SWC75
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(Part 2, not Past 2)
THE TEAM
The 2014-15 team might have been the team to satisfy our desire for another championship. We should have had four of five starters returning with the one loss being 6-7 forward CJ Fair who had had a distinguished four year career but could be replaced by 6-10 freshman Chris McCullough , who has the capability to be everything Fair was and more. People were calling Chris our best recruit since Carmelo Anthony, who led us to that 2003 title. Also coming in was Kaleb Joseph, a sculpted 6-3 point guard with dribbling skills we haven’t seen since Pearl Washington a very good jump shot and yet the athleticism to be an excellent dunker. (I don’t recall Pearl ever dunking.) Meanwhile young forwards Tyler Roberson, (6-8) and BJ Johnson, (6-7), who struggled last year, had another year to mature and 6-7 “glue guy” Michael Gbinije, a Duke transfer, would acclimate himself to his teammates and his role better than he did last year. We seemed to be full of talent, size, experience, depth and options.
But freshman point guard Tyler Ennis announced he was going to the NBA after only one year, (he’s now in the “D” league). And forward Jeremy Grant, who was rapidly developing into the type of forward his father and uncle, (Harvey and Horace Grant, both with long NBA careers) had been, maybe better, decided to follow Ennis. He’s with the 76ers but has not played due to an injury. Their decisions clearly perturbed Jim Boeheim who said that neither was ready for the NBA yet. He surely also had in mind the impact of their absence on the team to come. Without them, we will be starting a freshman point guard with no back-up for the second year in a row, (and our fourth point guard in four years). JB will also have to use Roberson as the starter opposite McCullough at forward. Last year he was aptly described by Boeheim as “not ready”. With McCullough, that gives us three untested players at the three most important positons on the court: the point guard and the two forwards. That’s where you get your production in modern basketball. Your center, (Rakeem Christmas) is normally a defensive player and rebounder who is an occasional scorer. Your shooting guard, (Trevor Cooney), can score but because he shoots from long range, he’s not going to be consistent. It’s hard for a player to carry a team from those spots. So we’ve gone from being a major national championship contender to an unranked, rebuilding team. But that hasn’t stopped us from becoming a major national championship contender by the end of the season when we’ve been in similar situations in the past.
CENTERS
Rakeem Christmas 6-9 250 senior- When Rak first committed to Syracuse, a local station described him as “the #1 big man recruit in the country”. That doesn’t seem to have been unanimous, (I suspect one ‘expert’ had said so), and for three years it didn’t seem very realistic, either. Christmas proved to be an athletic but somewhat skinny big man with a lack of real basketball skills. That was because he’d grown up in the Virgin Islands and didn’t start playing the sport until he moved to Philadelphia as a teenager. His glowing reputation seems to have been based on how well he moved for his size because it couldn’t have been based on much else. He didn’t score and didn’t rebound much either. But JB and Mike Hopkins molded him into the type of defensive center Syracuse likes in the center of the zone. He and Baye Moussa Keita combined to shut down the lane during our incredible run to the Final Four in the 2013 NCAA tournament, where we gave up 34, 60, 50, 39 and 61 points in our 5 games, including our loss to Michigan. Last year he finally seemed to be developing an offensive game with some baby hooks and other moves in the paint. He made what would have bene a legendary steal to start the fast break that kept our streak alive vs. NC State, (the legend faded when we lost the next game to Boston College). But Christmas faded like an old Christmas tree down the stretch, along with his teammates. There were stories about how he wasn’t really motivated, had no ‘motor’ running.
This year he’s listed at 250 pounds but doesn’t look in any way bulky. He’s been super-aggressive in the early games, (against teams that can’t possibly match up with him). He’s scoring. He’s rebounding. He’s playing defense. He’s leading the team like a senior should. He’s a smart kid who has already graduated and is going for a masters in his fourth year at the ‘Cuse. We just need to see him do the same things against better teams to know what kind of a contribution he’ll make this year. We’ll also need to see how long he can sustain it. We don’t want to fade down the stretch of a long season again.
Chinoso Obokoh 6-10 215 sophomore.- Chino, like Baye Moussa Keita, is from Africa, (Nigeria, rather than Senegal). Like Keita he’s tall but not bulky and is our back-up center. That leads some people to assume they will be alike but I don’t think so. For one thing, Keita was truly skinny and had narrow shoulders. Obokoh has broader shoulders, and from recent pictures, is already ‘ripped’. He probably already weighs more than Keita ever did and will easily add on more muscle in his time here. I also think eventually he’ll be able to help us on both ends, whereas Keita was always just a defensive banger, (he had terrible hands). The hard-to-find highlights of him in high school showed some offensive moves I never saw from Keita.
But for now he’ll have Keita’s role, backing up Christmas and being asked only to play defense and rebound. Obokoh red-shirted last year and should have been a freshman this year but, due to some Draconian NCAA ruling concerning his status when he came to this country, (he played for a Rochester high school), he was deprived of a year of college eligibility. Go figure, if you have time you want to waste. But at least we’ve got him for the next three seasons. In the early going, JB seemed unsure about him, often using Chris McCullough as Rakeem Christmas’ back-up. But that hardly seems like a desirable solution going forward.
DaJuan Coleman 6-9 255 junior- Coleman seemed to be living a dream, winning three state championships at Jamesville-Dewitt, becoming a McDonald’s All-American and going to his favorite school, Syracuse. Since then, it’s been a real struggle. He had trouble adjusting to college ball, where he couldn’t use his huge body, (he was more like 285 back then) to dominate college opposition as he had in high school. He committed too many fouls and held the ball too low, where smaller players could knocking from his grasp. His moves to the basket too often involved putting a massive shoulder into somebody, something the refs wouldn’t let him do, (he wasn’t Shaq). Then came the injuries. He missed eight games with a knee problem as a freshman and injured the knee again last year, playing in only 13 games. He decided on surgery and drastic weight loss, (achieved with a “juice diet”). He’s now rehabbing the knee and building his body back up. But he wasn’t ready to start the season and it isn’t clear he’ll play at all this year. Cuse fans are still hoping he’ll get his chance and that we’ll get to see the talent he was thought to possess.
FORWARDS
Chris McCullough 6-10 220 freshman- When McCullough first committed a couple of years ago there was a lot of excitement. People were saying that he was our best recruit since Carmelo Anthony and that he would be the #1 recruit in the country. You-tube highlights showed a smooth, tall kid who moved easily about the court and had a sweet-looking jump shot. Things waivered a bit in his senior year. He played for three different high schools, the last one down in Florida, far away from his home in the Bronx. There were complaints from some scouts that his shot selection was questionable and his “motor” was not always running. The first complaint is common for high school players and the second is common for big guys and talented players who can easily dominate at that level. But there could be adjustment problems now that he’s playing at the college level. His ratings dropped. He just missed being a MacDonald’s All-American, (they take the top 20 guys), but still projects as a star in college and major pro prospect. People looked at Chris as a possible one and doner. If he is, that’s good news because it means he had a big, (or at least good) freshman year. If he isn’t, we’ll get him back next year when he could be really great.
He’s been a very productive player in the early games. In an exhibition against perennial Canadian champion Carleton he had 14 points, 6 rebounds. Against Division III Adrian, he had 13 points and 16 rebounds and a couple of blocks. The regular season started with a win over Kennesaw State and Chris had another double-double with 16 points and 11 rebounds to go with 3 steals. Hampton proved much tougher but Chris got 13 points, 4 rebounds and 3 blocks. He’s clearly going to be a major cog in this year’s machinery. He also clearly needs to get much stronger. Adrian didn’t have any player taller than 6-5 but Chris went 2 for 11 from the field. He had trouble making lay-ups and for some reason seemed reluctant to dunk the ball. Hampton was the most physical team we have played and Chris got only 4 rebounds in 27 minutes. He does get to the line, attempting 32 free throws in those games.
His jump shot has a very high trajectory. That’s good in that it makes it impossible to block, (especially since he’s 6-10 to begin with). A high trajectory also increases the apparent size of the basket as the ball isn’t approaching it from a severe angle. But I remember Arinze Onuaku’s free throws. He was the worst free throw shooter we’ve ever had and he attempted to solve his problem by throwing the ball up as high as he could. It would come down with such violent force, (I compared it to the comet that killed the dinosaurs to much laughter), that if it wasn’t dead on, it would bounce off the rim and far from the basket. I’ve always heard that the idea on a shot was to just get the ball over the rim. So far Chris, (a very different player from AO), has made his only three pointer and 21 for 32 from the line, (a percentage AO could only dream of) and that includes a 9 for 9 game. A combination of difficulty finishing inside and problems with his jump shot could be problematic but it’s too early to draw conclusions.
Tyler Roberson 6-8 212 sophomore- A lot of people expected big things from Tyler last year. They got small things. JB said he just wasn’t “ready to help us”. He was tentative in everything he did, seemingly afraid of making a mistake and he didn’t seem able to learn the offensive or defensive schemes. He was supposed to be a strong inside player who could also shoot the ball. He was neither. With Jerami Grant leaving early, Roberson suddenly became an important guy. I felt that it might do him good to play extensive minutes without having to worry about being yanked from the game. In the first four games he’s had 28 points and 21 rebounds in 87 minutes. He’s shot the ball aggressively but not well: 12 for 33 (36.4%, but that’s up from 29.8% last year). He may or may not be “ready to help us” but we need him anyway.
B. J. Johnson 6-7 185 sophomore- This was the guy I was really excited about a year ago. He seemed like a firecracker in his You-Tube clips, a guy who could win a dunk contest or a three point shooting contest. But he, too, wasn’t “ready to help us”. With Roberson and Patterson, people called this trio “My Three Sons”, a play on the old TV series where Fred MacMurray would give his sons fatherly advice and on their last names: all three had some maturing to do. BJ was the youngest player on the team, (born 12/21/1995: the season John Wallace led us to the national championship game). He was skinny and shot only 25%, including 2 for 16 from three point range. He did show one flash of what he could do in a pre-season game in Canada when he scored 20 points. He’s going to explode someday. The only question is: how long is the fuse?
GUARDS
Trevor Cooney 6-4 195 junior- He got off to a great start last year and was a big reason for our 25-0 start. He was also a big reason for our 3-6 finish. He can be a red hot three point shooter, as Notre Dame found out on February 3rd, when he touched them for 33 points, including 9 three pointers. He was also an under-rated defender who got a lot of steals and was big enough to occasionally help out on the boards. But teams realized he was our only reliable outside threat and assigned a player to harass him wherever he went for 40 minutes. Cooney, for his part, kept moving, in and out and around, using picks and screens when they were there but he not only couldn’t shake his defender but on the rare occasions when he got a really open shot, he tended to rush it and missed it. Through the Notre Dame game, he was shooting 43.6% from three point range. After that, he shot 26.2%. His problem was that he lacked versatility: 72% of his shots were three-pointers. With that taken away, he had trouble scoring. And that’s what he needs to be- not just a shooter but a scorer. He’s shown the ability at times to dive to the basket to score, shoot a pull-up, or dribble to the side of a defender to get a three-pointer off. He needs to do more of that. But I’m also hopeful that he won’t be out only consistent outside threat this year. In the early going, Cooney hasn’t been impressive. He’s not looked much different than in the late going last year. Like Roberson, he’s 12 for 33 so far, including an 0 for 6 game. From the arc, he’s 5 for 22 (22.7%). He’s got to get better than that or it could be a long year for him - and for the team.
Kaleb Joseph 6-3 165 freshman- That listing seems out of date. He looks even a bit taller than that and more muscular than the weight would suggest. He’s an athletic point guard but also has skills dribbling and passing the ball. His highlight films suggest a mixture of Pearl Washington and Jonny Flynn, which would be quite a combination indeed. He can dunk with authority, can put on dribbling exhibitions and loves the fancy pass. He also loves his team to get out and run with the ball and JB says he’s looking to run a lot more to get his team out of the offensive doldrums they were in last year. The flip side of that is that Joseph may take more chances than Tyler Ennis did last year and make more mistakes. The one great trait of last year’s team as they built up that 25-0 record is that, led by Ennis they took an almost fanatical care of the ball. We had 149 fewer turnovers than the opposition last year. That may not be the case this season and we will have to make up for it with greater offensive productivity.
In the early going, Joseph has had mixed results. He had a big game against Carleton with 19 points, 4 rebounds and 4 assists vs. only one turnover. He was somewhat less impactful vs. Adrian with 9-6-4-1 or Kennesaw State with 4-5-6-4 and Hampton with 5-5-5-3. Several times I heard announcers say “Tyler Ennis wouldn’t have done that” and Kaleb will hear a little too much of that this year. He’s Kaleb Joseph, not Tyler Ennis. And that could be said about some of the good plays he can make, as well. For the second year in a row a freshman is our only real point guard, so he’s got to be the guy for us this year.
Ron Patterson 6-2 200, sophomore- The third of the three ‘sons’, Patterson came here with a reputation as a long-armed defensive whiz. Instead he turned out to be a long-armed gunner. He was “last in the league in time of possession”, (a line I used to describe Mookie Jones). He shot 37.(% from the field and 31.6% from three point range. The occasional shots that actually went in convinced some fans he should be playing instead of Cooney but Boeheim warned: sometimes he’ll make three in a row and sometimes he’ll miss the rim three times in a row”. Still that was better than Cooney was doing at the end of the season. This year he had a big game against Carleton with 15 points in 15 minutes, including 4 for 5 from three point range while Cooney was going 0 for 6. That sealed the deal for some people. But Patterson has cooled off to 3 for 13 and 15 points in 47 minutes in the three subsequent games, so maybe the deal isn’t sealed just yet. But I think he remains an alternative to Cooney when the latter isn’t being productive who should see more action than he did last season. Who knows? He might get hot.
GLUE GUY
Michael Gbinije 6-7 200 junior- Mike, (the ‘G’ is silent: Bin-eh-Jay), transferred here from Duke with three seasons of eligibility left. In his high school, highlight films he looked like a high school version of Michael Jordan or maybe LeBron James. I saw everything you’d want to see: three pointers, pull-up jumpers, drives to the hoop, alley-oops, (given and received), rebounds, blocks, steals. On one play he blocked a jump shot, outran the shooter to the ball, dribbled the length of the court and slammed it in. The guy looked like a gold-plated superstar who was gracing us with his presence. Of course, that left open the question of why he wasn’t a superstar at Duke. Coach K decided he’d never get to play with the players he had there and kind of brokered the deal to get him to Syracuse to play for his friend, Boeheim. When we finally got to see him, he didn’t seem like the same player at all. He seemed to defer to his teammates and not try to do too much. But there were flashes of what we’d seen. He scored 8 points and had a couple of rebounds and steals in 20 minutes on his return to Duke in the “sport coat” game. He had another 8 point game in the season-ending loss to Dayton, which made him our third leading scorer in that game. But the season was a disappointment nonetheless. He didn’t score much. He didn’t rebound much. He played fairly well on defense. He backed up Ennis at the point, even though he wasn’t a point guard by trade, (he had 41 assists in 497 minutes compared to 187 in 1215 for Ennis). I expected a lot more from “Silent G” but he was pretty silent.
This year, I hoped he would assert himself more and we’d see more of the talent I saw in that high school tape. I was excited when he hit his first shot- a three- against Carleton, then dismayed when his second shot- also a three- was an air ball that never got there and bounced out of bounds. He didn’t do a lot of scoring afterwards and I assumed he wasn’t having a good game but more discerning posters pointed out that his defense and rebounding led us back into the game after we were down by 15 and helped people us to victory. He wound up with 6 points and 6 rebounds along with 4 assists and a block in 35 minutes. He had another good game vs. Adrian, scoring 10 with 3 boards, 6 assists, a block and 4 steals. He was suspended for unstated reasons, (“It’s a team thing”). He came back to get 6 points, 6 rebounds and 4 assists vs. Hampton, so he really hasn’t had a bad game this season.
I think my problem with Mike is that I was expecting a star player when he’s more of a ‘glue guy’, a jack-of-all-trades. Last year he was master of none: he didn’t rebound enough to be a forward or pass well enough to be a point guard or score enough to be a shooting guard. This year he is rebounding and is passing the ball well, (he has 12 assists in the three games he’s played: Joseph has 13 in those same games in four more minutes played). He’s making his impact that way.
Summary: This will be a typical Syracuse team in terms of size and talent but we are depending on untried players in the three key production positons of point guard and the two forwards. Last year we had five freshman. One, (Obokoh) redshirted. One, (Ennis) became and NBA lottery pick. The others, (My Three Sons) weren’t “ready’. That’s normal. Now we will start two freshmen and rely on two of the “sons” and Gbinije to man the other positon. It’s asking a lot for everyone to come through for us and I having a feeling that this year is going to be a very bumpy ride. We lack depth, especially at center and point guard. This will not be one of those #1 teams. Perhaps it could be a team that jells at the right time at the end of the season, as in 2013.
The pre-conference schedule includes California, Iowa or Texas, Michigan, St. John’s and Villanova. In the ACC Duke will be a monster and North Carolina is on their way back. Louisville is in the conference now and Virginia may be a new power. The other teams will be better than average, even if their record might not show it. They will be able to beat us if we aren’t playing well, (as Boston College, Georgia Tech and NC State did last season). It’s a very unforgiving schedule and if you are less than excellent, you are going to get boxed around. Double figure regular season losses and the NCAA bubble is a distinct possibility. That’s a disappointment when you think of what we could have had if Ennis were being backed up by Joseph and McCullough were paired with Grant. That would have been a great team, one that could win a national championship.
I do believe that the younger players on this team will someday be part of a team like that. We have four more talents coming in next year: Moustapha Diagne, a 6-9 forward is strong inside scorer and rebounder. Tyler Lydon, a 6-9 forward is a strong shooter. Malachi Richardson, a 6-5 guard, is a big-time scorer. Frank Howard is a 6-6 guard. All are highly rated, (a combined #2 in the country by some sources, per an August article in the local paper) but not as highly as Thomas Bryant, a 6-10, shot blocking center out of Rochester. Jim Boeheim said this class will be one of his best ever and made reference to a “mystery” recruit, which people assume to be Bryant. The current roster has only one senior, Rakeem Christmas, so we will theoretically get back 9 players and could add 5 more. That’s one over the NCAA scholarship limit so something has to give. But if we don’t’ get raided too badly by the NBA, next year’s team could be really something. But that’s next year. First we need to see how fast this year’s team can grow up.
THE TEAM
The 2014-15 team might have been the team to satisfy our desire for another championship. We should have had four of five starters returning with the one loss being 6-7 forward CJ Fair who had had a distinguished four year career but could be replaced by 6-10 freshman Chris McCullough , who has the capability to be everything Fair was and more. People were calling Chris our best recruit since Carmelo Anthony, who led us to that 2003 title. Also coming in was Kaleb Joseph, a sculpted 6-3 point guard with dribbling skills we haven’t seen since Pearl Washington a very good jump shot and yet the athleticism to be an excellent dunker. (I don’t recall Pearl ever dunking.) Meanwhile young forwards Tyler Roberson, (6-8) and BJ Johnson, (6-7), who struggled last year, had another year to mature and 6-7 “glue guy” Michael Gbinije, a Duke transfer, would acclimate himself to his teammates and his role better than he did last year. We seemed to be full of talent, size, experience, depth and options.
But freshman point guard Tyler Ennis announced he was going to the NBA after only one year, (he’s now in the “D” league). And forward Jeremy Grant, who was rapidly developing into the type of forward his father and uncle, (Harvey and Horace Grant, both with long NBA careers) had been, maybe better, decided to follow Ennis. He’s with the 76ers but has not played due to an injury. Their decisions clearly perturbed Jim Boeheim who said that neither was ready for the NBA yet. He surely also had in mind the impact of their absence on the team to come. Without them, we will be starting a freshman point guard with no back-up for the second year in a row, (and our fourth point guard in four years). JB will also have to use Roberson as the starter opposite McCullough at forward. Last year he was aptly described by Boeheim as “not ready”. With McCullough, that gives us three untested players at the three most important positons on the court: the point guard and the two forwards. That’s where you get your production in modern basketball. Your center, (Rakeem Christmas) is normally a defensive player and rebounder who is an occasional scorer. Your shooting guard, (Trevor Cooney), can score but because he shoots from long range, he’s not going to be consistent. It’s hard for a player to carry a team from those spots. So we’ve gone from being a major national championship contender to an unranked, rebuilding team. But that hasn’t stopped us from becoming a major national championship contender by the end of the season when we’ve been in similar situations in the past.
CENTERS
Rakeem Christmas 6-9 250 senior- When Rak first committed to Syracuse, a local station described him as “the #1 big man recruit in the country”. That doesn’t seem to have been unanimous, (I suspect one ‘expert’ had said so), and for three years it didn’t seem very realistic, either. Christmas proved to be an athletic but somewhat skinny big man with a lack of real basketball skills. That was because he’d grown up in the Virgin Islands and didn’t start playing the sport until he moved to Philadelphia as a teenager. His glowing reputation seems to have been based on how well he moved for his size because it couldn’t have been based on much else. He didn’t score and didn’t rebound much either. But JB and Mike Hopkins molded him into the type of defensive center Syracuse likes in the center of the zone. He and Baye Moussa Keita combined to shut down the lane during our incredible run to the Final Four in the 2013 NCAA tournament, where we gave up 34, 60, 50, 39 and 61 points in our 5 games, including our loss to Michigan. Last year he finally seemed to be developing an offensive game with some baby hooks and other moves in the paint. He made what would have bene a legendary steal to start the fast break that kept our streak alive vs. NC State, (the legend faded when we lost the next game to Boston College). But Christmas faded like an old Christmas tree down the stretch, along with his teammates. There were stories about how he wasn’t really motivated, had no ‘motor’ running.
This year he’s listed at 250 pounds but doesn’t look in any way bulky. He’s been super-aggressive in the early games, (against teams that can’t possibly match up with him). He’s scoring. He’s rebounding. He’s playing defense. He’s leading the team like a senior should. He’s a smart kid who has already graduated and is going for a masters in his fourth year at the ‘Cuse. We just need to see him do the same things against better teams to know what kind of a contribution he’ll make this year. We’ll also need to see how long he can sustain it. We don’t want to fade down the stretch of a long season again.
Chinoso Obokoh 6-10 215 sophomore.- Chino, like Baye Moussa Keita, is from Africa, (Nigeria, rather than Senegal). Like Keita he’s tall but not bulky and is our back-up center. That leads some people to assume they will be alike but I don’t think so. For one thing, Keita was truly skinny and had narrow shoulders. Obokoh has broader shoulders, and from recent pictures, is already ‘ripped’. He probably already weighs more than Keita ever did and will easily add on more muscle in his time here. I also think eventually he’ll be able to help us on both ends, whereas Keita was always just a defensive banger, (he had terrible hands). The hard-to-find highlights of him in high school showed some offensive moves I never saw from Keita.
But for now he’ll have Keita’s role, backing up Christmas and being asked only to play defense and rebound. Obokoh red-shirted last year and should have been a freshman this year but, due to some Draconian NCAA ruling concerning his status when he came to this country, (he played for a Rochester high school), he was deprived of a year of college eligibility. Go figure, if you have time you want to waste. But at least we’ve got him for the next three seasons. In the early going, JB seemed unsure about him, often using Chris McCullough as Rakeem Christmas’ back-up. But that hardly seems like a desirable solution going forward.
DaJuan Coleman 6-9 255 junior- Coleman seemed to be living a dream, winning three state championships at Jamesville-Dewitt, becoming a McDonald’s All-American and going to his favorite school, Syracuse. Since then, it’s been a real struggle. He had trouble adjusting to college ball, where he couldn’t use his huge body, (he was more like 285 back then) to dominate college opposition as he had in high school. He committed too many fouls and held the ball too low, where smaller players could knocking from his grasp. His moves to the basket too often involved putting a massive shoulder into somebody, something the refs wouldn’t let him do, (he wasn’t Shaq). Then came the injuries. He missed eight games with a knee problem as a freshman and injured the knee again last year, playing in only 13 games. He decided on surgery and drastic weight loss, (achieved with a “juice diet”). He’s now rehabbing the knee and building his body back up. But he wasn’t ready to start the season and it isn’t clear he’ll play at all this year. Cuse fans are still hoping he’ll get his chance and that we’ll get to see the talent he was thought to possess.
FORWARDS
Chris McCullough 6-10 220 freshman- When McCullough first committed a couple of years ago there was a lot of excitement. People were saying that he was our best recruit since Carmelo Anthony and that he would be the #1 recruit in the country. You-tube highlights showed a smooth, tall kid who moved easily about the court and had a sweet-looking jump shot. Things waivered a bit in his senior year. He played for three different high schools, the last one down in Florida, far away from his home in the Bronx. There were complaints from some scouts that his shot selection was questionable and his “motor” was not always running. The first complaint is common for high school players and the second is common for big guys and talented players who can easily dominate at that level. But there could be adjustment problems now that he’s playing at the college level. His ratings dropped. He just missed being a MacDonald’s All-American, (they take the top 20 guys), but still projects as a star in college and major pro prospect. People looked at Chris as a possible one and doner. If he is, that’s good news because it means he had a big, (or at least good) freshman year. If he isn’t, we’ll get him back next year when he could be really great.
He’s been a very productive player in the early games. In an exhibition against perennial Canadian champion Carleton he had 14 points, 6 rebounds. Against Division III Adrian, he had 13 points and 16 rebounds and a couple of blocks. The regular season started with a win over Kennesaw State and Chris had another double-double with 16 points and 11 rebounds to go with 3 steals. Hampton proved much tougher but Chris got 13 points, 4 rebounds and 3 blocks. He’s clearly going to be a major cog in this year’s machinery. He also clearly needs to get much stronger. Adrian didn’t have any player taller than 6-5 but Chris went 2 for 11 from the field. He had trouble making lay-ups and for some reason seemed reluctant to dunk the ball. Hampton was the most physical team we have played and Chris got only 4 rebounds in 27 minutes. He does get to the line, attempting 32 free throws in those games.
His jump shot has a very high trajectory. That’s good in that it makes it impossible to block, (especially since he’s 6-10 to begin with). A high trajectory also increases the apparent size of the basket as the ball isn’t approaching it from a severe angle. But I remember Arinze Onuaku’s free throws. He was the worst free throw shooter we’ve ever had and he attempted to solve his problem by throwing the ball up as high as he could. It would come down with such violent force, (I compared it to the comet that killed the dinosaurs to much laughter), that if it wasn’t dead on, it would bounce off the rim and far from the basket. I’ve always heard that the idea on a shot was to just get the ball over the rim. So far Chris, (a very different player from AO), has made his only three pointer and 21 for 32 from the line, (a percentage AO could only dream of) and that includes a 9 for 9 game. A combination of difficulty finishing inside and problems with his jump shot could be problematic but it’s too early to draw conclusions.
Tyler Roberson 6-8 212 sophomore- A lot of people expected big things from Tyler last year. They got small things. JB said he just wasn’t “ready to help us”. He was tentative in everything he did, seemingly afraid of making a mistake and he didn’t seem able to learn the offensive or defensive schemes. He was supposed to be a strong inside player who could also shoot the ball. He was neither. With Jerami Grant leaving early, Roberson suddenly became an important guy. I felt that it might do him good to play extensive minutes without having to worry about being yanked from the game. In the first four games he’s had 28 points and 21 rebounds in 87 minutes. He’s shot the ball aggressively but not well: 12 for 33 (36.4%, but that’s up from 29.8% last year). He may or may not be “ready to help us” but we need him anyway.
B. J. Johnson 6-7 185 sophomore- This was the guy I was really excited about a year ago. He seemed like a firecracker in his You-Tube clips, a guy who could win a dunk contest or a three point shooting contest. But he, too, wasn’t “ready to help us”. With Roberson and Patterson, people called this trio “My Three Sons”, a play on the old TV series where Fred MacMurray would give his sons fatherly advice and on their last names: all three had some maturing to do. BJ was the youngest player on the team, (born 12/21/1995: the season John Wallace led us to the national championship game). He was skinny and shot only 25%, including 2 for 16 from three point range. He did show one flash of what he could do in a pre-season game in Canada when he scored 20 points. He’s going to explode someday. The only question is: how long is the fuse?
GUARDS
Trevor Cooney 6-4 195 junior- He got off to a great start last year and was a big reason for our 25-0 start. He was also a big reason for our 3-6 finish. He can be a red hot three point shooter, as Notre Dame found out on February 3rd, when he touched them for 33 points, including 9 three pointers. He was also an under-rated defender who got a lot of steals and was big enough to occasionally help out on the boards. But teams realized he was our only reliable outside threat and assigned a player to harass him wherever he went for 40 minutes. Cooney, for his part, kept moving, in and out and around, using picks and screens when they were there but he not only couldn’t shake his defender but on the rare occasions when he got a really open shot, he tended to rush it and missed it. Through the Notre Dame game, he was shooting 43.6% from three point range. After that, he shot 26.2%. His problem was that he lacked versatility: 72% of his shots were three-pointers. With that taken away, he had trouble scoring. And that’s what he needs to be- not just a shooter but a scorer. He’s shown the ability at times to dive to the basket to score, shoot a pull-up, or dribble to the side of a defender to get a three-pointer off. He needs to do more of that. But I’m also hopeful that he won’t be out only consistent outside threat this year. In the early going, Cooney hasn’t been impressive. He’s not looked much different than in the late going last year. Like Roberson, he’s 12 for 33 so far, including an 0 for 6 game. From the arc, he’s 5 for 22 (22.7%). He’s got to get better than that or it could be a long year for him - and for the team.
Kaleb Joseph 6-3 165 freshman- That listing seems out of date. He looks even a bit taller than that and more muscular than the weight would suggest. He’s an athletic point guard but also has skills dribbling and passing the ball. His highlight films suggest a mixture of Pearl Washington and Jonny Flynn, which would be quite a combination indeed. He can dunk with authority, can put on dribbling exhibitions and loves the fancy pass. He also loves his team to get out and run with the ball and JB says he’s looking to run a lot more to get his team out of the offensive doldrums they were in last year. The flip side of that is that Joseph may take more chances than Tyler Ennis did last year and make more mistakes. The one great trait of last year’s team as they built up that 25-0 record is that, led by Ennis they took an almost fanatical care of the ball. We had 149 fewer turnovers than the opposition last year. That may not be the case this season and we will have to make up for it with greater offensive productivity.
In the early going, Joseph has had mixed results. He had a big game against Carleton with 19 points, 4 rebounds and 4 assists vs. only one turnover. He was somewhat less impactful vs. Adrian with 9-6-4-1 or Kennesaw State with 4-5-6-4 and Hampton with 5-5-5-3. Several times I heard announcers say “Tyler Ennis wouldn’t have done that” and Kaleb will hear a little too much of that this year. He’s Kaleb Joseph, not Tyler Ennis. And that could be said about some of the good plays he can make, as well. For the second year in a row a freshman is our only real point guard, so he’s got to be the guy for us this year.
Ron Patterson 6-2 200, sophomore- The third of the three ‘sons’, Patterson came here with a reputation as a long-armed defensive whiz. Instead he turned out to be a long-armed gunner. He was “last in the league in time of possession”, (a line I used to describe Mookie Jones). He shot 37.(% from the field and 31.6% from three point range. The occasional shots that actually went in convinced some fans he should be playing instead of Cooney but Boeheim warned: sometimes he’ll make three in a row and sometimes he’ll miss the rim three times in a row”. Still that was better than Cooney was doing at the end of the season. This year he had a big game against Carleton with 15 points in 15 minutes, including 4 for 5 from three point range while Cooney was going 0 for 6. That sealed the deal for some people. But Patterson has cooled off to 3 for 13 and 15 points in 47 minutes in the three subsequent games, so maybe the deal isn’t sealed just yet. But I think he remains an alternative to Cooney when the latter isn’t being productive who should see more action than he did last season. Who knows? He might get hot.
GLUE GUY
Michael Gbinije 6-7 200 junior- Mike, (the ‘G’ is silent: Bin-eh-Jay), transferred here from Duke with three seasons of eligibility left. In his high school, highlight films he looked like a high school version of Michael Jordan or maybe LeBron James. I saw everything you’d want to see: three pointers, pull-up jumpers, drives to the hoop, alley-oops, (given and received), rebounds, blocks, steals. On one play he blocked a jump shot, outran the shooter to the ball, dribbled the length of the court and slammed it in. The guy looked like a gold-plated superstar who was gracing us with his presence. Of course, that left open the question of why he wasn’t a superstar at Duke. Coach K decided he’d never get to play with the players he had there and kind of brokered the deal to get him to Syracuse to play for his friend, Boeheim. When we finally got to see him, he didn’t seem like the same player at all. He seemed to defer to his teammates and not try to do too much. But there were flashes of what we’d seen. He scored 8 points and had a couple of rebounds and steals in 20 minutes on his return to Duke in the “sport coat” game. He had another 8 point game in the season-ending loss to Dayton, which made him our third leading scorer in that game. But the season was a disappointment nonetheless. He didn’t score much. He didn’t rebound much. He played fairly well on defense. He backed up Ennis at the point, even though he wasn’t a point guard by trade, (he had 41 assists in 497 minutes compared to 187 in 1215 for Ennis). I expected a lot more from “Silent G” but he was pretty silent.
This year, I hoped he would assert himself more and we’d see more of the talent I saw in that high school tape. I was excited when he hit his first shot- a three- against Carleton, then dismayed when his second shot- also a three- was an air ball that never got there and bounced out of bounds. He didn’t do a lot of scoring afterwards and I assumed he wasn’t having a good game but more discerning posters pointed out that his defense and rebounding led us back into the game after we were down by 15 and helped people us to victory. He wound up with 6 points and 6 rebounds along with 4 assists and a block in 35 minutes. He had another good game vs. Adrian, scoring 10 with 3 boards, 6 assists, a block and 4 steals. He was suspended for unstated reasons, (“It’s a team thing”). He came back to get 6 points, 6 rebounds and 4 assists vs. Hampton, so he really hasn’t had a bad game this season.
I think my problem with Mike is that I was expecting a star player when he’s more of a ‘glue guy’, a jack-of-all-trades. Last year he was master of none: he didn’t rebound enough to be a forward or pass well enough to be a point guard or score enough to be a shooting guard. This year he is rebounding and is passing the ball well, (he has 12 assists in the three games he’s played: Joseph has 13 in those same games in four more minutes played). He’s making his impact that way.
Summary: This will be a typical Syracuse team in terms of size and talent but we are depending on untried players in the three key production positons of point guard and the two forwards. Last year we had five freshman. One, (Obokoh) redshirted. One, (Ennis) became and NBA lottery pick. The others, (My Three Sons) weren’t “ready’. That’s normal. Now we will start two freshmen and rely on two of the “sons” and Gbinije to man the other positon. It’s asking a lot for everyone to come through for us and I having a feeling that this year is going to be a very bumpy ride. We lack depth, especially at center and point guard. This will not be one of those #1 teams. Perhaps it could be a team that jells at the right time at the end of the season, as in 2013.
The pre-conference schedule includes California, Iowa or Texas, Michigan, St. John’s and Villanova. In the ACC Duke will be a monster and North Carolina is on their way back. Louisville is in the conference now and Virginia may be a new power. The other teams will be better than average, even if their record might not show it. They will be able to beat us if we aren’t playing well, (as Boston College, Georgia Tech and NC State did last season). It’s a very unforgiving schedule and if you are less than excellent, you are going to get boxed around. Double figure regular season losses and the NCAA bubble is a distinct possibility. That’s a disappointment when you think of what we could have had if Ennis were being backed up by Joseph and McCullough were paired with Grant. That would have been a great team, one that could win a national championship.
I do believe that the younger players on this team will someday be part of a team like that. We have four more talents coming in next year: Moustapha Diagne, a 6-9 forward is strong inside scorer and rebounder. Tyler Lydon, a 6-9 forward is a strong shooter. Malachi Richardson, a 6-5 guard, is a big-time scorer. Frank Howard is a 6-6 guard. All are highly rated, (a combined #2 in the country by some sources, per an August article in the local paper) but not as highly as Thomas Bryant, a 6-10, shot blocking center out of Rochester. Jim Boeheim said this class will be one of his best ever and made reference to a “mystery” recruit, which people assume to be Bryant. The current roster has only one senior, Rakeem Christmas, so we will theoretically get back 9 players and could add 5 more. That’s one over the NCAA scholarship limit so something has to give. But if we don’t’ get raided too badly by the NBA, next year’s team could be really something. But that’s next year. First we need to see how fast this year’s team can grow up.
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