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Message: [QUOTE="sutomcat, post: 3196641, member: 27"] I fully expect we will see more games like this one the rest of the season. This is an exceedingly young team. Might be the worst rebounding Syracuse team I have seen since Roy’s Runts. There is little in the way of an inside game. We have no good shot blocker. Our best defensive teams usually have two. Our guards are probably not capable of pressuring the ball, and they don’t have th quickness and length of best defensive teams normally have. We do have shooting, though you wouldn’t know it watching last night. And we have some really good passers. When we are on, we are capable of beating almost anyone on the schedule. When we are off, we can lose to anyone. IMHO, Bourama is our only solid rebounder. We have to find a way to get him 25+ minutes every game. He has to get smarter about avoiding fouls, because when he goes out, our rebounding becomes really bad. Marek or Jesse just can’t get rebounds and hold their own at center right now. The biggest disappointment me last night was our defense, or lack thereof. Our half court defense was actually good. But it didn’t matter because we were so exceptionally poor rebounding their misses. But the real problem was all the baskets they got in transition, many of which should not have been transition baskets. We usually had guys back but they either didn’t know how to get in the way or chose not to. That almost never happens. It is not Syracuse basketball. It looked like the OSU players, especially their PG, would dribble past half court, waiting for someone to pick them up. Nope. They would get to the top of the court. No challenge. They would get into the paint. Still no one would step up, and you could see them just go all the way to the hoop and get a layup. It was bad enough to watch once but it happened possession after possession. If this continues, [USER=57]newmexicuse[/USER] might actually be right. The season might be lost. We don’t have to be an elite defensive team to have a winning record and contend for the NCAA tournament, but we need to be mediocre. I don’t think OSU is a very good team. They have lots of issues and I bet them end up around .500. But we made things way too easy for them. That was what disappointed me. I didn’t see the effort or urgency I am used to seeing from this program. Penn State is better than OSU and is going to be a big challenge for this team. I think the response to this debacle will tell us a lot about them. If they want to contend for an NCAA bid, they have to start playing better. [/QUOTE]

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