General20
Basketball Maven
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There is a good side and a bad side to just about everything in this world. Take that Carelton exhibition game. It was good for fans because it allowed us to learn some things about our team and our rotation that we normally would not know so early in the season, but it was also bad because it made the next exhibition game and the first two games of the regular season almost worthless. We just aren't going to learn anything from the Adrian, Kennesaw St., and Hampton games that we didn't already know.
Nevertheless I find myself with a few things I want to say.
The most glaringly obvious take away from this game is Kennesaw St.'s suckiness. For those that did not see it, imagine the worst team from the worst conference, then imagine that team also being absolutely lost against zone defense, then you'll have some idea about how to picture SU's opponent.
Kennesaw St. was so bad that it almost literally did not matter what SU did. For example, Syracuse went 17 possessions to start the game without a non-transition/non-offensive rebound basket. Did it matter? Not in the slightest. They got tons of points from offensive boards, got Kennesaw St. in foul trouble, easily converted several bad Kennesaw St. turnovers into transition points, and had a huge lead despite not scoring in traditional ways.
You might take this to be a bad sign of things to come offensively, but I'm not sure it was. Rather than seeing issues that can't be fixed I saw a combination of a lack of scouting (which makes total sense for a game like this where SU knew it was going to win and wanted to work on the things it needs to work on, rather than worry about what Kennesaw St. might do) and a lack of exploiting what was there to be exploited (again, this makes sense for what is essentially a practice game).
If Kennesaw St. had one thing going for them, it was size in the middle. Their center was 6'10, 260, if I remember correctly, and he was athletic enough to actually win the opening tip. They structured their defense similarly to those Hasheem Thabeet UConn teams, which smothered jump shooters and forced the ball inside towards their shot blocker. Now, this was all well and good with Syracuse because they want to run their offense from the inside-out this year, and lets face it, Kennesaw St.'s center is no Hasheem Thabeet. So Syracuse easily got the ball to Christmas every time because that is where SU wanted the ball and its also where Kennesaw St. wanted them to have the ball. The problem was, Christmas was surprised at how tough a fight he had on his hands. Kennesaw St.'s center was able to push Christmas into bad positions and force him into some tough shots, all of which, Christmas missed.
This was a problem with scouting, not a problem with ability. I know this because in the second half Boeheim made an adjustment. He made sure Christmas either fought for position directly under the basket, which Christmas was able to do several times, scoring each time he did, or come way out to the top of the key, forcing Kennesaw St.'s center to follow, leaving the paint area open to be exploited by any of Syracuse's other players. Once Syracuse made this change the offense came easily and naturally, and all the first half problems went away.
Once Kennesaw St. saw that their big guy was being dominated inside they decided to double Christmas every time, and leave another Syracuse guy open. This is a strategy that has worked in the past against Syracuse but this time whoever was left open made Kennesaw St. pay. You might have noticed Roberson scoring 6 straight points in the second half. That was because his man was guarding Christmas. You have to give Roberson credit, though, for taking advantage of the space given to him by burying two jumpers and positioning himself for a dunk. Roberson is not going to beat his man for points very often this year, and we don't need him to. What we DO need is for Roberson to keep teams honest by making them pay for not guarding him, which he did in this game. After Roberson scored six straight, Kennesaw St. tried leaving Patterson and then Johnson open, and both of those guys burned them as well. All good signs.
The second take away from this game was how many good ball handlers Syracuse has. Gbinije did not play, and Joseph did not play much because of foul trouble, so Syracuse was forced to go without their only two primary ball handlers. It did not bother them at all. Imagine the disaster last year's team would have been without Gbinije and Ennis. This team showed that Patterson has become a great ball handler, Roberson can handle the ball just fine, Johnson can be a guard if he wants to, and McCullough can handle the ball. There is lots of ball handling to go around this year and having only one “true point guard” is not going to be an issue at all.
There really isn't any big picture stuff to take away from this game. What little there is to be excited or concerned about cam in small subtleties. I feel like I have a better feel for each players role on the team than I ever had before this early in the season, so I want to get into a little bit of the small stuff I'm seeing.
Joseph
What we want from him: To NOT go to the NBA.
What we got: A bad game. I'm totally sold on Joseph as a player, so the fact that he had a bad game does not worry me at all. He is a freshman, and unlike Ennis, he is going to play like a freshman, which means he is going to have some amazing games and some stinkers. But Jospeh's upside is as good as it gets, and I am hoping that some of that upside is realized while he's still at Syracuse. There are going to be some games SU needs Joseph to play great to win, obviously this was not one of those games, and any time he can play bad and Syracuse can still win its a good thing long term in my book.
Cooney
What we want from him: To shoot well and to play good defense
What we got from him: He shot well and played good defense (see, it turns out there can be a short discussion about Cooney).
Roberson
What we want from him: To hit the boards HARD, play some good D, and score some garbage baskets.
What we got from him: He played the best defense he has yet, and he hit the boards with reckless abandon. I was really impressed with his rebounding which was night and day from the exhibition games. He had 10 rebounds in 27 minutes and would have had more if there wasn't a line of SU players ready to grab every rebound. Ideally, you want Roberson to make more of the put-backs than he did, but for right now I'm very happy that he's learning the D and hitting the boards hard because that is where his value lies. He also used his improved ball handling to lead a few breakouts after rebounds which is an under appreciated aspect to his game. Roberson played a lot in this game, but that is not going to be the norm against good opponents when Gbinije is playing. As I said previously, not much offense is going to go through Roberson this year, and the fact that he made Kennesaw St. pay when they left him open is promising.
McCullough
What we want from him: How does everything sound?
What we got from him: McCullough has already shown that he has a ton of post moves for a kid his age. He's already shown that he has a deadly mid range shot. He's already shown that he can pass from the high post. In this game he did all of those things, and even helped break the press from the 4 spot. There is only one weakness to his game and unfortunately its not something that can be fixed this year. He's (literally) too weak. If he was stronger, and better at finishing through contact around the rim, he'd be an all-american right now. As it is he's very good, and he and Christmas compliment each other really well. I'd love to see McCullough stay in college long enough to get stronger and perfect his post game, but I'm not holding my breath. The biggest thing to take away from this game is McCullough is learning the zone. He's not nearly as lost on where he is suppose to be as he was two weeks ago.
Christmas
What we want from him: Basically we want him to lead the offense and the defense.
What we got from him: On D its his job to be the quarterback get everybody in the right spots. On O he will touch the ball every time. In this game Christmas had 21 points and 9 rebounds against a Kennesaw St. team which, though they stunk, had as much size as some ACC teams will. I think its fair to say he gave us what we needed.
Obokoh
What we want from him: I'm going to say it like it is, we want him to be a bit of a thug. If we can get by with finesse, McCullough will backup center. When we need toughness, then its Oboko's job.
What we got from him: Just what we needed. He's definitely got some strength and some hustle. I was encouraged.
I purposely saved Patterson and Johnson for last because I want to compare the two. Its unlikely that both guys play when it matters. Either Gbinje is going to play a lot of guard, and Johnson will get minutes at forward, or Gbinije is going to play a lot at forward and Patterson is going to get minutes at guard. Patterson has a built in advantage here, because it suits Syracuse better to sit Roberson, than it does to sit either Joseph or Cooney.
Here are the two guys stat lines:
Patterson: 2-9 field goals, 5 points, 2 rebounds, 4 assists
Johnson: 7-11 field goals, 19 points, 8 rebounds, 4 assists
It looks from the stats like Johnson had a much better game, and is definitely the guy you want playing, but I am here to tell you that sometimes stats lie. What the stats don't tell you is that Patterson was phenomenal defensively. Kennesaw hardly scored while he was in the game, and any time the ball came close to him, he disrupted their offense. The stats also don't tell that Patterson showed off his ball handling and passing skills by playing point guard while Joseph was in foul trouble and doing a better job of handling Kennesaw St.'s press than Joseph did. Finally, the stats don't tell you that all of Johnson's points came in situations that he's unlikely to see against a good team. The vast majority of his points came off offensive rebounds, which he will struggle to get in the ACC, and both of his threes came when he was unguarded because Kennesaw St. wanted to have two guys on Christmas.
Johnson probably has the best skill set of anybody on the team. He's tall, he can jump, he can handle the ball, pass, shoot, and drive to the basket and convert. I'd bet my last dollar that he will be a star before he leaves, but I don't think he's going to play a ton this year. Just something interesting things to keep in mind that you can't learn from the box score.
Patterson
What we want from him: To replace either starting guard, and give us about 20 minutes a game off the bench - hit shots, be a secondary ball handler, and play good defense.
What we got from him: Ball handling used to be a question mark for Patterson, but that's changed in a big way. In this game he showed he can be a primary ball handler and not just a secondary ball handler, which is great because you can never have too much ball handling. He was the best defensive player on the floor by a mile. It would have been nice if he made a few more shots, but, his shot looks good to me, so I am sure he will have his good days shooting this year.
Johnson
What we want from him: To be a microwave scorer off the bench when he's called upon.
What we got from him: Lots of points, rebounds, and assists. You've got to love seeing the first flashes of stardom in any player, and that is what we saw in this game.
Nevertheless I find myself with a few things I want to say.
The most glaringly obvious take away from this game is Kennesaw St.'s suckiness. For those that did not see it, imagine the worst team from the worst conference, then imagine that team also being absolutely lost against zone defense, then you'll have some idea about how to picture SU's opponent.
Kennesaw St. was so bad that it almost literally did not matter what SU did. For example, Syracuse went 17 possessions to start the game without a non-transition/non-offensive rebound basket. Did it matter? Not in the slightest. They got tons of points from offensive boards, got Kennesaw St. in foul trouble, easily converted several bad Kennesaw St. turnovers into transition points, and had a huge lead despite not scoring in traditional ways.
You might take this to be a bad sign of things to come offensively, but I'm not sure it was. Rather than seeing issues that can't be fixed I saw a combination of a lack of scouting (which makes total sense for a game like this where SU knew it was going to win and wanted to work on the things it needs to work on, rather than worry about what Kennesaw St. might do) and a lack of exploiting what was there to be exploited (again, this makes sense for what is essentially a practice game).
If Kennesaw St. had one thing going for them, it was size in the middle. Their center was 6'10, 260, if I remember correctly, and he was athletic enough to actually win the opening tip. They structured their defense similarly to those Hasheem Thabeet UConn teams, which smothered jump shooters and forced the ball inside towards their shot blocker. Now, this was all well and good with Syracuse because they want to run their offense from the inside-out this year, and lets face it, Kennesaw St.'s center is no Hasheem Thabeet. So Syracuse easily got the ball to Christmas every time because that is where SU wanted the ball and its also where Kennesaw St. wanted them to have the ball. The problem was, Christmas was surprised at how tough a fight he had on his hands. Kennesaw St.'s center was able to push Christmas into bad positions and force him into some tough shots, all of which, Christmas missed.
This was a problem with scouting, not a problem with ability. I know this because in the second half Boeheim made an adjustment. He made sure Christmas either fought for position directly under the basket, which Christmas was able to do several times, scoring each time he did, or come way out to the top of the key, forcing Kennesaw St.'s center to follow, leaving the paint area open to be exploited by any of Syracuse's other players. Once Syracuse made this change the offense came easily and naturally, and all the first half problems went away.
Once Kennesaw St. saw that their big guy was being dominated inside they decided to double Christmas every time, and leave another Syracuse guy open. This is a strategy that has worked in the past against Syracuse but this time whoever was left open made Kennesaw St. pay. You might have noticed Roberson scoring 6 straight points in the second half. That was because his man was guarding Christmas. You have to give Roberson credit, though, for taking advantage of the space given to him by burying two jumpers and positioning himself for a dunk. Roberson is not going to beat his man for points very often this year, and we don't need him to. What we DO need is for Roberson to keep teams honest by making them pay for not guarding him, which he did in this game. After Roberson scored six straight, Kennesaw St. tried leaving Patterson and then Johnson open, and both of those guys burned them as well. All good signs.
The second take away from this game was how many good ball handlers Syracuse has. Gbinije did not play, and Joseph did not play much because of foul trouble, so Syracuse was forced to go without their only two primary ball handlers. It did not bother them at all. Imagine the disaster last year's team would have been without Gbinije and Ennis. This team showed that Patterson has become a great ball handler, Roberson can handle the ball just fine, Johnson can be a guard if he wants to, and McCullough can handle the ball. There is lots of ball handling to go around this year and having only one “true point guard” is not going to be an issue at all.
There really isn't any big picture stuff to take away from this game. What little there is to be excited or concerned about cam in small subtleties. I feel like I have a better feel for each players role on the team than I ever had before this early in the season, so I want to get into a little bit of the small stuff I'm seeing.
Joseph
What we want from him: To NOT go to the NBA.
What we got: A bad game. I'm totally sold on Joseph as a player, so the fact that he had a bad game does not worry me at all. He is a freshman, and unlike Ennis, he is going to play like a freshman, which means he is going to have some amazing games and some stinkers. But Jospeh's upside is as good as it gets, and I am hoping that some of that upside is realized while he's still at Syracuse. There are going to be some games SU needs Joseph to play great to win, obviously this was not one of those games, and any time he can play bad and Syracuse can still win its a good thing long term in my book.
Cooney
What we want from him: To shoot well and to play good defense
What we got from him: He shot well and played good defense (see, it turns out there can be a short discussion about Cooney).
Roberson
What we want from him: To hit the boards HARD, play some good D, and score some garbage baskets.
What we got from him: He played the best defense he has yet, and he hit the boards with reckless abandon. I was really impressed with his rebounding which was night and day from the exhibition games. He had 10 rebounds in 27 minutes and would have had more if there wasn't a line of SU players ready to grab every rebound. Ideally, you want Roberson to make more of the put-backs than he did, but for right now I'm very happy that he's learning the D and hitting the boards hard because that is where his value lies. He also used his improved ball handling to lead a few breakouts after rebounds which is an under appreciated aspect to his game. Roberson played a lot in this game, but that is not going to be the norm against good opponents when Gbinije is playing. As I said previously, not much offense is going to go through Roberson this year, and the fact that he made Kennesaw St. pay when they left him open is promising.
McCullough
What we want from him: How does everything sound?
What we got from him: McCullough has already shown that he has a ton of post moves for a kid his age. He's already shown that he has a deadly mid range shot. He's already shown that he can pass from the high post. In this game he did all of those things, and even helped break the press from the 4 spot. There is only one weakness to his game and unfortunately its not something that can be fixed this year. He's (literally) too weak. If he was stronger, and better at finishing through contact around the rim, he'd be an all-american right now. As it is he's very good, and he and Christmas compliment each other really well. I'd love to see McCullough stay in college long enough to get stronger and perfect his post game, but I'm not holding my breath. The biggest thing to take away from this game is McCullough is learning the zone. He's not nearly as lost on where he is suppose to be as he was two weeks ago.
Christmas
What we want from him: Basically we want him to lead the offense and the defense.
What we got from him: On D its his job to be the quarterback get everybody in the right spots. On O he will touch the ball every time. In this game Christmas had 21 points and 9 rebounds against a Kennesaw St. team which, though they stunk, had as much size as some ACC teams will. I think its fair to say he gave us what we needed.
Obokoh
What we want from him: I'm going to say it like it is, we want him to be a bit of a thug. If we can get by with finesse, McCullough will backup center. When we need toughness, then its Oboko's job.
What we got from him: Just what we needed. He's definitely got some strength and some hustle. I was encouraged.
I purposely saved Patterson and Johnson for last because I want to compare the two. Its unlikely that both guys play when it matters. Either Gbinje is going to play a lot of guard, and Johnson will get minutes at forward, or Gbinije is going to play a lot at forward and Patterson is going to get minutes at guard. Patterson has a built in advantage here, because it suits Syracuse better to sit Roberson, than it does to sit either Joseph or Cooney.
Here are the two guys stat lines:
Patterson: 2-9 field goals, 5 points, 2 rebounds, 4 assists
Johnson: 7-11 field goals, 19 points, 8 rebounds, 4 assists
It looks from the stats like Johnson had a much better game, and is definitely the guy you want playing, but I am here to tell you that sometimes stats lie. What the stats don't tell you is that Patterson was phenomenal defensively. Kennesaw hardly scored while he was in the game, and any time the ball came close to him, he disrupted their offense. The stats also don't tell that Patterson showed off his ball handling and passing skills by playing point guard while Joseph was in foul trouble and doing a better job of handling Kennesaw St.'s press than Joseph did. Finally, the stats don't tell you that all of Johnson's points came in situations that he's unlikely to see against a good team. The vast majority of his points came off offensive rebounds, which he will struggle to get in the ACC, and both of his threes came when he was unguarded because Kennesaw St. wanted to have two guys on Christmas.
Johnson probably has the best skill set of anybody on the team. He's tall, he can jump, he can handle the ball, pass, shoot, and drive to the basket and convert. I'd bet my last dollar that he will be a star before he leaves, but I don't think he's going to play a ton this year. Just something interesting things to keep in mind that you can't learn from the box score.
Patterson
What we want from him: To replace either starting guard, and give us about 20 minutes a game off the bench - hit shots, be a secondary ball handler, and play good defense.
What we got from him: Ball handling used to be a question mark for Patterson, but that's changed in a big way. In this game he showed he can be a primary ball handler and not just a secondary ball handler, which is great because you can never have too much ball handling. He was the best defensive player on the floor by a mile. It would have been nice if he made a few more shots, but, his shot looks good to me, so I am sure he will have his good days shooting this year.
Johnson
What we want from him: To be a microwave scorer off the bench when he's called upon.
What we got from him: Lots of points, rebounds, and assists. You've got to love seeing the first flashes of stardom in any player, and that is what we saw in this game.
