My Take

[IthacaMatt]

Wow, that was a crazy game. UB dominated for so long, then SU came all the way back and looked to have the win, then UB made a crazy last second comeback and came within an eyelash of getting a win in regulation.

And then the stagecoach turned into a pumpkin and the hard hat guys walked out of the place with their heads down.

I find this team one of the most interesting ones I have seen. They are capable of truly putrid play on the offensive side and the defense can also be alarmingly awful for extended periods. But they have also scored well over 100 points twice this year. When they are on, they can score as well as any Syracuse team. Ever.

UB watched the film of the RU game and saw they need to play man and extend it so our shooters get no room to get good shots. Or maybe they watched film of the last SU-UB game. Doesn’t really matter; we have struggled against an aggressive in your face man defense for a while.

JGIII becomes a very ineffective player on offense against this type of defense. At least at this point in his career. He can’t beat his guy one on one, can’t get off good shots from the perimeter and either does nothing or forces bad shots that have little chance to go in.

Buddy tends to disappear against this type of defense as well. Or force bad outside shots where he is covered, which rarely go in. UB tried to cover him with a little guy and I think JB told him to take him into the paint and shoot whenever possible. Not a bad strategy given our other options and their limited ability to beat their man one on one in the half court.

So we struggled again against this type of defense. Quincy kept us in the game almost singlehanded by getting offensive rebounds or getting open down low and finishing or drawing fouls.

Things just seemed to get worse in the second half until JB got desperate, put in Kadary and Woody and put on the press. This changed the game. SU started closely the gap almost immediately. It was slow going but SU kept creeping closer and closer and finally took the lead near the end, only to lose it in a disturbing fashion.

Why was the press so effective? It really didn’t cause many turnovers. Not sure it caused any turnovers. UB got quite a few easy baskets when they beat it. But it got the pace of the game to speed up considerably, and for this SU team, this is a very desirable thing.

We have a few players who are way better playing in fast paced games with a lot of transition and unsettled situations. Alan is not a very good player at this point in half court settings. Especially when the other team has a guy in his face all the time. Put him in 2 on 1 or 3 on 2 situations and he is a really good player who can finish, draw a foul, make a good pass or pull up and hit a jumper. He is just a different player when the pace of the game speeds up.

Kadary is the same way. He is an okay PG running the point in half court settings but get him in transition and he is an assassin. Marek and Buddy are better in unsettled situations as well. Q is good whenever.

Once we starting running some, the offense opened up. We got UB in some foul trouble and I think a few guys who were struggling to finish in the first half got going and were able to score in some half court sets as well.

I love watching Q play. We haven’t had many really good inside players for a while. It is so nice watching him get open and finish reliably. So nice to get him battle down low for position and get so many big rebounds. He draws fouls and gets opponent big people in foul trouble really well and this year, he is even stepping out to the perimeter and hitting 3s now and again. Including one massive one last the game today. But it is a little bittersweet seeing him play so well because we have all seen this happen in recent years. You almost don’t want a player to dominate too much because it probably is going to end up with Q going pro after the season. So props to him for another great game (double doubles have actually become an expected thing for him now). Enjoy him while he is here, because this might be it for him.

Buddy took a lot of shots today. Missed a lot of them for much of the game but he was terrific for the last 15 minutes or so. Even got some huge steals and some huge assists. He scored 22 points without making a 3 point shot. Not sure I would have ever thought that possible. It is good to see him becoming a more well rounded player.

Speaking of well rounded players, Kadary had another nice overall game. I think he ended up with 13 points, 7 boards, 5 assists, 3 blocks and 1 steal. He ran the offense almost the whole second half and was a rock for us.

Griff was pretty much a non factor in the first half but as the game sped up, he emerged from a game and a half funk and was terrific. He ended up with 24 points, 10 rebounds, 3 assists, 3 blocks and 2 steals. One of those blocks was the play of the game, where he rejected a short shot just before the buzzer to force the game into overtime. It appeared he got into some serious trash talking with some of the UB guys, and came close to getting a technical late because of this, which almost caused JB to melt down. Griff spent almost the entire overtime talking to the UB players and laughing about the exchanges.

Marek quietly had a really good day. He struggled some defending the big French guy but the big French guy struggled some covering him too. Ended up with 19 points, 8 rebounds, 5 assists and 4 blocks. Made a bunch of big plays down the stretch and draw some big fouls. Got the call from JB to make a play at the end of the game to win it and lost the ball but Alan made the great hustle play to save the day. He didn’t rebound much in the first half but come on in the second. Another guy who does a lot better in unsettled situations, when he had some room inside, he consistently finished or drew a foul.

Woody played a few minutes but isn’t being aggressive on offense, which I think is limiting his PT. He did draw a great charge (Marek got a couple too).

It will be interesting to see how good UB turns out to be. Based on their first few games, I thought this would be an easy game but they apparently did not play with the big French guy. Mballa is really good. Williams is legit. So is Graves. In the final analysis, we had 5 guys who could score and they really only had 3, and that is why we ended up winning. Us getting them in foul trouble again played a big role as well.

Hopefully UB kills it the rest of the season and wins the MAC. It could happen, especially if they develop a couple more scorers. Segu looked solid down the stretch and if he had played like that all game, it would have been a UB win. They play good defense, have some nice athletes and I liked the way they attacked the zone.

The next game should be a better matchup for JGIII. It was good to see JBA out there, if only for a few minutes. When we pressed, I thought we might see Frankie playing safety but I guess he is so raw that isn’t going to happen.

It ended up being a terrific game. Happy we got the win. Thinking we might be seeing this ‘ineffective’ press more this season than we have in a long time. We will find out soon enough.

Really good analysis, tomcat. I think you are especially right on with the point that Griffin and Richmond are more effective in unsettled situations.

So are Buddy and Joe, too, as trailing 3 point shooters on the break. When this team can get the tempo going, like you said, they are a pretty good team, maybe even a really good team, at least offensively.
And I agree, I think this win will look good in the computer at the end of the season.

I wonder why no comments on the Boeheim article on the board yet, talking about the trash talk from Buffalo, and including the quote, "They'll never play here again." What was that all about?

 

[sutomcat]

Really good analysis, tomcat. I think you are especially right on with the point that Griffin and Richmond are more effective in unsettled situations.

So are Buddy and Joe, too, as trailing 3 point shooters on the break. When this team can get the tempo going, like you said, they are a pretty good team, maybe even a really good team, at least offensively.
And I agree, I think this win will look good in the computer at the end of the season.

I wonder why no comments on the Boeheim article on the board yet, talking about the trash talk from Buffalo, and including the quote, "They'll never play here again." What was that all about?

Thanks.

That article happened days after my post.
It is hard to tell how much trash talking is going on when you are watching a game on TV, especially when the announcers are not very interested in discussing what is happening and the director is not interested in showing much of the trash talk that was happening.

I mostly just saw SU players shown along on some shots, clearly reacting to something, presumably trash talk from UB players near by. I think the director missed the bump that resulted in the UB technical near the end of the game and I don’t remember them bothering to show a replay that showed who bumped who, how the players reacted and how that technical came to pass. Not impressed by the director or production values of the ACCN broadcasts from the dome this year so far. That is not good because I think the director and most of the crew are from SU (but not the announcers).

In the old Big East, trash talking was very common and Syracuse players engaged in it as much as anyone. Perhaps more than anyone. The reason I didn’t mention it was because from what I saw, it was unremarkable behavior. Not big deal.
On to your other question.

I find it hard to believe simple trash talking by UB would be enough for JB to ban them from appearing in the dome again while he is still the HC. I think part of it is bitterness from losing that last game against Oates. Especially after Oates was so willing to speak publicly about how he thought UB was the better and tougher team and how little his players respected Syracuse.

JB just went out of his way to criticize Oats for implying (he didn’t come out and say it, but asked a question implying Coach K had become an advocate for cancelling the season this year because he had suffered a couple of OOC losses early in the season. No doubt he really dislikes Oats on a personal level.

JB criticizing UB players for saying they deserved to win is a little weird to me. He has definitely said the same thing multiple times in the past, though much less in recent years. By the time he made those comments, he knew UB had a positive test and it had led to his team getting shutdown for 2 weeks. More than anything, I think that is what made him so mad at UB and so reluctant to ever schedule them again.

But that is just a guess on my part.

 

[IthacaMatt]

Thanks.

That article happened days after my post.
It is hard to tell how much trash talking is going on when you are watching a game on TV, especially when the announcers are not very interested in discussing what is happening and the director is not interested in showing much of the trash talk that was happening.

I mostly just saw SU players shown along on some shots, clearly reacting to something, presumably trash talk from UB players near by. I think the director missed the bump that resulted in the UB technical near the end of the game and I don’t remember them bothering to show a replay that showed who bumped who, how the players reacted and how that technical came to pass. Not impressed by the director or production values of the ACCN broadcasts from the dome this year so far. That is not good because I think the director and most of the crew are from SU (but not the announcers).

In the old Big East, trash talking was very common and Syracuse players engaged in it as much as anyone. Perhaps more than anyone. The reason I didn’t mention it was because from what I saw, it was unremarkable behavior. Not big deal.
On to your other question.

I find it hard to believe simple trash talking by UB would be enough for JB to ban them from appearing in the dome again while he is still the HC. I think part of it is bitterness from losing that last game against Oates. Especially after Oates was so willing to speak publicly about how he thought UB was the better and tougher team and how little his players respected Syracuse.

JB just went out of his way to criticize Oats for implying (he didn’t come out and say it, but asked a question implying Coach K had become an advocate for cancelling the season this year because he had suffered a couple of OOC losses early in the season. No doubt he really dislikes Oats on a personal level.

JB criticizing UB players for saying they deserved to win is a little weird to me. He has definitely said the same thing multiple times in the past, though much less in recent years. By the time he made those comments, he knew UB had a positive test and it had led to his team getting shutdown for 2 weeks. More than anything, I think that is what made him so mad at UB and so reluctant to ever schedule them again.

But that is just a guess on my part.

Oh, no, I wasn't calling your post out about it, I was just curious about your take. You tend to watch things like what's happening on the bench during timeouts and stuff more closely than the average fan.