Lots of microanalysis going on

[Dick_in_MI]

I guess that's to be expected following the first loss of the season and especially expected from SU fans.

You can talk about Fab's impact, the old man vs zone discussion, why MCW didn't play, rebounding (an especially valid point of discussion) but in the end, shooting was the bottom line for the loss.

We shot 35% for the game. It's even worse than it sounds because we 1) missed a ton of gimme's, and 2) we took 33% more attempts from the field than ND did. A hidden point is that they shot lights out from behind the arc but the fact is also that we sucked from behind the arc and took 40% more attempts than they did.

It all comes back to shooting.

If we had connected on a mere 5 additional baskets, we'd have won the game. That's 5 additional missed bunnies. 5 additional 12 footers, whatever. Additional 3's would have made the outcome even better.

5 additional 2 pointers would still have given us only a 43% average vs their 50% but we'd have won the game.

We had our shots. We had 13 more attempts than they did. We missed from all over the court; from behind the arc, from 12 feet, and from point blank range. You can microanalyze everything else but in the end this was the story IMHO

 

[orange79]

If we shoot 42%, we probably win that game.

 

[pfister1]

This game was lost on offense not defense. Yes not having Melo impacted our defense, but we knew that going into the game. We had glimpses of how the defense would look in the stints where Melo got into foul trouble in earlier games and our opponent was able to get the ball inside and get good shots at the basket almost at will. So it shouldn't be a surprise that we gave up some relatively easy points on the interior. That won't change, if at all, for a few games. JB needs to retool the defense a bit to adjust to having very little presence in the middle and I am not sure that can be done effectively on one day notice. Hell if Melo's coming back he may not really do it with vigor.

What disappointed me most yesterday was how bad the offense looked. Notre Dame has never been known for its strong defense, yet they made us look like we had lost our top two offensive players rather than our 6 point per game center and 11th man who doesn't play the way we played on offense.

When we debate whether we have go to guys or not, this game is exhibit 1 for the argument that we do not. We needed someone to pick up their offensive game to counter punch N.D.s initial body blows and make a statement to the rest of the team that the loss of Melo would not impair us...... and sadly noone was able to do that.

The guys that needed to do this were really KJo, Triche or Waiters and none of them could. Waiters 4 for 14? Nice boost going into the half, but that was the only point he really looked like the potential 1st round pick we've all been trying to make him out to be. KJo...well...just really disappointed in what he gave us yesterday 4 for 12 and 5 boards?? Is that all you've got against a weak Notre Dame?? Triche 2 for 6?? He could only get 6 shots yesterday? Yesterday was a game that was crying out for him to take charge offensively....but he didn't even seem to try to do this.

Scoop? 0-5. He was only credited with 2 TOs, but he had a couple of passes in the first half to interior players (one to CJ comes to mind) that were thrown at their ankles and the receiving player couldn't do anything with the ball as a result. Don't know if they ended up being statistical TOs, but they were the equivalent of TOs. I would have liked to have seen him hit a few shots, but I am almost ok with his 0-5. In past seasons in a situation like this Scoop would have tried to shoulder the offense and his line might have looked more like 2-14...so maybe its progress that that didn't happen, unfortunately deferring to others didn't lead to others getting the job done.

Just really disappointed in how this team responded (or didn't respond) to the challenge yesterday.

 

[fairfaxcuse]

[quote="
5 additional 2 pointers would still have given us only a 43% average vs their 50% but we'd have won the game. We had our shots. We had 13 more attempts than they did.[/quote]

Good analysis. Basically, if we play even a subpar game, we would win.

This happens in hoops. Heck, even the 72 win Bulls lost to an awful Toronto Raptors team. Basketball is a game of probabilities and sometimes you just shoot a really bad percentage.

 

[bryanradams]

As someone who wasn't able to watch the ND game, I have some questions.
I keep reading things like "punched in the gut" and "punched in the mouth." Was this game a case of being punched in the mouth and Cuse didn't punch back or is it the first time this season that we got punched?
Because I thought Providence, NC State, and even Va Tech came out and attacked us from the jump.

With that being said, my second question is...objectively speaking, did ND look better than Providence? I thought Providence played us very well at the Dunk, but we fought back (and most importantly) and made shots.

I don't know how alarmed I'm supposed to be with this loss. Having watched college hoops intensely since the late 70's, I have seen that 99% of teams will lose if they go on the road and underperform when the home team over performs. It sucks to lose, but it wasn't a 33 point quit job either.

 

[bevosu]

This team has gotten where it has gotten by playing tough defense. Lots of slapping the ball away, disrupting passing lanes and angles, up tight on shooters, altered and blocked inside shots, with many fast break turnover points the result.

Everybody knows that with a few exceptions our half court game has been the weakest part of our offense. Waiters gets hot..Triche gets hot...KJ gets hot...even Scoop has his moments, but half court inconsistency didn't just happen last night.

We can hope that Waiters can do his magic most nights against some of the better teams in the country, and Triche, KJ, and Scoop will become consistent scorers, but without the girl that brung us here, tough zone D, we probably aren't going to be dancing very long.

We need Fab to allow the rest of the team to play the aggressive defense that made us the team that most of us thought could go far.

We're still a good team and last night shouldn't be a measure of how good we are, but without that intimidation in the middle our defense potentially takes a big step down...and it also has a negative effect on turnovers and our fast break points...which has been an important part of our offense. Last night we got some turnovers but failed to convert at our usual rate.

But ya the offense stunk.

 

[billsin01]

I guess that's to be expected following the first loss of the season and especially expected from SU fans.

You can talk about Fab's impact, the old man vs zone discussion, why MCW didn't play, rebounding (an especially valid point of discussion) but in the end, shooting was the bottom line for the loss.

We shot 35% for the game. It's even worse than it sounds because we 1) missed a ton of gimme's, and 2) we took 33% more attempts from the field than ND did. A hidden point is that they shot lights out from behind the arc but the fact is also that we sucked from behind the arc and took 40% more attempts than they did.

It all comes back to shooting.

If we had connected on a mere 5 additional baskets, we'd have won the game. That's 5 additional missed bunnies. 5 additional 12 footers, whatever. Additional 3's would have made the outcome even better.

5 additional 2 pointers would still have given us only a 43% average vs their 50% but we'd have won the game.

We had our shots. We had 13 more attempts than they did. We missed from all over the court; from behind the arc, from 12 feet, and from point blank range. You can microanalyze everything else but in the end this was the story IMHO

True, and to further the point, our game in the half-court is jump-shooting (for the most part). If teams successfully slow us down, we are generally going to live and die by the jumper. We're good enough to live by it for the most part, but it can kill us occasionally too. Probably the (potential) fatal flaw for this group.

 

[Col. Bleep]

I guess that's to be expected following the first loss of the season and especially expected from SU fans.

You can talk about Fab's impact, the old man vs zone discussion, why MCW didn't play, rebounding (an especially valid point of discussion) but in the end, shooting was the bottom line for the loss.

We shot 35% for the game. It's even worse than it sounds because we 1) missed a ton of gimme's, and 2) we took 33% more attempts from the field than ND did. A hidden point is that they shot lights out from behind the arc but the fact is also that we sucked from behind the arc and took 40% more attempts than they did.

It all comes back to shooting.

If we had connected on a mere 5 additional baskets, we'd have won the game. That's 5 additional missed bunnies. 5 additional 12 footers, whatever. Additional 3's would have made the outcome even better.

5 additional 2 pointers would still have given us only a 43% average vs their 50% but we'd have won the game.

We had our shots. We had 13 more attempts than they did. We missed from all over the court; from behind the arc, from 12 feet, and from point blank range. You can microanalyze everything else but in the end this was the story IMHO

No question we missed some open looks and a few inside as well.

Normally a loss affects me... I'm annoyed.
Not this time.

We have to give ND credit.
They were great defensively...especially just getting back to prevent fast breaks when we had the chance to run.
If a team can play like that, bang he glass the way they did and make their open shots...we're going to have some trouble.
They just plain beat us in almost every material aspect of the game.

 

[Madbiker]

It's not just the FG%, it's the quality of the shots. ND shot a high percentage because they took quality, open looks. SU had few open looks especially in the paint. We took contested forced shots even when there was plenty of time on the clock. Unlike ND, there was little ball movement just a lot of one-on-one dribbling and off-balance shots. Our offense was totally out of sync and seemed to be in panic mode very early in the game. It almost seems that the more patient our opponent is on offense, the more rushed our offense becomes in a misguided attempt to speed up the tempo of the game.

 

[JOC44]

As soon as I saw that were 3rd in the nation in fewest turnovers, I suspected we might be in trouble. We are completely dependent on fast break points.

 

[OttoMets]

As someone who wasn't able to watch the ND game, I have some questions.
I keep reading things like "punched in the gut" and "punched in the mouth." Was this game a case of being punched in the mouth and Cuse didn't punch back or is it the first time this season that we got punched?
Because I thought Providence, NC State, and even Va Tech came out and attacked us from the jump.

With that being said, my second question is...objectively speaking, did ND look better than Providence? I thought Providence played us very well at the Dunk, but we fought back (and most importantly) and made shots.

I don't know how alarmed I'm supposed to be with this loss. Having watched college hoops intensely since the late 70's, I have seen that 99% of teams will lose if they go on the road and underperform when the home team over performs. It sucks to lose, but it wasn't a 33 point quit job either.

Defensively, Notre Dame was better than Providence. Other than that, significantly worse.

A loss like this was bound to happen (and will happen again, probably on the last day of Scoop and Kris's career), but I wouldn't be too alarmed. Notre Dame played well and we played badly.

I'd be more concerned about Keita's mystery ailment, Rakeem's development, and the audition-style play that Dion and Kris have been offering up. The loss of Fab will knock us from a realistic Final Four team to a decent top-20 team; the continued poor play of those last two guys, though, could make us a fair bit worse than that.

 

[bryanradams]

Thanks for that, OttoMets. I think this team has something special. I think last year's team would have lost at The Dunk and lost at home to Marquette and Pitt.

 

[orangefan13]

If we shoot 42%, we probably win that game.

Yup its like JB said.
ND shot really well and we shot extremely poor can't do that on the road. Your not going to get a ton of fast break points on the road usually.

We had 13 more shots then ND we make half of those 13 from 2 point range and we win by 4. Even despite ND shooting 50 from two a 50 from three and them having a half dozen (give or take) free throw advantage.
If they had 10 more points from the line then what they did and shoot that well though we probably aren't beating anybody.

We were shooting 48 percent from the field (20th in the nation thats pretty darn good). and 35 percent from three (not bad) for the season. Thats not dependent on fast break points at all. Its consistancy from our players that matters and nobody outside of James in our core scoring 7(including Melo) was consistant yesterday. IMO a bigger glaring weakness is weight in the paint when Melo isn't in. Keita needs to remember what it was like battling against Rick.

Goes to show Youth will always be youth.
Our players have to realize we literrally can't win the title playing a game like that. We will get bounced or be extremely lucky not to be with neutral court transition points. I don't want the team to take that chance. Its a fact. I hope the players learn that.

 

[stuckinbig11]

I guess that's to be expected following the first loss of the season and especially expected from SU fans.

You can talk about Fab's impact, the old man vs zone discussion, why MCW didn't play, rebounding (an especially valid point of discussion) but in the end, shooting was the bottom line for the loss.

We shot 35% for the game. It's even worse than it sounds because we 1) missed a ton of gimme's, and 2) we took 33% more attempts from the field than ND did. A hidden point is that they shot lights out from behind the arc but the fact is also that we sucked from behind the arc and took 40% more attempts than they did.

It all comes back to shooting.

If we had connected on a mere 5 additional baskets, we'd have won the game. That's 5 additional missed bunnies. 5 additional 12 footers, whatever. Additional 3's would have made the outcome even better.

5 additional 2 pointers would still have given us only a 43% average vs their 50% but we'd have won the game.

We had our shots. We had 13 more attempts than they did. We missed from all over the court; from behind the arc, from 12 feet, and from point blank range. You can microanalyze everything else but in the end this was the story IMHO

I made the same observation when someone asked me this morning "Why did they lose?" Nearly everyone that shoots 35% will lose.

 

[kd bart]

This loss was all on the offense. 34% for the game. 6 of 26, 23%, in the first 19 minutes of the game tell the story of this loss. Notre Dame went 7+ minutes of the second half, from around the 13:00 mark to the 5:30 mark, without scoring a single point for themselves. Syracuse only managed a 9-0 run during that 7+ minute spell, to cut the lead from 17 to 8. Syracuse shot 1 of 7 from the field, a Joseph 3 pointer, with 4 free throws during that time. They also committed 2 turnovers. The other 2 points were actually scored by Notre Dame. The game was there to be won if they'd only shot the ball mediocre rather than poorly. 34% shooting is not going to win many, if any, ball games when the opponent shoots 50%.

 

[SoBristol]

Well, it obviously wasn't "all on the offense".
ND shot very well in the first 10 minutes or so to build a big lead.
ND abused our back-up centers.
ND out-muscled us on the boards.
ND held down its turn-overs and kept SU in a half-court game.

And -- our offense (making shots) wasn't very good. But why was that? We didn't get our normal share of transition points. We didn't have Fab in the middle for alley-oops. Our back-up centers aren't much help on offense. You can reduce it to bad shooting percentages from KJ and our guards -- but then you would be missing what actually was happening.

 

[pfister1]

Well, it obviously wasn't "all on the offense".
ND shot very well in the first 10 minutes or so to build a big lead.
ND abused our back-up centers.
ND out-muscled us on the boards.
ND held down its turn-overs and kept SU in a half-court game.

And -- our offense (making shots) wasn't very good. But why was that? We didn't get our normal share of transition points. We didn't have Fab in the middle for alley-oops. Our back-up centers aren't much help on offense. You can reduce it to bad shooting percentages from KJ and our guards -- but then you would be missing what actually was happening.

Notre Dame really didn't hold down its turnovers. Our opponents are averaging 18.3 turnovers per game. Notre Dame came into the game averaging only 10 turnovers per game. We forced 17 turnovers in the game. True, we didn't convert the turnovers to transition offense, but they were there all the same.

 

[SoBristol]

Notre Dame really didn't hold down its turnovers. Our opponents are averaging 18.3 turnovers per game. Notre Dame came into the game averaging only 10 turnovers per game. We forced 17 turnovers in the game. True, we didn't convert the turnovers to transition offense, but they were there all the same.

Good catch -- we got many of those turnovers because we had to press for more of the game than usual. When you press, you trade turnovers for easy shots when you don't get the turnovers.
I don't have the stats, but it felt like we didn't get turnovers in the half court, leading to the usual number of run-outs and easy finishes. We also didn't get the blocks that sometimes lead to run-outs.

 

[OttoMets]

Good catch -- we got many of those turnovers because we had to press for more of the game than usual. When you press, you trade turnovers for easy shots when you don't get the turnovers.
I don't have the stats, but it felt like we didn't get turnovers in the half court, leading to the usual number of run-outs and easy finishes. We also didn't get the blocks that sometimes lead to run-outs.

Or the missed shots that lead to run-outs. When a team misses only half of its field goals rather than the normal number (60%? 65%?), we're getting even fewer transition opportunities. And then consider the offensive rebounds.

Bad night for SU. A lot of things went wrong.

 

[orangecuse]

I guess that's to be expected following the first loss of the season and especially expected from SU fans.

You can talk about Fab's impact, the old man vs zone discussion, why MCW didn't play, rebounding (an especially valid point of discussion) but in the end, shooting was the bottom line for the loss.

We shot 35% for the game. It's even worse than it sounds because we 1) missed a ton of gimme's, and 2) we took 33% more attempts from the field than ND did. A hidden point is that they shot lights out from behind the arc but the fact is also that we sucked from behind the arc and took 40% more attempts than they did.

It all comes back to shooting.

If we had connected on a mere 5 additional baskets, we'd have won the game. That's 5 additional missed bunnies. 5 additional 12 footers, whatever. Additional 3's would have made the outcome even better.

5 additional 2 pointers would still have given us only a 43% average vs their 50% but we'd have won the game.

We had our shots. We had 13 more attempts than they did. We missed from all over the court; from behind the arc, from 12 feet, and from point blank range. You can microanalyze everything else but in the end this was the story IMHO

Nice microanalysis yourself relative to our shooting woes. I guess in the final analysis, one can choose whichever they'd like to validate their viewpoint. Just as you've chosen to microanalyze of our poor shooting, one could do the same relative to how we allowed ND to shoot lights out or continually crushing us on the boards, etc. In the end, they all were contributing factors...