my big concern with Boeheim is still the zone (steph curry effect?)

[Millhouse]

I know this has a "this time, it's different" ring to it.

I think Boeheim does teach the zone as well as anyone could ever do it. But I still think that a lot of the success of the zone is that Boeheim is smarter than the dumb players who take the shots that Boeheim gives them. I always say that he is so intuitive about probabilities. He just understands them on the fly. I think the zone has a good three point percentage against because he entices bad shooters into taking stupid shots

I dwell on the fact that SU was GREAT from three point land this year and the last time I checked there were 40 some teams better than they were. Shooting has improved so much across the whole country. I think it's a bunch of kids who practice their @sses off pretending to be Steph Curry and spending less time trying to be dunk champions.

I worry that his recruiting will naturally decline, we won't have the superman small forward to save the day, and he will have no choice but to dare kids to shoot who will make the shot.

 

[FrancoPizza]

The zone is being marginalized precisely because of the curry effect. JB just doesn't want to believe it.

 

[Dmcnabbrules]

Not the Curry effect, call it the small ball effect. Teams play a with 3 guards and 2 forwards makes the zone have to spread and be susceptible to dribble penetration. Also a lot for kids are working with good personal trainers a few days a week and are becoming g better shooters.

 

[OrangeFoo]

This has been especially prevalent in the acc when compared to to the BE. The BE for the most part had a bunch of chuckers who would just toss the ball at the rim and throw bodies at it to try and grab the offensive rebound and that was their offensive strategy. The ACC has shooters who can hit an open shot if they get it and they don't turn over the ball that much because the guard play feels better. I think that's the main reason we have struggled since joining the ACC. The percentages aren't nearly in the our favor and we can't force as many mistakes with our passive zone.

 

[Brooky03]

When our zone plays the way it's intended to (without superhuman forwards), it defends the 3 better than most m2m defenses. m2m wouldn't help us guard 3 point shooters.

 

[NineOneSeven]

It's analytics. Look at the Houston rockets. It just makes more sense to shoot three pointers instead of long 2s. Granted, if you can make long 2s they also have their place (look at Wade, derozan, and on SU level fair).

 

[Brooky03]

This has been especially prevalent in the acc when compared to to the BE. The BE for the most part had a bunch of chuckers who would just toss the ball at the rim and throw bodies at it to try and grab the offensive rebound and that was their offensive strategy. The ACC has shooters who can hit an open shot if they get it and they don't turn over the ball that much because the guard play feels better. I think that's the main reason we have struggled since joining the ACC. The percentages aren't nearly in the our favor and we can't force as many mistakes with our passive zone.

Our zone is not typically passive, though. It's been bad in some recent seasons because we haven't had the right personnel, largely due to the sanctions. With the right guys - none of them need to be exceptional - the Syracuse zone is statistically better at defending 3's than most m2m defenses according to KenPom.

 

[Millhouse]

When our zone plays the way it's intended to (without superhuman forwards), it defends the 3 better than most m2m defenses. m2m wouldn't help us guard 3 point shooters.

it defends the 3 better because crappy shooters take open shots. it was low hanging fruit for so long and boeheim is a very intelligent man who will pluck it unlike macho coaches. now there are fewer crappy shooters. i'm looking forward here, i'm not saying our 3 pt % defense has been bad

 

[Brooky03]

176
44
13
125

Our Defensive 3FG% rankings since joining the ACC. The team ranked #176 was the best team of the bunch and also one of the youngest, especially at the guard positions. #44 was not a good team but had more upperclassman leadership and experience at guard (though Gbinije played SF a bunch). #13 was the most experienced group, with senior guards. #125 was the most inexperienced team at the guard spot (counting grad transfers basically as freshmen), and just plain inexperienced overall.

Looks like we just need experienced guards for the zone to be good defensively.

 

[Brooky03]

it defends the 3 better because crappy shooters take open shots. it was low hanging fruit for so long and boeheim is a very intelligent man who will pluck it unlike macho coaches. now there are fewer crappy shooters. i'm looking forward here, i'm not saying our 3 pt % defense has been bad

I don't think the 'Steph Curry's' of college ball are new, though. Teams have been jacking up 3's and nailing them at a high percentage for at least 5 or 6 years. If the zone had an issue defending good 3 point shooters, I don't think it would have posted back to back seasons in the top 50 of 3 point defenses while in the ACC. It's not a zone issue, imo, it's a personnel issue.

These trends are cyclical anyway. The NFL is still a passing league and made the shift to being a passing league over a decade ago. People thought the runningback position was basically going to die. But now we're seeing much more emphasis on strong rushing attacks, and a lot of the upcoming stars in the NFL are halfbacks. Somewhere down the line, all teams are going to have shooters by default, so the team that comes along with some traditional bigs who will score at a 65%+ clip in the paint against smaller stretch bigs will end up with an advantage. Then the trend might move back in that direction until an equilibrium is established.

 

[OrangeTarheel]

Either there is a better way to defend the three (in which case I want to hear it) or three shooters are getting better and will be better against any type of defense. Which is it?

 

[moqui]

I need to see more than one down year, but you might be on to something.

however, if JB hires a data-oriented assistant, there are still tweaks to be made to keep the zone effective:

most shooters have their favorite spots on the floor. a 40% three point shooter might be 47% from the corners, 39% from the top but below 30% from the wings. they themselves might not be aware of those disparities; they think they are dead eye 40% shooters. the key then is identifying opponents weaker spots and baiting them into shooting from there.

it will require more prep work from the staff and more awareness from the players, but it's do-able.

 

[HoustonCuse]

I need to see more than one down year, but you might be on to something.

however, if JB hires a data-oriented assistant, there are still tweaks to be made to keep the zone effective:

most shooters have their favorite spots on the floor. a 40% three point shooter might be 47% from the corners, 39% from the top but below 30% from the wings. they themselves might not be aware of those disparities; they think they are dead eye 40% shooters. the key then is identifying opponents weaker spots and baiting them into shooting from there.

it will require more prep work from the staff and more awareness from the players, but it's do-able.

It all comes down to the players though. This year was like 2011 where the players seemed to patently refuse to guard 3 point shooters anywhere on the court. Even guys who has made 3 or 4 in a row, our defense was indifferent to them. So adding the wrinkle you suggest is great but either unnecessary or impossible. Meaning that we either play the zone well in which case the 3 pct is low anyway or we are incapable of even the standard rotations and thus the wrinkle would be even more undoable.

 

[STEVEHOLT]

It all comes down to the players though. This year was like 2011 where the players seemed to patently refuse to guard 3 point shooters anywhere on the court. Even guys who has made 3 or 4 in a row, our defense was indifferent to them. So adding the wrinkle you suggest is great but either unnecessary or impossible. Meaning that we either play the zone well in which case the 3 pct is low anyway or we are incapable of even the standard rotations and thus the wrinkle would be even more undoable.

Well, I dont think we coached up anyone out of a paper bag this year either.

 

[dan7800]

When you have a few terrible defenders like we had this year, it doesn't really matter the defensive scheme you play.

 

[texascpa]

176
44
13
125

Our Defensive 3FG% rankings since joining the ACC. The team ranked #176 was the best team of the bunch and also one of the youngest, especially at the guard positions. #44 was not a good team but had more upperclassman leadership and experience at guard (though Gbinije played SF a bunch). #13 was the most experienced group, with senior guards. #125 was the most inexperienced team at the guard spot (counting grad transfers basically as freshmen), and just plain inexperienced overall.

Looks like we just need experienced guards for the zone to be good defensively.

And taller guards.

 

[orangenirvana]

I know this has a "this time, it's different" ring to it.

I think Boeheim does teach the zone as well as anyone could ever do it. But I still think that a lot of the success of the zone is that Boeheim is smarter than the dumb players who take the shots that Boeheim gives them. I always say that he is so intuitive about probabilities. He just understands them on the fly. I think the zone has a good three point percentage against because he entices bad shooters into taking stupid shots

I dwell on the fact that SU was GREAT from three point land this year and the last time I checked there were 40 some teams better than they were. Shooting has improved so much across the whole country. I think it's a bunch of kids who practice their @sses off pretending to be Steph Curry and spending less time trying to be dunk champions.

I worry that his recruiting will naturally decline, we won't have the superman small forward to save the day, and he will have no choice but to dare kids to shoot who will make the shot.

When the zone is really good teams don't get many open shots off.

I think because the team was so bad on defense this season it's distorting things in people's minds a bit. "The defense for the 2016-17 Syracuse Orangemen was terrible, therefore zone defense is terrible."

I don't think it's suddenly a trend of better shooters. I just think this particular group of players sucked at defense.

 

[longislandcuse]

Taller guards who are successful will never be upperclassmen here. They will always have the NBA calling.

The zone is fine and I think it's unique to have a tall/athletic freak show of a team but if we insist on never switching it up by adding a press/variations of and a rhythm disrupting M2M, well then imo, we're just lazy and unimaginative.

 

[Cusefan0307]

Three point shooting is up in college across the board. The OP's premise is the exact reason we will stink if we don't find 2 more shooters to complement what we already had on the roster. We are losing too many 3's with White/Gillon/Lydon and replacing them with guys who play inside the arc. If the defense can't guard the line like we used to, we need to score as much as we can.

This is a great article on the 3pt boom in college basketball:

Breaking down the 3-point shooting, scoring boom in college basketball

 

[orangenirvana]

Taller guards who are successful will never be upperclassmen here. They will always have the NBA calling.

The zone is fine and I think it's unique to have a tall/athletic freak show of a team but if we insist on never switching it up by adding a press/variations of and a rhythm disrupting M2M, well then imo, we're just lazy and unimaginative.

Boeheim used to switch up like that and the defense was never very good. Switched to zone full-time in the 2009-10 season and it was excellent. I have no problem in using zone 100% of the time when it's good. But in a season like this year, probably should switch up because it couldn't get worse most games.

 

[Townie72]

When our zone plays the way it's intended to (without superhuman forwards), it defends the 3 better than most m2m defenses. m2m wouldn't help us guard 3 point shooters.

Brooky, please. Stop confusing these guys.

It is a tenet of faith among some that M2M is the answer against outside shooting. To suggest it isn't is heresy. It's a left-over from the days when Billy Packer said, "If Team A keeps making those outside shots, Team B will have to come out of its zone and play M2M.

They'll just ignore your post and rattle on about the weakness of the SU zone against the 3.

 

[Cusefan0307]

Brooky, please. Stop confusing these guys.

It is a tenet of faith among some that M2M is the answer against outside shooting. To suggest it isn't is heresy. It's a left-over from the days when Billy Packer said, "If Team A keeps making those outside shots, Team B will have to come out of its zone and play M2M.

They'll just ignore your post and rattle on about the weakness of the SU zone against the 3.

You don't think it's fair to call out the defense? We were one of the worst defensive teams in the conference. We gave up 39% on 3's.

 

[TheEgg315]

Don't mind the zone, but the ability to switch in and out of defense can be really effective.

I have to think that sometimes based on the generally high nature of recruits we have had in the past that some of these players would excel at man defense. A guy like Battle should be an excellent on ball defender. Playing man can help sustain runs sometimes when you can get up in and defend man to man. A team like Louisville keeps applying pressure and gets teams rattled;the zone lets teams breathe on offense.

 

[721Comstock]

You don't think it's fair to call out the defense? We were one of the worst defensive teams in the conference. We gave up 39% on 3's.

You can't always be great, or even good, at everything.
Some of our better D teams SUCKED on O.

This year's team was good (to occasionally great) on O, most of the time.
And meh (to occasionally atrocious) on D, most of the time.

Clearly we were good enough on O, often enough, to get to 10-8 in conference - in spite of the awful D.
IF we were good at both, we wouldn't have been a bubble team that ended up in the NIT.

 

[RF2044]

You can't always be great, or even good, at everything.
Some of our better D teams SUCKED on O.

This year's team was good (to occasionally great) on O, most of the time.
And meh (to occasionally atrocious) on D, most of the time.

Clearly we were good enough on O, often enough, to get to 10-8 in conference - in spite of the awful D.
IF we were good at both, we wouldn't have been a bubble team that ended up in the NIT.

If this team had been just average on D, they would have had a 13-5 kind of conference year and been in the top 3, and probably won 6-7 more games. Really a shame, because they were a terrific shooting team.