Miami Postgame

[sufan59]

 

[Nicknack]

I try to be an optimistic fan but this loss has beaten all of that out of me. I would normally not say fire the head coach mid season but I really think it could do some good. It would be a mercy killing for Red so he doesn't have to live through the next few weeks of being trashed online and booed in person. I don't like at all how he's going to go out as a former player we all deeply respect.

It would also make a statement that our program won't tolerate this level of play and performance. I'd love to see one of the assistant coaches have a crack at things with the players re-focusing on the rest of the season. The message could be let's get the team where it needs to be come acc tournament and let's make a run and see what happens. We might save a player or two from portaling as well. Why not?

 

[dollarbill44]

Is this 3 year s-show really better than the so-called “nuclear” option JB would have chosen ?

Probably not, but who cares? Rehashing that decision doesn't change the current reality.

 

[capeorange]

Good grief. It’s over and he’s lost them.

He just admitted that he doesn't know how to coach.

 

[sufan59]

I try to be an optimistic fan but this loss has beaten all of that out of me. I would normally not say fire the head coach mid season but I really think it could do some good. It would be a mercy killing for Red so he doesn't have to live through the next few weeks of being trashed online and booed in person. I don't like at all how he's going to go out as a former player we all deeply respect.

It would also make a statement that our program won't tolerate this level of play and performance. I'd love to see one of the assistant coaches have a crack at things with the players re-focusing on the rest of the season. The message could be let's get the team where it needs to be come acc tournament and let's make a run and see what happens. We might save a player or two from portaling as well. Why not?

The mindset of why we can’t make this move is the exact mindset of how things got to where they are in the first place. Now if they don’t make the move mid season, I don’t think it necessarily signals success or failure for the next guy. But also the argument in that it will scare off the next coach is absurd. It would make me question if that guy is the right fit for a place like Syracuse. Red was hired via continuity at a program with a top 5 fan base in size and pride. Was given an extra year with a lot more talent to work with and is massively underperforming. A toxic environment on Gamedays and really every other non gameday with fans losing patience and angst if we will ever come close to the glory days. Players full up quit yesterday by not fouling when it was statistically possible to make a comeback, although small, it was possible enough for everyone to notice. I also think if the decision is made and you’re waiting till the end for optics, do it now. Let the fan base enjoy the in between period of Syracuse Basketball with an it is what it is mindset and let players play free and relaxed basketball. It may actually help the new coach get a more energized fan base when the time comes to announce the hiring and a fresh start to a new beginning. The players who stay or leave will be stronger going through adversity like this, it happens all the time in professional basketball.

 

[richmondcuse03]

He's young and his choice of words probably wasn't the best. I doubt anyone, even the hardcore Red antagonists, are questioning his "character". It's a question of Red's coaching abilities. To another extent, he has to realize the players are also being critiqued even if it's more subtle and indirect. But again, it's not their "character", but their performance on the court.

Whether or not expectations were too much and fan reaction too severe is debatable. Personally, I thought they were an average ACC team on paper and would be in the mix with several teams to make the tournament. Winning a few of those close losses would have put them in that situation, but for a variety of reasons it didn't happen.

Red will go and players will leave. We'll see what changes next year, and how long the fan base will give the new group to meet their expectations.

Part of the reason you make a move or at least an announcement sooner is you eliminate players repeatedly getting these questions over and over. It's not going to stop -- it's only going to get worse. Make an announcement, say his contract won't be renewed/extended, and we're going in a different direction. He can coach out the season if he wants. But eliminate this.

 

[AlaskaSU]

We won 4 games without him. Seems to be a good person.
I feel sorry for 2 people Red because he attached his coaching career to JJ being a star, and it failed miserably. And his career as a division 1 Head Coach is probably finished. I also feel sorry for JJ good person who came home hoping be be a star. Don't know how bad things were at Notre Dame, but was not the player Red and the fans expected.
Also feel sorry for the team and coaches, this wasn't what they expected.

He was inefficient at Notre Dame.

 

[sufan59]

Part of the reason you make a move or at least an announcement sooner is you eliminate players repeatedly getting these questions over and over. It's not going to stop -- it's only going to get worse. Make an announcement, say his contract won't be renewed/extended, and we're going in a different direction. He can coach out the season if he wants. But eliminate this.

When the players say we have no idea what’s happening behind the scenes I wonder if the decision was made weeks ago.

 

[DoctahLexus]

We won 4 games without him. Seems to be a good person.
I feel sorry for 2 people Red because he attached his coaching career to JJ being a star, and it failed miserably. And his career as a division 1 Head Coach is probably finished. I also feel sorry for JJ good person who came home hoping be be a star. Don't know how bad things were at Notre Dame, but was not the player Red and the fans expected.
Also feel sorry for the team and coaches, this wasn't what they expected.

It was 3 games without JJ. Those games were Binghamton (0-7 in conference 4-18 overall), Delaware State (0-4 in conference 5-14 overal), and Drexel (4-4 in conference 10-11 overall). We also had a fully healthy Freeman putting in 20 a game. It is absurd to be picking on JJ now and even more absurd to be pointing to those three games as some kind of proof that we are better without him. He is the board punching bag. All of our guards suck. Focus on Red. Or at least give a little grief to the guy we are paying 2 million to be pg who can't dribble by anyone with a pulse.

 

[dollarbill44]

It’s ’tough sledding,’ getting through these threads these days, but seeing so many calls to fire Red “today/now,” I still haven’t seen the practical, realistic suggestion for who to install for the balance of the season. Did I miss it?

Do we even need a coach? There's no evidence they have added any value. Just have AI determine the lineup and subs.

 

[MSOrange]

Part of the reason you make a move or at least an announcement sooner is you eliminate players repeatedly getting these questions over and over. It's not going to stop -- it's only going to get worse. Make an announcement, say his contract won't be renewed/extended, and we're going in a different direction. He can coach out the season if he wants. But eliminate this.

That's why I have changed my opinion on waiting until the end of the season. I don't think an interim coach is going to take us on any sort of run. But it'll just be less awkward for eveyone to get the decision over with and avoid the constant questions.

 

[Blanko97]

I think they are really underplaying the VT and Miami issues. They arent that terrible, the losses themselves shouldn't be the main problem, but instead the way the losses are happening... Like a 2 point loss to VT isnt a terrible thing, but its the fact that the offense went AWOL for a fair part of the game without any changes. The opposite is true for Miami, the defense was non existent. Yes there was a change to the 2-3 but it didnt work either which is the true indictment on preparation. That 2 opposite problems in 2 straight games, thats the real issue.

 

[23Zone]

That's why I have changed my opinion on waiting until the end of the season. I don't think an interim coach is going to take us on any sort of run. But it'll just be less awkward for eveyone to get the decision over with and avoid the constant questions.

At this point anything is better than the hot mess express known as Red

Maybe Felicia Legette wants double duty lol

 

[Scooch]

I think they are really underplaying the VT and Miami issues. They arent that terrible, the losses themselves shouldn't be the main problem, but instead the way the losses are happening... Like a 2 point loss to VT isnt a terrible thing, but its the fact that the offense went AWOL for a fair part of the game without any changes. The opposite is true for Miami, the defense was non existent. Yes there was a change to the 2-3 but it didnt work either which is the true indictment on preparation. That 2 opposite problems in 2 straight games, thats the real issue.

If we want to make the tournament they’re both bad losses. At some point folks need to stop with the “one quad 2 loss/quad 3 loss isn’t a killer” stuff. It’s been going on all season. We’re 12-7 and 3-4 in conference. At some point you gotta forget the quads and win some damn games. We’re incapable of winning enough games.

 

[baggerbob]

One

It was 3 games without JJ. Those games were Binghamton (0-7 in conference 4-18 overall), Delaware State (0-4 in conference 5-14 overal), and Drexel (4-4 in conference 10-11 overall). We also had a fully healthy Freeman putting in 20 a game. It is absurd to be picking on JJ now and even more absurd to be pointing to those three games as some kind of proof that we are better without him. He is the board punching bag. All of our guards suck. Focus on Red. Or at least give a little grief to the guy we are paying 2 million to be pg who can't dribble by anyone with a pulse.

One of the games I counted as the 4 was the game he played 3 minutes and was injured, he didn't play long enough to be a factor in the win.

 

[DoctahLexus]

One
One of the games I counted as the 4 was the game he played 3 minutes and was injured, he didn't play long enough to be a factor in the win.

Yes that was the Binghamton game. It was 3 games including that one without JJ, not 4. That is 100% a certainty.

 

[Cusefan0307]

Starling is going to leave with the worst record of any Syracuse player since the 1960’s.

 

[Nicknack]

It was 3 games without JJ. Those games were Binghamton (0-7 in conference 4-18 overall), Delaware State (0-4 in conference 5-14 overal), and Drexel (4-4 in conference 10-11 overall). We also had a fully healthy Freeman putting in 20 a game. It is absurd to be picking on JJ now and even more absurd to be pointing to those three games as some kind of proof that we are better without him. He is the board punching bag. All of our guards suck. Focus on Red. Or at least give a little grief to the guy we are paying 2 million to be pg who can't dribble by anyone with a pulse.

Yeah, not a popular opinion on this board but one I agree with. I find it comical that many here are trying to pin things on JJ for killing our chances for a comeback last night because of the missed dunk. Yeah, that hurt for sure, but how many times in the game did we launch a little comeback to get to a couple points and couldn't get over the hump? All of those failed efforts were due to the play of multiple players, not just JJ. Sadly, we very likely weren't going to beat Miami yesterday dunk or no dunk.

Also, I was not impressed with our best player yesterday. While he only had one turnover, he's not taking good care of the ball at times. Additionally, our PG just makes too many careless passes. If I could do one mid-season trade, it would be our PG before JJ.

 

[Cusefan0307]

Yeah, not a popular opinion on this board but one I agree with. I find it comical that many here are trying to pin things on JJ for killing our chances for a comeback last night because of the missed dunk. Yeah, that hurt for sure, but how many times in the game did we launch a little comeback to get to a couple points and couldn't get over the hump? All of those failed efforts were due to the play of multiple players, not just JJ. Sadly, we very likely weren't going to beat Miami yesterday dunk or no dunk.

Also, I was not impressed with our best player yesterday. While he only had one turnover, he's not taking good care of the ball at times. Additionally, our PG just makes too many careless passes. If I could do one mid-season trade, it would be our PG before JJ.

This is fair, but people here were concerned about bringing him back to be shooting guard again this year because he exacerbates other issues within the team. Ultimately if your shooting guard can’t shoot outside of 5 feet the expectation becomes that Kingz and Betsey can’t have off games from outside because we have no one else who’s a legitimate threat out there besides Freeman and we need him inside. Then when Kingz or Betsey miss or a team like Miami focuses on running them off the line we have no where else to go. It’s imperative going forward we move away from the dinosaur players of the 1990’s at 2 guard.

 

[CardiacCuse]

Starling is going to leave with the worst record of any Syracuse player since the 1960’s.

at least he got paid

 

[Nicknack]

This is fair, but people here were concerned about bringing him back to be shooting guard again this year because he exacerbates other issues within the team. Ultimately if your shooting guard can’t shoot outside of 5 feet the expectation becomes that Kingz and Betsey can’t have off games from outside because we have no one else who’s a legitimate threat out there besides Freeman and we need him inside. Then when Kingz or Betsey miss or a team like Miami focuses on running them off the line we have no where else to go. It’s imperative going forward we move away from the dinosaur players of the 1990’s at 2 guard.

Yeah, I'm with you. I just get a little tired how JJ gets treated on this board. It gets a bit excessive. It's not like the guy is an a-hole like some that we've had on the roster in the past. He seems like a good teammate. That said, I agree with your post above.

 

[MGDCuse]

I can he

Raffle off the chance to be “HC for a day” each game in order to make up for declining ticket sales.

I can hear it now. After they introduce the team, the announcer says, "And now, your guest coach for this evening is, John from Toledo. That's John from Toledo everyone. Give him a nice round of applause." We run the 1-3-1 motion offense and the 2-1-2 zone defense we ran in junior high and absolutely mystify the other team. I get carried out after the game just like Rudy and go down as the only undefeated coach in Syracuse history.

 

[Ghost]

After looking at Hofstra's last 4 games (losses) I'm thinking that loss wasn't as solid as it seemed at the time!

 

[Cusefan95]

There's like 4 more home games and if you think more than a few dozen people are showing up to watch us play ND, Cal, and Pitt you are mistaken.

6 weeks left, judging by the # of insiders that are silent I'm quite sure the search has already began.

I’m astonished at how large the crowds have been to this point - I haven’t gone to a game in two years. I’ll be mildly surprised if anyone not directly related to a player shows up from this point, regardless if Red is still coaching or if he’s fired now.

And if Wildhack wasn’t in touch with search firms last offseason - it was professional malpractice. What should be going on now is more direct contact with candidates who were identified months ago.

 

[RedtheGOB]

I’m astonished at how large the crowds have been to this point - I haven’t gone to a game in two years. I’ll be mildly surprised if anyone not directly related to a player shows up from this point, regardless of Red is still coaching or if he’s fired now.

And if Wildhack wasn’t in touch with search firms last offseason - it was professional malpractice. What should be going on now is more direct contact with candidates who were identified months ago.

Last time I heard wildhack he was on Cuse sports radio after Hofstra. A lot of blah but he specifically mentioned that debacle. That was the game that pushed things along I think. BC was next obvi but that maybe just sped up the process