sutomcat
No recent Cali or Iggy awards; Mr Irrelevant
- Joined
- Aug 15, 2011
- Messages
- 26,670
- Like
- 116,291
Weird having a 5 pm game on a Sunday. Weirder still that our next 2 games will also start at 5 pm. Colgate on Saturday and VCU in Atlantis the following Wednesday. I guess this one was driven by the SU women’s game that was played at the dome at noon.
Some quick thoughts….
We didn’t look super focused, especially on defense, in the first half. I will give Drexel some credit for that. They were patent and did a nice job attacking the zone.
A couple of times I caught myself thinking, well JB is going to go strong with defensive players to stop all this scoring by Drexel. But for maybe the first time ever, he doesn’t have much on the bench to address this. JGIII seemed to be struggling on D a lot in the first half and JB took him out and yelled at him pretty good. And played Symir for extended minutes. That was surely driven by a desire for better defense.
Cole continues to show a much more well rounded game that many of us were expecting. Last game, he rebounded like a demon. This game, he made some really nice rotations and defensive plays, some really nice passes and even made a few nice moves to the basket.
I keep waiting for JB3 to be exposed for being too slow, too unathletic, too dorky to play at this level. No signs of that so far. He can score in a lot of ways (including both hands) and seems to be a step ahead of the opposition a lot.
Buddy keeps bringing it. To me, it looks like he is getting his shot off a hair quicker this year. The confidence is there for sure. He struggled driving and scoring in the first half but did a much better job there in the second. It was almost like his evolution at this from last season, except in one game instead of a whole season.
I like when JG3 plays a lot of minutes and only takes a few shots. This team needs a pass first PG I think. That said, I think Joe has made at least 8 3s in a row and has to be shooting a crazy percent from 3 so far. I think the key is that he isn’t getting a lot of attention from the defense and this year, so far anyway, he is taking good 3s, just outside the 3 point circle that are part of the normal offensive flow. If he can limit his 3 point shots to quality shots like he has so far, I think he can shoot 40% from 3.
Jesse still does some things that you don’t expect from a sophomore in college (that moving pick after the handoff on the inbounds play was not good; once he was out of position, boxed out, but jumped up from behind and did a ridiculous reach around grab of his guy’s rib cage). But he is playing really aggressively on defense and intimidating the well out of opponents. It is great to have someone in the paint people are scared off. It is also great to have someone top notch providing weak side help down low in the 2-3, which is what we are getting from Benny. That kid has nice timing and can jump. Gonna get a lot of weak side blocks.
Thought Frankie looks better on the boards. He and Jesse are going to score a lot when they get the ball in the right spot. Both are going to be in foul trouble a lot. Especially Frank. But the days of teams scoring 30 or 40 points in the paint are gone. And that is a very good thing.
Benny continues to struggle a bit early in the season. He is maybe getting the ball a little too far from the basket. Doesn’t look like he has any go to moves to get a good shot off right now and to his credit, he is not forcing shots, I like his patience. Maybe he should focus more on getting offensive rebounds. Or some lob alley oops. He looks uncomfortable with the ball right now. Gets rid of it really quickly. Gotta hit the boards harder. No rebs or assists is not like him. I think he will be fine, Might be good to have the PG run a play or two for him to get him off the schneid early next game.
Symir is another guy who doesn’t even look at the basket when he has the ball. He helped stabilize the defense when Drexel was shredding us early and that might be one of his biggest contributions to this team. I doubt he scores more than 6 or 8 in any game all season long. Hope he can develop a nice floater to get off when he gets into the lane and has no one open.
There are going to be games this year when we are going to struggle on defense most of the game. There are going to be games where we are going to have to outscore the opponent to win. While our defense was improved in the second half, I thought some stellar offense really gave us separation and won us the game. I look for more of that in the future. When this team is on, it can score points as fast and as well as anyone in the country. We saw a little of that early in the second half.
Hope to see more of it soon. Real soon. The over/under on the SU/Colgate game might be close to 180. I think that is where it belongs anyway…..
Some quick thoughts….
We didn’t look super focused, especially on defense, in the first half. I will give Drexel some credit for that. They were patent and did a nice job attacking the zone.
A couple of times I caught myself thinking, well JB is going to go strong with defensive players to stop all this scoring by Drexel. But for maybe the first time ever, he doesn’t have much on the bench to address this. JGIII seemed to be struggling on D a lot in the first half and JB took him out and yelled at him pretty good. And played Symir for extended minutes. That was surely driven by a desire for better defense.
Cole continues to show a much more well rounded game that many of us were expecting. Last game, he rebounded like a demon. This game, he made some really nice rotations and defensive plays, some really nice passes and even made a few nice moves to the basket.
I keep waiting for JB3 to be exposed for being too slow, too unathletic, too dorky to play at this level. No signs of that so far. He can score in a lot of ways (including both hands) and seems to be a step ahead of the opposition a lot.
Buddy keeps bringing it. To me, it looks like he is getting his shot off a hair quicker this year. The confidence is there for sure. He struggled driving and scoring in the first half but did a much better job there in the second. It was almost like his evolution at this from last season, except in one game instead of a whole season.
I like when JG3 plays a lot of minutes and only takes a few shots. This team needs a pass first PG I think. That said, I think Joe has made at least 8 3s in a row and has to be shooting a crazy percent from 3 so far. I think the key is that he isn’t getting a lot of attention from the defense and this year, so far anyway, he is taking good 3s, just outside the 3 point circle that are part of the normal offensive flow. If he can limit his 3 point shots to quality shots like he has so far, I think he can shoot 40% from 3.
Jesse still does some things that you don’t expect from a sophomore in college (that moving pick after the handoff on the inbounds play was not good; once he was out of position, boxed out, but jumped up from behind and did a ridiculous reach around grab of his guy’s rib cage). But he is playing really aggressively on defense and intimidating the well out of opponents. It is great to have someone in the paint people are scared off. It is also great to have someone top notch providing weak side help down low in the 2-3, which is what we are getting from Benny. That kid has nice timing and can jump. Gonna get a lot of weak side blocks.
Thought Frankie looks better on the boards. He and Jesse are going to score a lot when they get the ball in the right spot. Both are going to be in foul trouble a lot. Especially Frank. But the days of teams scoring 30 or 40 points in the paint are gone. And that is a very good thing.
Benny continues to struggle a bit early in the season. He is maybe getting the ball a little too far from the basket. Doesn’t look like he has any go to moves to get a good shot off right now and to his credit, he is not forcing shots, I like his patience. Maybe he should focus more on getting offensive rebounds. Or some lob alley oops. He looks uncomfortable with the ball right now. Gets rid of it really quickly. Gotta hit the boards harder. No rebs or assists is not like him. I think he will be fine, Might be good to have the PG run a play or two for him to get him off the schneid early next game.
Symir is another guy who doesn’t even look at the basket when he has the ball. He helped stabilize the defense when Drexel was shredding us early and that might be one of his biggest contributions to this team. I doubt he scores more than 6 or 8 in any game all season long. Hope he can develop a nice floater to get off when he gets into the lane and has no one open.
There are going to be games this year when we are going to struggle on defense most of the game. There are going to be games where we are going to have to outscore the opponent to win. While our defense was improved in the second half, I thought some stellar offense really gave us separation and won us the game. I look for more of that in the future. When this team is on, it can score points as fast and as well as anyone in the country. We saw a little of that early in the second half.
Hope to see more of it soon. Real soon. The over/under on the SU/Colgate game might be close to 180. I think that is where it belongs anyway…..
