important to keep in mind that we were NOT just getting beat by the same play over and over again. 4 different players caught lobs against us, and Kansas was fielding 4 and often time 5 great three point shooters on the court at a time while still having the athleticism to convert those lobs. There was simply too much for any defense to account for. They do the same things against man D, and its the reason I consider Kansas to be the best team in the country.
Individual performances:
Howard - A lousy charge call against him and one stupid foul forced him to sit the bench for most of the first half. He came out in the second half and looked like our best player and perhaps the second best player on the court behind Graham. You've got to love that.
Battle - Battle is not healthy, and my guess is he's been tending to his injury rather than practicing between games. This probably explains why he was ice cold during the first half, and that cold shooting did hurt us. Despite his problems, the guy found a way to grind out 22 points. He's going to give a lot of people a lot of problems this year.
Brissett - He had a mismatch that he didn't exploit quite as forcefully as you'd like him to, but we can't forget that he's a freshman playing in his seventh game ever and he still put up 13 and 9 against the best team we will face all year. It should be pointed out that he has been the best rebounder in every game we've played all season. Things are only going to get better with Brissett, he was a huge recruiting "get."
Moyer - We didn't need Moyer to out rebound Maryland and we didn't need Moyer to out rebound Kansas. I'm ready to say it. We don't really need Moyer. He will help with depth, certainly, but we should be thinking of him as the 8th man in the rotation, and we should expect him to receive the limited offensive touches that the 8th man in the rotation usually gets.
Chukwu - Remember when everyone thought that Chukwu was too skinny and would be bullied by P5 centers? Well he just went up against undoubtedly the biggest strongest center he will face all year, and arguably also the best center he will face all year, and he outscored the guy 7 points to 6. I think we can officially stop worrying about Chukwu not being big or strong enough to compete. This is big news for SU.
Sidibe - Looked hurt before getting hurt (I think he came in with a banged up knee and then twisted his ankle, but I could be wrong). The short turn around we've got coming up can't be a good thing for Sidibe. I'll be curious to see how much he plays against UConn, and even more curious to see how he plays once he's fully healthy again.
Washington - I thought he looked active and smart on defense, and cool and composed on offense. Graham tried to get in his hip pocket and bother him with some pressure D, but Washington handled that fine. He went 0-2 from three but he's a decent shooter and he took good shots so I imagine those will start to fall. It wasn't a step down from the way Thorpe has been playing. What we lose from Thorpe leaving is some future upside. There was a possibility that Thorpe regained his 15ppg form and Syracuse had an additional weapon in the form of a 3 guard line up they could break out when it suited them. That won't happen now. Washington is going to be a back up, but I have no reason not to think he can't be a solid back up.
Dolezaj - I'm going to sound like a broken record here. I'm unhappy with him when he doesn't shoot and happy with him when he does. We need him to take shots. Good things tend to happen when he drives to the basket, and we are much easier to defend when he defers to his teammates too often. In the first half Dolezaj drove to the basket and got called with a charge on a call that will be a block 8 out of 10 times. He never tried to drive to the basket again. That was a mistake. He could have scored against Kansas, and he needs to try at least a couple times a half.
Looking ahead to UConn. We are going to be thin. No Thrope (obviously), Battle isnt going to have a ton of recovery time after that Kansas game and there is no telling how he will look, and I'd be surprised if Sidibe got more than 10 minutes of PT (he might not play at all). That said, playing UConn after Kansas will feel like swinging a baseball bat with the doughnut taken off. We are going to be able to get to the rim against them and convert. We are going to outrebound them. They will struggle to score against us unless they have a great shooting night. I expect a fairly big win, and I expect us to score in the mid seventies. I'll even take it a step further. The only opportunity we have to learn much of anything about this team before ACC play is the St. Bonniventure game. UConn, Georgetown, and the rest of the teams we play are all bad.
Generally if you're going to beat the best team in the country you need a few breaks to go your way. What we got was our best player playing through an injury, our second best player getting into early foul trouble, and the back up to both of them leaving the team a day earlier. Not what I would call a recipe for success.
Syracuse hung in the game early with tough defense, and good rebounding, but this was not a game you can win with defense alone, you've got to score to beat Kansas. Two things held us back from scoring in the first half. First was Battle's outside shooting. He got several good looks and missed them all while Kansas slowly piled up a lead. Second was the fact that we committed several charges going to the basket (some were good calls others not as much). Regarding the charges, it shouldn't be too much of a surprise that it took Syracuse a half to adjust to the speed and athleticism of Kansas's defense. Rather, I think we should celebrate the fact that this young team adjusted, figured out how to get to the basket, and won the second half (if you don't count the last 3 minutes where we were pressing and fouling and Kansas scored the last 6 points of the game).
There were two turning points in this game. One in each half. In the first half Mykhailiuk banked in a three, then barely caught a tipped lob where he got fouled, then Chukwu missed a dunk and got a technical trying to put his miss back in. All together that's a 12 point turnaround, in a minute or two of basketball time, all on extremely unlikely occurrences. That's the kind of bad luck you can't have when you play a better team.
In the second half, Syracuse hit a couple threes opening up the D a little, and probably more importantly they figured out how to get to the basket and convert. They cut the lead to 7 and that's when Graham took the most difficult shot anybody took all game (a fade away 3 from about 28 feet out with Battle's hand in his face) and made it. Huge momentum killer.
A quick note on our defense. We held Kansas to 10% lower than their season average from 3, and we shut down scoring in the post. Our defense played good. By far the best they've played all season in my opinion. I heard a lot of people complaining about all the lobs converted against us but its important to keep in mind that we were NOT just getting beat by the same play over and over again. 4 different players caught lobs against us, and Kansas was fielding 4 and often time 5 great three point shooters on the court at a time while still having the athleticism to convert those lobs. There was simply too much for any defense to account for. They do the same things against man D, and its the reason I consider Kansas to be the best team in the country.
Individual performances:
Howard - A lousy charge call against him and one stupid foul forced him to sit the bench for most of the first half. He came out in the second half and looked like our best player and perhaps the second best player on the court behind Graham. You've got to love that.
Battle - Battle is not healthy, and my guess is he's been tending to his injury rather than practicing between games. This probably explains why he was ice cold during the first half, and that cold shooting did hurt us. Despite his problems, the guy found a way to grind out 22 points. He's going to give a lot of people a lot of problems this year.
Brissett - He had a mismatch that he didn't exploit quite as forcefully as you'd like him to, but we can't forget that he's a freshman playing in his seventh game ever and he still put up 13 and 9 against the best team we will face all year. It should be pointed out that he has been the best rebounder in every game we've played all season. Things are only going to get better with Brissett, he was a huge recruiting "get."
Moyer - We didn't need Moyer to out rebound Maryland and we didn't need Moyer to out rebound Kansas. I'm ready to say it. We don't really need Moyer. He will help with depth, certainly, but we should be thinking of him as the 8th man in the rotation, and we should expect him to receive the limited offensive touches that the 8th man in the rotation usually gets.
Chukwu - Remember when everyone thought that Chukwu was too skinny and would be bullied by P5 centers? Well he just went up against undoubtedly the biggest strongest center he will face all year, and arguably also the best center he will face all year, and he outscored the guy 7 points to 6. I think we can officially stop worrying about Chukwu not being big or strong enough to compete. This is big news for SU.
Sidibe - Looked hurt before getting hurt (I think he came in with a banged up knee and then twisted his ankle, but I could be wrong). The short turn around we've got coming up can't be a good thing for Sidibe. I'll be curious to see how much he plays against UConn, and even more curious to see how he plays once he's fully healthy again.
Washington - I thought he looked active and smart on defense, and cool and composed on offense. Graham tried to get in his hip pocket and bother him with some pressure D, but Washington handled that fine. He went 0-2 from three but he's a decent shooter and he took good shots so I imagine those will start to fall. It wasn't a step down from the way Thorpe has been playing. What we lose from Thorpe leaving is some future upside. There was a possibility that Thorpe regained his 15ppg form and Syracuse had an additional weapon in the form of a 3 guard line up they could break out when it suited them. That won't happen now. Washington is going to be a back up, but I have no reason not to think he can't be a solid back up.
Dolezaj - I'm going to sound like a broken record here. I'm unhappy with him when he doesn't shoot and happy with him when he does. We need him to take shots. Good things tend to happen when he drives to the basket, and we are much easier to defend when he defers to his teammates too often. In the first half Dolezaj drove to the basket and got called with a charge on a call that will be a block 8 out of 10 times. He never tried to drive to the basket again. That was a mistake. He could have scored against Kansas, and he needs to try at least a couple times a half.
Looking ahead to UConn. We are going to be thin. No Thrope (obviously), Battle isnt going to have a ton of recovery time after that Kansas game and there is no telling how he will look, and I'd be surprised if Sidibe got more than 10 minutes of PT (he might not play at all). That said, playing UConn after Kansas will feel like swinging a baseball bat with the doughnut taken off. We are going to be able to get to the rim against them and convert. We are going to outrebound them. They will struggle to score against us unless they have a great shooting night. I expect a fairly big win, and I expect us to score in the mid seventies. I'll even take it a step further. The only opportunity we have to learn much of anything about this team before ACC play is the St. Bonniventure game. UConn, Georgetown, and the rest of the teams we play are all bad.
) road win in the NCAA tournament selection committee's eyes. 
