That was a tough game to watch. Ugly basketball. Both teams struggled to score. Lot of air balls and awful shots that had no chance to go in.
I think Houston played great defense. The best defense we have seen all season. They aren’t really big, and they have no shot blocker but they have some great athletes and Sampson has them playing like a pack of rabid dogs. They double the ball when a player gets in scoring position, they are really quick and recover really well.
Not sure I have ever seen a team rebound with that kind of crazed zeal. And if you show them even a sliver of the ball, they are going to get it.
On offense, it really looks like they work the ball around until they have a few players in position to get offensive rebounds, and then they throw it up and everyone goes after it. It is an interesting style and one I am not sure I have seen before. I think the way to shut them down is to have some size and good rebounders and get your share of defensive rebounds. You do that and you are probably going to hold them to 50 or 55 points.
This was a bad matchup for us. Our biggest weakness all season has been rebounding, especially on the defensive end. That in your face defensive style with really quick, undersized players was a great way to take away our outside shooters. The way to beat it is to get the ball in the low post with a quality big, or attack the rim quickly with quality slashers. We didn’t have the personnel to do this and it showed.
I give special credit to Jarreau. Yes, he looks 35, and has that awful hair style to make his balding hair look very worse. But the guy can play defense. He did a great job on Buddy and he did it playing hurt. Very impressive. He also was the one guy on Houston who was able to get into the paint and get them a good look. No question he was the MVP of the game. It wasn’t even close.
It was in testing that the one good run we had was largely with Buddy on the bench and Edwards and Kadary playing in the first half. JB has taken a lot of criticism not playing Edwards more in the second half and maybe this is justified. The problem he had was that we were having great difficulties scoring and at this point in his career, Edwards is pretty much a non factor on offense. Houston was doubling the ball a ton and when Edwards was in the game, it make it easier for them because they could leave him alone and not have to worry about him being a threat to score.
In the end, I don’t think it would have made a big difference who JB played last night. We had no answers on offense. Jarreau stayed with Buddy on picks really well and we could almost never get him open for a good look, Alan was bad on defense and contributed close to nothing on offense. It didn’t help when he threw up that awful air ball early and immediately got taken out.
Braswell is a great kid but he is a poor rebounder, and the only way he can score is to stand around the perimeter and hope the other team leaves him alone, and someone hits him with a pass. But he isn’t a very good outside shooter right now. Good defense, bad rebounding, no ability to slash, little ability to pass or handle the ball. Tough to play him when we were so desperate to find ways to score.
Kadary had an interesting frosh season. He ended the year a completely different player than he started. His assists, steals, blocks and rebounds were off the charts great the first half of the year and by the end of the season, he had largely transformed into a scorer. Period. He went from a guy who looked really uncomfortable shooting from the perimeter to a good outside shooter.
I have been pining for a true PG for so long that I was sad to see his assists and other production fall so dramatically. Some of it is surely tied to his knee injury. He is not nearly as frisky and agile now as he was early. But I think part of it is JB seeing Kadary is a guy who can get his own shot and be a good scorer, and him encouraging Kadary to be more aggressive looking for his shot. That is probably what this offensively challenged team needed but man, I enjoyed seeing him play when he was stuffing the stat box each game.
Thought JGIII showed some growth late in the year. Sounds like GMac has been doing some good coaching, getting him to attack the paint and be more aggressive. I would not have thought he would be the guy who handled the Houston defense the best, but he probably was.
Q did not have a good game, continuing a trend that I think started when his knee was injured a while ago. We needed him to have a huge game on the boards and he wasn’t able to do it. I can’t criticize him much. He and Kadary played hurt for a bunch of games at the end of the season and I commend any player playing hurt to help his team. Hope the injuries both have are not serious and I hope both decide to come back for another season.
Sorry Marek had to end his career on such a bad game. I am going to miss him. If you made a list of the best over achievers in Syracuse basketball history, he would be near the top.
The program is coming off a wave of success, there is a buzz in the air and we are well positioned to fill in whatever gaps are left when the lemmings leave. I agree with dash that we have a good foundation coming back and I think we will be very attractive to transfers looking to play for a major program and compete for an NCAA bid. The next couple of month should be a wild ride. I suspect this will be the most interesting roller coaster of an off season for SU basketball in my lifetime.
