Hating all the weird times for games this season. I have never been a nap kind of guy and losing a couple of hours of sleep in the middle of the work week is not a good thing.
Also hated seeing this Syracuse team go down to UNC last night. They were ripe for the taking. All we needed was a player or two to rebound with Quincy and the game was ours.
JB gave the keys to the offense, at least against man defenses, to Griff at the start of the season. So far, he has not been a very good driver, figuratively and literally. It is hard to be asked to be the man. It often takes some time to get comfortable in the role. Sometimes, some asked to fill the role are not up to the task. Yes, I am talking about Todd Burgan. But I digress.
Alan had a forgettable game. He makes unforced turnovers at an alarming rate. When he is covered, he also makes them. Maybe the game is moving too fast for him right now. I would have replaced him with Braswell in the second half as well, but when you start benching a key player on your team, you can destroy their confidence and run the risk of losing them completely. For now, JB is standing by his man. I hope AG rewards that loyalty with better play.
Forget his struggles to play his man one on one or all the turnovers. He was attacked relentlessly on defense for most of the game and many of the easy baskets UNC got went through him. Stanek? saw how clueless he was and just camped out in his corner and got it inside everytime he tried. Alan was also in position for at least 5 rebounds that he did not get. I know he is only 6'5 and going against guys 5 or 6 inches taller than he is, but you can try and use your body and you can try and use your superior quickness and agility. Didn't really see that.
I think his defense did get a little better late in the second half but wow, his floor game was a disaster. He looked like a true frosh in his first varsity game. He is so much better than he played last night.
Very disappointed in Marek as well. Seniors aren't supposed to play afraid, defer constantly and completely stop trying to get rebounds (when the ball came to him, he would just tap it out to the UNC guards near the top of the key). I know he is a bony kid. I know he is giving around 40 or 50 pounds to those fat bruisers in baby blue. I know he got hit hard in the face a couple of days ago and is probably still shaken up about it. But still...it looked like he didn't even want the ball on offense. When he got it, he wouldn't even look at the basket. I think him getting 2 fouls again almost immediately again played a big role in making him tentative and super gun shy. But he is a senior. We need him to play like he is a senior. He is so much more agile and athletic than those fatties they had covering him. I think he was scared of getting charging calls so he just wouldn't try and beat his guy. Almost ever.
That stretch late in first half when we came back from a big deficit to tie it up and briefly even take the lead (second game in a row we closed the first half well) was special and shows what this team is capable of when operating on all cylinders. Buddy can go off on anyone and Quincy is a warrior. Some of the other guys had nice moments as well.
In the second half, it looked to me as though UNC changed their defensive approach and extended their man defense in a major way. Like what Rutgers did. That is the way to play this Syracuse team and once they did that, JGIII was effectively taken out of the game. Buddy became a turnover prone mess with pressure right in his face. We had 5 guys with players in their faces and with rare exceptions, none of them, none of them could or would beat their guy and get to the basket, or even inside the paint. We stopped working the ball around the perimeter, went in one on one mode except we couldn't beat anyone one on one. Not good.
This is where you need a good point guard to take control, beat his man, go to the hoop and get baskets with 2 on 1s. But we didn't have that.
Kadary helped some but he is playing a lot more cautiously the last couple of games. I am pretty sure he wants to play and pretty sure he is reluctant to do something bad that will get him pulled. So he isn't doing much of anything in the half court offense.
It would help if we even even one player on the team capable of setting a screen.
Thought Edwards did surprisingly well in limited PT. No, he still has weak hands and a weak upper body and if he is breathed on, a rebound in his hands is going to pop lose. But he positioned himself well on defense and even made a good pass on offense. Again, too tentative.
We are going to see extended man to man pretty much the rest of the season. We are going to have teams sending 3 or 4 players to the offensive boards pretty much the rest of the season. All the coaches in the ACC have film and brains in their heads. Hope we can find someone to rebound with Quincy. Hope we can find a PG who can make his man, run the half court offense with pressure man and get us some decent looks at the basket. This team has some players who can shoot and score but it isn't going to happen with our guys going iso most of a half. We are crappy at iso ball and that is not going to change.
I still think our best chance to win games this year is to turn the reins of the offense over to Kadary and give him the freedom to slash and create. If we do that, it might destroy JGIII's confidence but at this point, the way I am thinking, JGIII is unlikely to ever be a really successful starting PG at the ACC level. He can still be an important part of the team and get a lot of meaningful minutes at PG and SG but I think it is time to give Kadary a chance.
One thing we might want to think about to help address the dire problems we have rebounding the ball (doesn't sound like Bourama or Frank are coming in to save the day anytime soon) is to experiment with playing backup forward (Bobby or Woody) some with Quincy, and sitting AG a little, or give him some time at SG, where he would go from a liability rebounding to an asset. Not sure Bobby or Woody would be better at rebounding than Alan. Woody in particular might. They are both a few inches taller, which can't hurt when we are getting abused in the paint like we were most of last night.
There is a lot of potential on this team. I believe they are more than capable of beating anyone on the schedule. Especially this year, when the ACC appears to be extremely weak at the top. Hope the guys keep playing hard and I hope Bourama's knee starts feeling a lot better soon. Every year we seem to have a player or two with lingering injuries that last all season. I am not sure we are handling player injuries very well.