sutomcat
No recent Cali or Iggy awards; Mr Irrelevant
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- Aug 15, 2011
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I am just going to do some random thoughts this time. Making a meat sauce. Hard to write a long post and make a good sauce at the same time. Probably impossible.
I digress.
This might have been the game JB took JGIII out too soon and it hurt the team. JGII got off to a strong start and was playing really well, but JB, perhaps influenced by Pat, put in Kadary relatively early anyway.
Kadary was okay. He didn’t stink out the joint. But it took our best player off the court for an extended period.
Joe still played really well when he returned to play in the first half and ended up with 16 points in the first half. With 0 turnovers. And then...nothing. 0 points in the second half. But 4 turnovers. He ended up with 3 assists and 4 turnovers. Rare for him.
Kadary has changed his game the second half of the season. At this point, he appears to be focusing on being very aggressive attacking the paint when he gets the ball. Not looking to pass much. BC is another team with some undersized guards and I suspect JB told him to take his guy to the hoop whenever he could.
It helped that BC had no rim protectors out there. They were down to 7 scholarship players (we Syracuse fans know that feeling well). They started 3 forwards and 2 guards and had 2 more guards on the bench. So when they did any subbing, they went with a 3 guard lineup. Given that and the small guards they had, they were at a huge disadvantage trying to cover the big SU guards (and the small forward).
But we didn’t do a good job getting the ball to the guy with the mismatch. And Alan Griffin got in foul trouble again. One of the BC guards, Heath I think, got in his face yapping late in the half, pushed him and went to push him again. Alan had his arms up and positioned one of his elbows in front of Heath’s face. Heath walked into it and Alan ended up with a T. Not the finest hour for another group of incompetent refs (who spent way too much time on this). They ended up giving 4 players Ts including JBA, who had a BC player in his face and appeared to respond by head butting him. Not a smart move and it might keep him on the bench the rest of this season.
Anyway, Alan got a 4th PF before th 16 minute mark of the 2nd half and ended up sitting out almost 10 minutes. BC got back into the game during this time. JB responded to that 4th foul by pulling Alan and using his 3 guard lineup. The offense and defense got significantly worse almost immediately. Buddy was put on the baseline. Kadary came in. We rebounded way worse with this lineup. BC started hurting us on the offensive boards. Players stopped working the ball around, probing for weaknesses and looking for good matchups and just took the first available shot. Worst still, JB decided in the middle of this to put Bras in. Now that wouldn’t be the worst thing if he went in for Buddy. But he went in for Quincy. So we had Marek and basically 4 guards in, with Bras, Buddy, JGIII and Kadary. Just an awful rebounding team and a bad team on offense too. Bras did not play well, had some turnovers and made some foolish fouls.
BC really moved closer during this and JB responded by putting AG back in. Q went in too around this time and the bleeding stopped and SU started pulling away again. Props to Marek, who made a bunch of big plays here when we really needed them. Good to see him playing like the senior he is. He even made some FTs (unlike most of the team).
Hopefully we never see a lineup without Q or Alan in at forward again this year. Please JB, never again.
The game at UL is one of our last chances to get a really impressive road win. Hope UL avoids getting sick again just before they play us and we get the big upset. They certainly are beatable. This is the type of game that could be a differentiator between SU and the many other teams on the bubble.
Nice to get a win. Nice to get over .500 in conference play. There were some moments in the first half when we really looked like a strong team but today was another example of this team not showing it is capable of solid play for 2 halves. They can play great for 10 minutes. Maybe 15 or 20. But they have struggled to play a whole game well. Hope that changes on Wednesday night.
I digress.
This might have been the game JB took JGIII out too soon and it hurt the team. JGII got off to a strong start and was playing really well, but JB, perhaps influenced by Pat, put in Kadary relatively early anyway.
Kadary was okay. He didn’t stink out the joint. But it took our best player off the court for an extended period.
Joe still played really well when he returned to play in the first half and ended up with 16 points in the first half. With 0 turnovers. And then...nothing. 0 points in the second half. But 4 turnovers. He ended up with 3 assists and 4 turnovers. Rare for him.
Kadary has changed his game the second half of the season. At this point, he appears to be focusing on being very aggressive attacking the paint when he gets the ball. Not looking to pass much. BC is another team with some undersized guards and I suspect JB told him to take his guy to the hoop whenever he could.
It helped that BC had no rim protectors out there. They were down to 7 scholarship players (we Syracuse fans know that feeling well). They started 3 forwards and 2 guards and had 2 more guards on the bench. So when they did any subbing, they went with a 3 guard lineup. Given that and the small guards they had, they were at a huge disadvantage trying to cover the big SU guards (and the small forward).
But we didn’t do a good job getting the ball to the guy with the mismatch. And Alan Griffin got in foul trouble again. One of the BC guards, Heath I think, got in his face yapping late in the half, pushed him and went to push him again. Alan had his arms up and positioned one of his elbows in front of Heath’s face. Heath walked into it and Alan ended up with a T. Not the finest hour for another group of incompetent refs (who spent way too much time on this). They ended up giving 4 players Ts including JBA, who had a BC player in his face and appeared to respond by head butting him. Not a smart move and it might keep him on the bench the rest of this season.
Anyway, Alan got a 4th PF before th 16 minute mark of the 2nd half and ended up sitting out almost 10 minutes. BC got back into the game during this time. JB responded to that 4th foul by pulling Alan and using his 3 guard lineup. The offense and defense got significantly worse almost immediately. Buddy was put on the baseline. Kadary came in. We rebounded way worse with this lineup. BC started hurting us on the offensive boards. Players stopped working the ball around, probing for weaknesses and looking for good matchups and just took the first available shot. Worst still, JB decided in the middle of this to put Bras in. Now that wouldn’t be the worst thing if he went in for Buddy. But he went in for Quincy. So we had Marek and basically 4 guards in, with Bras, Buddy, JGIII and Kadary. Just an awful rebounding team and a bad team on offense too. Bras did not play well, had some turnovers and made some foolish fouls.
BC really moved closer during this and JB responded by putting AG back in. Q went in too around this time and the bleeding stopped and SU started pulling away again. Props to Marek, who made a bunch of big plays here when we really needed them. Good to see him playing like the senior he is. He even made some FTs (unlike most of the team).
Hopefully we never see a lineup without Q or Alan in at forward again this year. Please JB, never again.
The game at UL is one of our last chances to get a really impressive road win. Hope UL avoids getting sick again just before they play us and we get the big upset. They certainly are beatable. This is the type of game that could be a differentiator between SU and the many other teams on the bubble.
Nice to get a win. Nice to get over .500 in conference play. There were some moments in the first half when we really looked like a strong team but today was another example of this team not showing it is capable of solid play for 2 halves. They can play great for 10 minutes. Maybe 15 or 20. But they have struggled to play a whole game well. Hope that changes on Wednesday night.