General20
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I'm not going to say anything we don't already know, but sometimes you just need to see it written down.
Jim Boeheim is playing with only 7 scholarship players.
Of those 7 players, 6 had never played meaningful minutes in college before this season.
3 of those players are battling through injuries that make them ineffective.
Of the 4 healthy players, one is battling strep throat, and another is going through his worst slump of the season. The remaining two are low ranked (in high school) freshman.
This group was understandably predicted to have a disaster of a season. Boeheim barely got them in the tournament, thanks to a top 10 defense.
In the tournament Boeheim held all 3 teams he has faced to 30 ... 30! ... points below their season average.
The last of these 3 teams was Michigan St. who had a record of 30-4, was playing at home, is expected to have 2 players drafted in the lottery, and 3 players drafted overall, and was preseason #2 in the country based on the talent they have. They averaged 82 points per game this year.
If you discount the 2 banked in 3's, and the times we intentionally put them on the line, they only scored 43 points against us.
Syracuse achieved this defensive performance despite 4 players in foul trouble causing them to have to play a 6'9, 180 pound freshman forward at center against the best rebounding team in the country, and play a WALK ON for the last almost 7 minutes of the game.
With all due respect to the warriors on this team (and they are warriors) Boeheim's system is pretty much winning games on its own at this point.
So I have to ask the question, has any coach ever won more with less? I don't mean this as a rhetorical question, I'd like to hear some thoughts. I'm trying to think of another coaching performance that's even in the same ballpark and I'm coming up empty.
Jim Boeheim is playing with only 7 scholarship players.
Of those 7 players, 6 had never played meaningful minutes in college before this season.
3 of those players are battling through injuries that make them ineffective.
Of the 4 healthy players, one is battling strep throat, and another is going through his worst slump of the season. The remaining two are low ranked (in high school) freshman.
This group was understandably predicted to have a disaster of a season. Boeheim barely got them in the tournament, thanks to a top 10 defense.
In the tournament Boeheim held all 3 teams he has faced to 30 ... 30! ... points below their season average.
The last of these 3 teams was Michigan St. who had a record of 30-4, was playing at home, is expected to have 2 players drafted in the lottery, and 3 players drafted overall, and was preseason #2 in the country based on the talent they have. They averaged 82 points per game this year.
If you discount the 2 banked in 3's, and the times we intentionally put them on the line, they only scored 43 points against us.
Syracuse achieved this defensive performance despite 4 players in foul trouble causing them to have to play a 6'9, 180 pound freshman forward at center against the best rebounding team in the country, and play a WALK ON for the last almost 7 minutes of the game.
With all due respect to the warriors on this team (and they are warriors) Boeheim's system is pretty much winning games on its own at this point.
So I have to ask the question, has any coach ever won more with less? I don't mean this as a rhetorical question, I'd like to hear some thoughts. I'm trying to think of another coaching performance that's even in the same ballpark and I'm coming up empty.
