Let's be honest

[cusefan88]

Syracuse is not a relevant program nationally right now. What are we at, five years of 13+ losses?

 

[DilemaCuse]

Nobody had real expectations to start this year.
That being said we have been mediocre because Elijah Hughes played out of his mind.
If I knew Hughes was this good before this season expectations would have been higher.

We are mediocre as a program nationally now. Mediocre is better than bad but the program needs to be better next year. I didn't think Hughes was leaving as it wasn't fairly obvious until this whole season has played out and he has nothing else to prove.

I don't think this season is worth celebrating. The team has won games and the coaching staff has done a solid job but its not going to get us to the Final Four without major talent increases.
The problem we have is we haven't been maximizing the talent we have had its been used to sustain us from bottoming out. I think fans would be okay with one season of what happened to West Virginia and now they back to being relevant nationally.

Our short rotation works when you have Hakim Warrick, Michael Gbinije or Elijah Hughes players stocked on the team.
Buddy Boeheim, Marek Dolezaj, Joe Girard shouldn't have to be 40 MPG players without foul trouble.
It's maddening. We don't use our depth to build depth.

Bingo

Not a season to celebrate. A season that was more of a rebuild and hopefully will be the floor for what this program can be going forward. Sanctions are over, and Hopkins has been long gone now where our staff should know their roles and be established with connections to coaches and potential recruits which will then make the roster better and the wins more frequent and the being on the bubble less frequent. This program is 5th or 6th in all time wins, 3rd highest in annual revenue. Results need to improve.

 

[IthacaMatt]

I get what you are saying but I think for me we have had close games not good games. In my opinion we haven't played well for 40 minutes in a lot of games.

I agree with this. But it seems like this is the year that Boeheim's "superpower" of winning an amazing percentage of close games deserted him. We've been returning to the mean this year, losing more close games this season than I can ever remember.

 

[IthacaMatt]

After seeing the OK State debacle in person followed by the Penn State disaster on TV...I thought this team would be lucky to win 10 games.
They did start playing fairly well. (Unfortunately that came after the G-town game).
So, from that start, 17-13 can be viewed as some limited accomplishment.
With a big asterisk.

For this year to be seen as positive, with the loss of Hughes and maybe a couple other guys (Carey, Braswell or Washington), how will we view next year's roster? We are pinning our hopes on a couple Ivy League transfers who may, or may not, pick us.

Otherwise, next season's roster looks like a lot of role players, but not a lot of athleticism. If we are another under-20-wins team next year, then to me, this year will not have been an accomplishment.

 

[realorange]

I agree with this. But it seems like this is the year that Boeheim's "superpower" of winning an amazing percentage of close games deserted him. We've been returning to the mean this year, losing more close games this season than I can ever remember.

Those close game loses were the kryptonite of Marek and Bourama to JB's superpower.

 

[IthacaMatt]

We are mediocre as a program nationally now. Mediocre is better than bad but the program needs to be better next year.

I don't think this season is worth celebrating. The team has won games and the coaching staff has done a solid job but its not going to get us to the Final Four without major talent increases.
Buddy Boeheim, Marek Dolezaj, Joe Girard shouldn't have to be 40 MPG players without foul trouble.

It's maddening. We don't use our depth to build depth.

This is a big problem. It prevents us from being better the following year.
When we were rolling as a program, we always had a guard, a wing who could score and a decent defensive center as our building blocks every year, around which we assemble role players to supplement the stars.'

Right now, we are a "star driven" program, but without enough stars. And when somebody gets good, they keep leaving a year too soon.
Very frustrating to be a fan these past 5 years or so, especially after the heights we reached earlier this decade. It all seems so long ago now.

 

[Chip]

Yep. I thought it was toast.

Me too. But I'll admit, I had no idea how mediocre to bad the ACC would be.

4 teams in the tourney. Will that be an all time low?

 

[SBU72]

They absolutely count in terms of adding to our historical legacy. Having six all-time Final Fours instead of five is a great thing.

But they’re absolutely aberrations in that we haven’t been winning games at our normal level in the two years prior to that Final Four and the four years after it. Sneaking into the tournament and hoping for miraculous results is not supposed to be the M.O. of SU basketball.

The record is what it is. Can't cherry pick results because it doesn't support what you want. People who say "since the team was 25-0 they were awful" is like saying the 25-0 start doesn't count or it was a completely different team from then on. It was the same team. Same players. Saying a FF doesn't count because the rest of that season didn't meet you expectations is ridiculous. They were the exact same team. They did what 99% of the rest of D1 couldn't do. That is success! And I didn't mean to compare a 5th place finish to the FF or S16. It's not the same but dispite what people want to say it is something that "better" SU teams haven't been able to do since '14. And that is a fact if in fact they finish 5th.

 

[jdubs30]

There's a final four and sweet sixteen and a top 10 final ranking in there. This year will be the best finish in the ACC regular season since 2014.

That’s crazy I never thought about that. This clearly wasn’t a great year in the ACC, but the fact that this team finished 5th, better than any team since 2014, is pretty crazy to think about.

Also if this team were to win 2 ACC tournament games, that would be our best performance in the ACCT since we joined. Hughes will very likely be the conferences leading scorer, something we’ve never done in the ACC.

 

[jdubs30]

Me too. But I'll admit, I had no idea how mediocre to bad the ACC would be.

4 teams in the tourney. Will that be an all time low?

They’ll get a 5th in. Either State or Clemson will find its way in somehow

 

[Eric15]

The record is what it is. Can't cherry pick results because it doesn't support what you want.

I'm doing the exact opposite of cherry picking. I'm looking at 6 consecutive years worth of information, in which we have a combined record of 120-83, which is a winning percentage of 59.1%.

You on the other hand, are doing the definition of cherry picking. You're picking out one 4 game stretch from 4 years ago, in which we beat 7 seed Dayton, 15 seed Middle Tennessee State, 11 seed Gonzaga and 1 seed Virginia and declaring "everything is fine, there's nothing to see here!" like Leslie Nielsen in Naked Gun when there's a fire taking place behind him.

It’s like, I’m guessing Stevie Thompson was around a 59% foul shooter in his career, but I’m sure there was one instance where he made four straight free throws in a big game. That doesn’t mean Stevie was a good free throw shooter.

 

[hungrychuck]

Pre season I was torn between thinking we had the talent of a sub-.500 team and JB’s propensity to overachieve with weakest teams and at least get us to the bubble.

I was wrong on both counts. We fell in between.

 

[sugrad68]

They’ll get a 5th in. Either State or Clemson will find its way in somehow

Clemson lost tonight. Have to win the ACC tourney to get in. NC State won but will have to win 2 or 3 games in the ACC tourney to get in.

 

[kirbivore]

I was in the “streak is over” camp after the VT home loss with a looming UVA road game

 

[TinyManInside]

I'm doing the exact opposite of cherry picking. I'm looking at 6 consecutive years worth of information, in which we have a combined record of 120-83, which is a winning percentage of 59.1%.

You on the other hand, are doing the definition of cherry picking. You're picking out one 4 game stretch from 4 years ago, in which we beat 7 seed Dayton, 15 seed Middle Tennessee State, 11 seed Gonzaga and 1 seed Virginia and declaring "everything is fine, there's nothing to see here!" like Leslie Nielsen in Naked Gun when there's a fire taking place behind him.

It’s like, I’m guessing Stevie Thompson was around a 59% foul shooter in his career, but I’m sure there was one instance where he made four straight free throws in a big game. That doesn’t mean Stevie was a good free throw shooter.

exactly this.

 

[TinyManInside]

The record is what it is. Can't cherry pick results because it doesn't support what you want. People who say "since the team was 25-0 they were awful" is like saying the 25-0 start doesn't count or it was a completely different team from then on. It was the same team. Same players. Saying a FF doesn't count because the rest of that season didn't meet you expectations is ridiculous. They were the exact same team. They did what 99% of the rest of D1 couldn't do. That is success! And I didn't mean to compare a 5th place finish to the FF or S16. It's not the same but dispite what people want to say it is something that "better" SU teams haven't been able to do since '14. And that is a fact if in fact they finish 5th.

Saying that a F4 appearance as a double digit seed is an aberration (which it absolutely is, has only happened 4 times) is not the same thing as saying it doesn’t count. You are guilty of false equivalency here and putting words into people’s mouths.