missed opportunity

[Marty McFly]

I honestly thought we'd pull it out after the first half... I feel really bad for Jim and the team, we couldn't get the win. Such an emotionally charged environment even coach K admitted in his presser he didn't think his guys were up to the task. The game likely came down to, O'Shae being clocked in the head and leaving the game for a key stretch, and the Barrett three late in the shot clock. Granted we couldn't hit a shot, but those were huge swings in momentum (and we are such a momentum team), along with the O'connell bs 4 point play. It's tough to know that this game was there for the taking. Not assigning blame, as I am sure everyone feels bad enough about it.

I had this as a win, as I thought the emotion would carry the team to the victory, and the UNC game would be a curb stomping. Now I fear we will be utterly spent and am not looking forward to getting owned by Luke May. The only hope is we keep a good pace up, as we seem to be the best when NOT in the half court. As mentioned before, first task is to get in the tournament, next goal is to not be on the 8/9 line.

I firmly believe had we swept duke, the pressure would be off and we'd have probably been no worse than a 7 seed. But now, all bets are off. It stings as a fan, but hopefully the players can shake it off and get the W when we least expect it.

 

[Briancuse]

I was 50/50 on this one, its a missed opportunity for sure but there will be other ones.

 

[sugrad68]

This game was there for the taking. But unfortunately "The Gang That Couldn't Shoot Straight" reappeared. Terrible offensive performance but we all know this year's team is capable of doing just that. Duke basically played 6 guys and 2 of them played really well. Bolden was okay. Other 3 were less than spectacular. I would say only Dolezaj and Chukwu had above average games for SU, and they were not spectacular games like Barrett and O'Connell. I have to give Duke some credit. Their defense is much improved since the 1st game, even without Zion in there. But again, this is a game that SU could have won with a mediocre performance instead of the terrible performance given.

 

[Delmar]

Respectfully disagree with the OP. Yeah, a win would have been fantastic (and I get that), but anyone with the eyes to see it would perceive a compelling, vibrant, caring community completely lit up by basketball … unless playing in front of 35,642 people is a turn off.

 

[Marty McFly]

Delmar not sure I follow what you are disagreeing with. I was simply lamenting the fact that we couldn't get the W in what was a really emotionally charged home game, that was there for the taking. I agree with your comments about the community, et al, fwiw.

 

[jdubs30]

Despite how bad we played - if OConnell wasn’t on fire OR Bolden didn’t kill us on the boards in the 2nd half, we win. Barrett scored 32 but you can let that happen if you stop everyone else, we just didn’t locate OConnell a few times.

I’d love to see them in the ACCT (without Zion lol). I think we’d have a better offensive game

 

[Madbiker]

O'connell is like the typical Boston College player over the years who plants himself in the corner and just kills us with 3's when we don't cover him.

 

[MikeDamone]

Huge missed opportunity especially when you consider our yearly beating bu UNC is up next

 

[jdubs30]

Huge missed opportunity especially when you consider our yearly beating bu UNC is up next

2 weeks ago I’d disagree with you, UNC doesn’t have the size or talent that they’ve had in the past. Luke Maye and Cobi White are great - but other than them it’s not your typical UNC team. White goes in waves so if he’s cold/hesistant/turnover prone against the zone we have a shot. I just assume Maye will score 25+. Cam has killed us in the past. Nasir little is coming into his own but I’m not sure how he’ll do against the zone. But at least this year UNC won’t be able to send a bunch of 6’11 monsters at us

Unfortunately outside of Kentucky id say UNC is the hottest teAm in the country so we’re catching them at the wrong time

 

[upperdeck]

the stats bear it all out.. if we shoot 30% from 3 and make 70% of our Fts we probably win. not crazy numbers to hit but we seem to not be able to do that in almost every loss we get,

if we shoot 35% from 3 we probably lead the whole game.

 

[cuse10]

If Syracuse got a decent performance from Tyus and Elijah, they would have blown Duke out. Their inconsistency is maddening. They gave this game away. Sweeping Duke would have all but locked them in and make a .500+ finish to the season possible when people predicted 2-4.

 

[Brooky03]

I had a bad feeling pretty early on when Barrett got rolling. Duke had a shot maker on the court, we didn't. That's really all it came down to, imo. Barrett was not going to cool off and Battle wasn't heating up.

 

[CorduroyG]

duke only scored 29 pts in 1st half, we should have been up by more than 5. but unfortunately for us 34 points is considered a good offensive half. we just dont score enough, and thats gonna be why we lose in tourny, assuming we dont choke away a bid. a good team would have been up 40-29 at half.

 

[hoopsupstate]

We never had a 7-8 point run in the second half that would have had the crowd in a frenzy. We could have had a larger half time lead if we got any calls. It was maddening watching some of the no calls in the first half. I told my friends before the game that O’Connell was going to hurt us. He made four threes in the first game. He was almost Orange, but Duke offered at the last moment. He could help us.

 

[grant]

Barrett shot better than he usually shoots and had arguably the best game he has had to date. He stepped up with Zion out. Stinks but good to see we can hang with Duke, who could easily win the NC this year. Need to bring the same energy to Chapel Hill this Tuesday

 

[Marty McFly]

Barrett shot better than he usually shoots and had arguably the best game he has had to date. He stepped up with Zion out. Stinks but good to see we can hang with Duke, who could easily win the NC this year. Need to bring the same energy to Chapel Hill this Tuesday

Ya I was hoping that Barrett would struggle, like he did against UNC earlier in the week. Too bad he didn't have another clunker. One night he can't find the ocean from the beach, the next he's frickin' Larry Bird.

 

[newmexicuse]

Hate to say it, but we looked like we either did not want it bad enough or were playing scared in the second half.

Second half D and rebounding were atrocious. The few times we stopped them we gave up the rebound. We were slow to the shooters and slow to the ball, bad combo.

No excuse for leaving O-Connell so open so often.

Barrett is a great player, so kudos to him for having a great game. He was unstoppable in the game, but he could not have won single handedly if we had player better.

Frankly, I know it was a very tough game for Jimmy to coach, but it sure looked like Coach k made some adjustments in the second half, and Jimmy could not find the right buttons to push to counteract them.

Refs were terrible, multiple missed calls in their favor, I do not re-call a single missed call in our favor. Still, I can't help but feel we could have gotten it done with better effort.

 

[tbonezone]

on replay i believe we hung pretty close the 5 minutes OB went out. game unraveled last 5 minutes.

 

[Marty McFly]

Hate to say it, but we looked like we either did not want it bad enough or were playing scared in the second half.

Refs were terrible, multiple missed calls in their favor, I do not re-call a single missed call in our favor. Still, I can't help but feel we could have gotten it done with better effort.

Hard to know for sure, if that was the case, regarding the effort. This team, feeds off made baskets. When we aren't hitting shots, they seem to lose focus a bit and start over thinking things. Add the refs into the equation, and I can see how the 2nd half frustration happened. I've long thought that this team lacks a floor general, one who could rally the troops on the court. I'm not saying being vocal on D or getting offense into the right play, but a QB in the huddle when things look bleak to get guys fired up.

 

[Newhouser]

I think emotion is overrated in these situations. Their elite NBA guy played like it, our good college guys didn't play well. I still think we lose to UNC beat Wake and UVA and lose to Clemson - I also think we are already in the dance even if we beat nobody from here on in.

 

[Marty McFly]

on replay i believe we hung pretty close the 5 minutes OB went out. game unraveled last 5 minutes.

true. However, OB was pretty ineffective after that knock to his head.

 

[longislandcuse]

This is a game that I wasn't expecting to win, but was hoping to be proved wrong on. Unfortunately this team just isn't what we hoped for.

Maybe we make a run in the tourney again, who knows.

To borrow the ultimate dad-phrase... "I'm not mad, I'm just disappointed" is how I felt after that game.

 

[walsh2012]

true. However, OB was pretty ineffective after that knock to his head.

which was somehow not a foul

 

[rrlbees]

true. However, OB was pretty ineffective after that knock to his head.

He came back in at about the 10 min mark and I don’t think he scored after that.

 

[OrangeDW]

I think emotion is overrated in these situations. Their elite NBA guy played like it, our good college guys didn't play well. I still think we lose to UNC beat Wake and UVA and lose to Clemson - I also think we are already in the dance even if we beat nobody from here on in.

Why beat UVA? Just curious. I honestly haven’t watched them, because they’re boring to me.

My impression is...a few years ago their young guys couldn’t handle Battle off the dribble and we knocked them off in the Dome.

Those same young guys are still there and are much better now.

On the surface I don’t feel great about it, but I could be missing something as I completely avoid watching Virginia.