My Take | Page 2 | Syracusefan.com

My Take

A couple other things. I think the Sidibe injury was a bigger issue than the Eggleston injury. It didn't matter who Bryant threw out there on the wings as they could all nail the three. That said had he stayed in and Sidibe still been injured I agree.

Had BS stayed in, I think the game goes much differently as Bryant had no answer for him inside early on the offensive boards. Bouramas FT shooting looked much improved too.

Marek looked to handle and bring the ball up a lot more last night. I really think that needs to be a staple for him. When he helps to get the offense started it offers a lot of flexibility.

I don't know if it happens regularly but it would be far better for us if there are large chunks of time where Buddy and Joe aren't on the court together. Kadary with Joe or Kadary with Buddy for longer stretches is a coaching challenge to not disrupt things too much but also makes us a lot better defensively or at least somewhat better.

Griffin is a manimal on the boards. He wants them all. I was really impressed by his effort there. On the flip side, he is sacrificing open jumpers in order to crash the boards. They picked on his side quite a bit as he also was struggling with playing the wing to defend the corner and wing 3s. Given how hard he plays I fully expect that to improve. There were about 5 made 3s and 6 others missed because of that issue alone. That is 15 pts minimum that could have been wiped off the board with more practice time.

Buddy is going to have to stick with straight drives and pull ups when playing smaller teams. His little spin dribble move is clearly well scouted and resulted in multiple turnovers.

Watched the game again ( I know -why do that to myself right ?) and I counted at least 15 different plays that were called. They may have had a bunch of new guys but with their returning group they had a strong and scripted game plan. The comments from the Bryant coach made sense as he knew they could win with SU coming off no practice or chance to game plan plus tape wouldn't be that helpful as a last-minute effort either. His guys were ready and knew exactly what they wanted to do. Then they executed it. Even then, it was Sidibe getting hurt that really made this a more harrowing experience. While we see the scoreboard, when you watch the game again it forced everybody to play a bit differently.

Final thought- I am curious to see Bryant play again. Grasso is an Iona guy and they were a carbon copy of those Iona teams that are dangerous when they shoot it well. He has a quick little PG who wants to push the ball and throws three shooters and a beefy center who can finish, board and plays good defense. They like to pick you up 3/4 court and play fast. Iona has always been a team that also throws up plenty of duds as well and gets wrecked by a bad team by 25-30 because they can't find the hoop. I really felt like if they switched to a Gael uniform you wouldn't know the difference. I think they won't be a team at the bottom of Ken Pom by seasons end and have the pieces to win that league if they get Eggleston back and keep shooting it. Definitely a much better squad than anyone expected especially JB.
 
I just hope JB doesn't play favorites. Anyone who knows basketball can see after yesterday's game that Kadary is without question a better player than Joe. Kadary will play basketball professionally. Joe will be the Mayor of Glen Falls.

JB play favorites? Never going to happen :)
 
Not expecting the defense at the top of the zone to be fixable with Joe & Buddy. Those two will have to make shots (as Buddy did yesterday) to offset what they give up.

Unfortunately, that won’t happen consistently against good teams. We’ll continue to get carved up like a turkey and lit up like a Christmas tree, Those two cannot play the majority of minutes together. They got destroyed yesterday by a low mid major. Wait for the ACC...won’t be pretty!
 
I just hope JB doesn't play favorites. Anyone who knows basketball can see after yesterday's game that Kadary is without question a better player than Joe. Kadary will play basketball professionally. Joe will be the Mayor of Glen Falls.

Kadary looked good yesterday but it’s one game and a few minutes of playing time. Let’s pump the brakes on this and see how it looks after a few more games. And to say Joe has no shot at professional basketball is wrong.
 
We beat Clark of Virginia last year.
I think we split with them...won in OT.
Just saying any guard that chooses to penetrate against what I saw of our zone yesterday, will dish for a lot of easy demoralizing dunks and open 3s.

That quick Bryant guard (somebody the III) had his way with getting wherever he wanted all night long.
 
Players develop best when game experience couples with practice. As was stated numerous times, in this thread, giving your newer players insertions with starters works best for their learning. JG and Buddy on top is a liability against quick guards. Many of the problems witnessed last night can be corrected in practice; but, will they be?
COVID and ridged thinking can be a deadly combination!
 
I think part of the maddening thing was Girard both a) shot too much and b) got in his head and didn't put it up several times when he was wide open.

Joe had a 3 pointer waived off due to a shot clock violation, and he was wide open on the wing when Marek got called for the charge.

6 point swing against young Joe.
 
I didn’t watch the whole presser but to me, the overwhelming question was, why didn’t Kadary play in the second half?

Maybe that question was asked, maybe not. The press might have been too afraid to get in JB’s doghouse to ask it.

I think if Kadary did not get in foul trouble in the first half, he might have never come out. He played well. Even JB said that was as bad as JG can play last night.

The thing is, JG’s biggest asset is his confidence. Not playing a big part of the first half, and seeing Kadary play a lot and play well has to be concerning to Joe. I suspect JB decided, at least for now, that the team would be better off with him committing unconditionally to Joe to try and build his confidence. Maybe part of the reason Joe played so poorly is because he saw how well Kadary played and felt pressure to keep his starting job?

I think this is going to be one of the central themes for this team this season. How do you handle the PG position? JB is a loyal guy but he has been willing to play the best players consistently in the past.

Can he find a way to get Kadary playing time and keep JG motivated and productive? Joe (and Buddy for that matter) are used to playing a ton of minutes. With Kadary now a viable third option at guard, he needs to cut their minutes some but keep them motivated and productive.

Assuming Bourama gets healthy, he has a similar dilemma at forward, where at the least, he has Alan, Quincy and Marek, all of whom need to play a lot. At some point, it has to be tempting to experiment with giving Alan some minutes at the top of the zone. Might help the perimeter defense and would add another rebounder.

Matt Gutierrez quoted an insider in a recent article saying that he thought Kadary was going to take JG’s starting position at PG by mid season. There is no doubt Kadary is putting pressure on JG for playing time. Hope Joe responds to that pressure better from this point forward.
In theory, we have real competition at all positions for the first time in a long time.

That should be a good thing. It should drive everyone to player harder and better. Let’s hope that happens. There is the potential to develop real depth this year. Hoping we see JB establish a consistent rotation, establish roles for each player and use the competition for playing time to drive this team to reach its full potential, which I think is high.
Great analysis, Tom. I just don’t understand how it’s hard for JB to rotate three guards in the backcourt. He figured out a way to do that for many years. He had no problem having Scoop and Triche split time at PG (with them also getting time at shooting guard) for three seasons from 2009-10 to 2011-2012. And he also did it in the national championship season with Gmac, Edelin, Duany and even Pace. I don’t understand how this is so hard. Kadary is going to be really good for us and should play a lot, but it doesn’t mean we don’t need JG3 as well. Maybe people are right and JB wanted to go with the guys he trusted in the second half when he saw how rusty we were and knew it would be a close game. Still, Joe was so bad, I just don’t see how you don’t bring in Kadary for a few minutes in the second half to see what he can do. I guess JB was more comfortable playing Triche as a freshman PG because he had seen him play in so many high school games (he said he recruited him harder than any other player), whereas he has said he only saw Kadary play once in high school. Let’s hope he figures out a way to play all three guards 25-35 mpg. We’ll be much better for it.
 
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Yes they can.
Jes
Frank
Bras
Kadary
And of course Griffin should all be playing.
I would argue that another coach would have the following starting lineup.

PG: Kadary
SG: Griffin
SF : Marek
PF: Guerrier
C. : Sid
Lol. Buddy may be slow on defense but he is one of our 2-3 best offensive players. He would and should start. I think Kadary is gonna be real good but he still needs to learn to play defense on the college level and learn the zone rotations. I’m excited to see what he can do. As long as Sid’s injury isn’t serious, we should be fine in the front court. Though I’d love to see Frank or Jessie develop to the point where one of them can give us a solid 5-10 mpg.
 
A big problem with the defense was the press. In 2020 the press is less effective than it ever because everyone can make a jump shot these days. Instead of getting shots at the rim against a potential shot blocker yesterday we were giving up wide open 3’s. That was a big reason why Bryant was so hot. It’s no different for us on offense. Buddy is usually deadly in transition from 3 because you get easy step in catch and shoot jumpers.
 
So then why did JB bench Carey in the second half against Virginia in the season opener and give Girard the second half of that game?

He didn’t care about Carey’s confidence giving minutes to Girard?

You are a great poster but I am sorry JB’s confidence can be changed to JB js stubborn. If Girard is going to lose confidence then the spin that practice matters should never be uttered. As it could easily be said to him sorry Joe you haven’t been able to practice we want to win this game so we went all hands on deck we needed Kadary to play a little in the second half.

Yesterday’s game is a microcosm of people complaining about Joe and Buddy playing too many minutes and why recruiting a quality guard will be difficult for a couple of years.

JGIII seems like the last guy on the roster that would need special treatment to manage loss of confidence. Kind of the exact opposite of what most of us have been saying we love about him, he actually seems to have more confidence and swagger than the results on the court to this point would justify.
 
Not sure I have seen mentioned, but Eli was the defacto pg bringing the ball up last year to take pressure off JG, thus making Joe a 2g and providing more freedom to roam. quicker guards give him trouble on ball.

Re Kadary, he is very good and will not get sped up by defenders and gets guys on his hip, hes a true pg.

JB deservedly takes heat for his historically short rotation, BUT, in this case I really think he wanted to get out with the W, AND we will see a ton of Richmond this year .
 
Not sure I have seen mentioned, but Eli was the defacto pg bringing the ball up last year to take pressure off JG, thus making Joe a 2g and providing more freedom to roam. quicker guards give him trouble on ball.

Re Kadary, he is very good and will not get sped up by defenders and gets guys on his hip, hes a true pg.

JB deservedly takes heat for his historically short rotation, BUT, in this case I really think he wanted to get out with the W, AND we will see a ton of Richmond this year .

Not sure I understand this argument. If JGIII wasn’t truly the offense initiating ball handling point guard last year, than how is he so much more established in the role this year that he plays 20 straight minutes while doing so at a mediocre to poor level for the first 15 of those 20 minutes?

I’m not in the camp suggesting that JGIII wasn’t the guy at the end or that he shouldn’t have gotten the bulk of second half minutes.

I am absolutely in the camp that his play was not good enough and he doesn’t have enough “legacy” at SU or playing PG at SU to warrant Kadary getting zero second half minutes.
 
Not sure I understand this argument. If JGIII wasn’t truly the offense initiating ball handling point guard last year, than how is he so much more established in the role this year that he plays 20 straight minutes while doing so at a mediocre to poor level for the first 15 of those 20 minutes?

I’m not in the camp suggesting that JGIII wasn’t the guy at the end or that he shouldn’t have gotten the bulk of second half minutes.

I am absolutely in the camp that his play was not good enough and he doesn’t have enough “legacy” at SU or playing PG at SU to warrant Kadary getting zero second half minutes.


You'll get no argument from me regarding PT for Richmond in the second half, and as you say at least some early to mid 2nd half run, agree 100%.

Here's the thing, and just spitballing, these last 5-6 yrs of 18-14 type seasons makes me think that JB thinks he needs every win to stay on right side of bubble at the demise of bench and player development. It sucks to be honest. Richmond played well, yet, he gets picked from behind and you knew the hook was coming, yet before he was pulled he hit a sweet mid range shot. He also fed Marek several times who swung ball to other open players.
 
Want to start by complimenting Bryant, who I thought played very well... .

Great job of coaching by their HC, who kept changing up his defenses and was able to get Syracuse into a 3 point shooting contest for much of the game.

They carved up our zone like a turkey...
Yes.
Don't think this is being focused on enough.

The Orange generally were awful until late in the game.
But Grasso had a great game plan and his players executed really well.
Even that last shot from the corner was well set-up and a good look.

They have some talent...including the head coach.
He may not be there for very long.
 

I need to learn how to chart defense. I'd love to focus on Jimmy and Girard during a game like an assistant coach to see if they are as bad as the eye test tells me.
 
You speak much truth. I think Marek ends up playing a lot of 5 not because he's the best option there but that Griffin and Guerrier also need to be on the court which leaves Marek at the 5. A healthy Sidibe gives us a strong 4 man rotation upfront. Minutes are there to be had by any of the other 3 C on the team particularly if they can defend and rebound at a minimum. Griffin looks the part and should be fun to watch.
If I need a jumper hit during a game Buddy is the guy I want taking it. If I need a jumper hit in the last 2 minutes JGIII is the guy I want shooting it. When I'm looking for someone to handle the ball, initiate the offense and play a little defense Kadary is my choice. Not very close really. That is coach JAB's biggest decision he needs to make and the sooner the better.
In case anyone is counting that is 7. 8 and or 9 will change each game and only be meaningful in blowouts or dire foul trouble situations. There is enough versatility and talent to be a good team. They need a floor leader.
 
OrangeZoo: It would be far better for us if there are large chunks of time where Buddy and Joe aren't on the court together.
YES. There are plenty of minutes for Kadary spelling both guard spots. Buddy and JG don't need to play 37 minutes a game each. And they shouldn't. Pairing each with a more athletic, quicker defender would help at the top of the zone.
Griffin is an intriguing player. No surprise he had trouble defensively in the zone. He's new to the program and had to be most impacted by the loss of practice time. Expect his D in the zone to improve with work. Has great offensive capability and will go after boards more than we are accustomed to seeing from a SF.
 
Great analysis, Tom. I just don’t understand how it’s hard for JB to rotate three guards in the backcourt. He figured out a way to do that for many years. He had no problem having Scoop and Triche split time at PG (with them also getting time at shooting guard) for three seasons from 2009-10 to 2011-2012. And he also did it in the national championship season with Gmac, Edelin, Duany and even Pace. I don’t understand how this is so hard. Kadary is going to be really good for us and should play a lot, but it doesn’t mean we don’t need JG3 as well. Maybe people are right and JB wanted to go with the guys he trusted in the second half when he saw how rusty we were and knew it would be a close game. Still, Joe was so bad, I just don’t see how you don’t bring in Kadary for a few minutes in the second half to see what he can do. I guess JB was more comfortable playing Triche as a freshman PG because he had seen him play in so many high school games (he said he recruited him harder than any other player), whereas he has said he only saw Kadary play once in high school. Let’s hope he figures out a way to play all three guards 25-35 mpg. We’ll be much better for it.
The only thing that seems to be confusing you is you're forgetting 1) this game was the first of the season and the team had only 1 practice in 12 days, 2) Bryant was playing good enough to take and maintain a lead on us most of the game, 3) Jim Boeheim has made multiple comments re: how high he is on Kadary's ability.

What I don't understand is how you've not been able to recognize how these special circumstances created a decision matrix for JB that would not allow him to take any chances on inexperienced players with the game still on the line. If you know that 1) JB had no problem in the past rotating 3 capable guards and you know that 2) he's looking forward to what Kadary can do for his team, why would you leap past the obvious "exceptional circumstances" of this first game to being puzzled at how 'hard' it apparently is for Jim to rotate 3 guards?

To me, that seems a weird bit of confusion to have when the obvious reason why Boeheim played JG3 as much as he did was the closeness of the game and the uncertainty of how Kadary would perform in his first game, with so much on the line. Jim will always go with experience when the game is in doubt, the 1st game of the season. It's not Jim "forgetting" how to play 3 guards (facepalm)...
 
Kadary looked good yesterday but it’s one game and a few minutes of playing time. Let’s pump the brakes on this and see how it looks after a few more games. And to say Joe has no shot at professional basketball is wrong.
Joe will not play in the NBA.
 

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