My Take | Syracusefan.com

My Take

sutomcat

No recent Cali or Iggy awards; Mr Irrelevant
Joined
Aug 15, 2011
Messages
25,014
Like
107,456
I think this is going to be a short one. It should be a short one...

No Bville band. Sad. They do an excellent job.

Haven't read almost any of the writeups on the game but it looked to me as though we ran a new offense last night. The standing around, super stagnant, hoping someone can make an iso move offense we have been attempting to use for years was replaced by a dynamic half court set that featured the guards and the small forward doing constant loops from out on the wing to under the basket to out out the other wing.

The center and the power forward were more static. It appeared JB had Jesse trying to establish position closer to the basket, more in his usual scoring position. And they positioned Maliq down low, opposite the side Jesse was on, very consistently.

VT was small and had forward types covering Jesse all game long. They were mostly effective pushing him out of position and when he got the ball, they bodied him hard, as other ACC schools have been doing. This got him off balance and led to weird shots that didn't have much chance to go in. They doubled him as soon as he got the ball, which again is standard OP for defending SU right now. But with Maliq moving well and positioning himself well in the low post (he was in the game most of the time), Jesse had a good option for his passes. And he took advantage of it a lot. Nice job by him finding Brown. Us playing two guys down low presented VT with a lot of problems. They just didn't have the size to handle this.

And all the movement caused confusion and missed assignments as well. We had some open jumpers and some lanes opened up for our slashers. Very nice change that makes this team markedly harder to defend.

Was unhappy early. VT destroyed the zone last year by getting the ball into Mutts in the paint. He is a fine passer and can score from that range as well, so he is well suited to be their zone buster. Yet our guards let VT get the ball to him without any trouble almost every possession, and Jesse was late getting to him, and when Jesse came out to challenge Mutts, our the forwards did not remember to look out for a VT forward sneaking down lot to get an easy basket. VT was able to execute their zone offense without any trouble. I am sure this was a point of emphasis in practice and it looked like we had no idea it was coming.

This eventually changed. The guards rotated closer to the paint, especially on the opposite side from the ball. Jesse got a lot more aggressive coming out. And perhaps most importantly, Brown came in to replace Benny, who had been napping again on defense.

Brown is well suited to play in the zone. He anticipates the low post pass well, is quick and has long arms and when he came in, and Jesse got in Mutts' face, along with better work by the guard to prevent the ball from getting in the paint, it shut the VT offense down. They were reduced to launching 3s, mostly well covered low percentage 3s, and they shot poorly from the outside.

VT tried to replicate the extended pressure man defenses that others have used to good effect against Syracuse this season but their guards are small and not as strong and seasoned as some of the guys our guards have gone against, and maybe our guards are learning to handle the pressure better now. So it didn't disrupt things much and our guards were sometimes able to beat the pressure and get inside for 3 on 2 action, which usually led to an easy basket.

The only way VT was able to stop us was by feigning charges when a Syracuse player dribbled near them with the ball. That is on the refs, who were generally okay but really need to work on making blocking calls (or the lack thereof).

It was nice to see s have a good day shooting from the outside. Joe was a big factor here but Justin and Chris Bell also contributed and even Symir got one (late in the shot clock, where he threw up a tear drop that bounced around and fell in). That one almost broke that old guy who coaches VT and likes to stand on the court. Mike Young might be his name.

Judah was again a little wild and looked for his shot too much. I think his judgement here is slowly getting better though. He is really trying to draw fouls and I think the ACC refs have decided for some reason they are not going to give him any help at all this year. He cannot get a close call to save his life. Pretty sure there will be no Christmas cards being sent to ACC refs from the Mintz household this December.

Nice win. The first 5 minutes of the second half was really nice. We played solid on offense and defense and broke the game open then.

Still not sure how good this team is. They are well better defensively than last season and I think are harder to cover on offense most games too. JT and especially Maliq seem to get more comfortable and solid with each game they play. Benny and Chris have their moments but to me, they don't understand how to play the game was well as the Virginia boys. It is a shame Bell got hurt, as he was looking good when that happened.

Gotta give some props to Joe, who played like you want a senior to play and got a lot of important baskets to initially keep us in the game and later to end the game. Yes, he took a a few questionable shots but he was efficient and I am impressed that he was able to keep his confidence and return to form after than awful 3 game spell. That would have broken many.

I am enjoying watching this team. The young guys are developing. I like what JB is doing with subbing, playing the guys who are playing the best from game to game. If Jesse can remember how to make a 2 foot shot and stay out of foul trouble, we are going to be a problem for many in the conference.

Looking forward to ND Saturday already.
 
Gotta give some props to Joe, who played like you want a senior to play and got a lot of important baskets to initially keep us in the game and later to end the game. Yes, he took a a few questionable shots but he was efficient and I am impressed that he was able to keep his confidence and return to form after than awful 3 game spell. That would have broken many.
I think this has been understated here, myself included.
 
My starting 5 for the rest of the way. Jesse, Maliq, Bennie, Taylor, Judah
First off bench: Girard, Hima, Torrence, Copeland, Bell

The starting lineup should outrebound any team.
 
"iso move offense we have been attempting to use for years was replaced by a dynamic half court set that featured the guards and the small forward doing constant loops from out on the wing to under the basket to out out the other wing."

I think I saw this in an earlier game and was quite impressed by how well it moved to get guys open. I hope it is used more in the future.
 
It was nice to see s have a good day shooting from the outside. Joe was a big factor here but Justin and Chris Bell also contributed and even Symir got one (late in the shot clock, where he threw up a tear drop that bounced around and fell in). That one almost broke that old guy who coaches VT and likes to stand on the court. Mike Young might be his name.

Judah was again a little wild and looked for his shot too much. I think his judgement here is slowly getting better though. He is really trying to draw fouls and I think the ACC refs have decided for some reason they are not going to give him any help at all this year. He cannot get a close call to save his life. Pretty sure there will be no Christmas cards being sent to ACC refs from the Mintz household this December.
Judah only took 9 shots and the only one I remember that I didn't like was the long, contested two. Although I don't remember if that one was taken late in the shot clock or not.

I also only had Joe taking two bad shots.

I think, on average, shot selection was much better in this game across the board and I think the ball movement definitely helped to get everyone better looks.

I also think there was much more of a concerted effort to find Jesse early and often.
 
Judah only took 9 shots and the only one I remember that I didn't like was the long, contested two. Although I don't remember if that one was taken late in the shot clock or not.

I also only had Joe taking two bad shots.

I think, on average, shot selection was much better in this game across the board and I think the ball movement definitely helped to get everyone better looks.

I also think there was much more of a concerted effort to find Jesse early and often.
I agree Judah didn't shoot as many times as normal.
But I thought he looked for his shot just about every time he had the ball. His lack of shots was more a function of good scouting and help defense.

The kid is really talented. I think very highly of him. But he doesn't look to set up others very often. It is very unusual to see a PG who is so uninterested in getting assists.

All this is to be expected from a frosh PG in the ACC. Hoping all the lessons he is learning will pay off if/when he returns next season and plays at a much higher level.

There was a play we had during one of our runs. I think it was early in the second half, when we took control of the game. We made a stop and went into transition the other way full speed. The ball went ahead to Judah, but he had one or two defenders in the lane and it looked like he was going to have to slow it down and run the half court offense. But he drove in aggressively and tried to do a spectacular reverse layup at full speed.

It unfortunately just lipped out. It was unfortunate because the crowd was already excited and had he made it, there would have been an explosion of joy and applause.

Oh well.
 
I agree Judah didn't shoot as many times as normal.
But I thought he looked for his shot just about every time he had the ball. His lack of shots was more a function of good scouting and help defense.
Oh, I definitely agree that he always thinks shot first. and I agree the lower number of shots was a function of both good on-ball and good help defense.

I think it was also a function of better decision-making.

What I think he did not do, in this game relative to others, was to force the action and and either throw up a wild shot, turn it over or commit an offensive foul.
 
Any news on Chris Bell's injury? Seemed like it might have been something that won't keep him out. Haven't heard anything though.
 
Oh, I definitely agree that he always thinks shot first. and I agree the lower number of shots was a function of both good on-ball and good help defense.

I think it was also a function of better decision-making.

What I think he did not do, in this game relative to others, was to force the action and and either throw up a wild shot, turn it over or commit an offensive foul.
He was better. No doubt.

But he gets doubled every time he drives into the paint. When that happens, someone is open and if you can pass, you can take advantage of this. Jesse didn't score much in the game and didn't shoot it well but he found the open guy when doubled effectively (usually Maliq) and it made a big difference.

If Judah starts passing to the open guy when he gets doubled, it helps the team and it helps him too. Down the road, teams will stop doing that aggressive double teaming and start respecting his ability to pass. Right now, there is no need to worry about his passing once he goes into the lane. His refusal to pass the ball from there is hurting our half court offense.

It takes good players who start to get doubled all the time a while to adjust and be able to effectively find the open man and make the smart pass. I am sure Judah will get it down the road. IMHO, one of the keys for this team this season is how quickly he makes this adjustment.
 
He was better. No doubt.

But he gets doubled every time he drives into the paint. When that happens, someone is open and if you can pass, you can take advantage of this. Jesse didn't score much in the game and didn't shoot it well but he found the open guy when doubled effectively (usually Maliq) and it made a big difference.

If Judah starts passing to the open guy when he gets doubled, it helps the team and it helps him too. Down the road, teams will stop doing that aggressive double teaming and start respecting his ability to pass. Right now, there is no need to worry about his passing once he goes into the lane. His refusal to pass the ball from there is hurting our half court offense.

It takes good players who start to get doubled all the time a while to adjust and be able to effectively find the open man and make the smart pass. I am sure Judah will get it down the road. IMHO, one of the keys for this team this season is how quickly he makes this adjustment.
The reason I picked JG3 to have 120+ threes (IGGY awards) this year was because of what we heard about Judah’s point guard/slashing skills during the summer and preseason. People left out the fact that while slashing it is to get to the rim himself 95% of the time. Oh well, I won’t be winning that pick! Haha

But in all seriousness, if he does develop that ability to kick it out to an open man than look out!! He will be a crazy effective player for us!
 
He was better. No doubt.

But he gets doubled every time he drives into the paint. When that happens, someone is open and if you can pass, you can take advantage of this. Jesse didn't score much in the game and didn't shoot it well but he found the open guy when doubled effectively (usually Maliq) and it made a big difference.

If Judah starts passing to the open guy when he gets doubled, it helps the team and it helps him too. Down the road, teams will stop doing that aggressive double teaming and start respecting his ability to pass. Right now, there is no need to worry about his passing once he goes into the lane. His refusal to pass the ball from there is hurting our half court offense.

It takes good players who start to get doubled all the time a while to adjust and be able to effectively find the open man and make the smart pass. I am sure Judah will get it down the road. IMHO, one of the keys for this team this season is how quickly he makes this adjustment.

There is one other factor for Judah as well. We need to see the officials respect his ability to force the defender to foul him that happens a lot. One big issue is that he doesn't always have the balance on his drives to make that pass. Now that isn't excusing him but at some point when that call is being made on the regular he should have his balance as defenders avoid getting called to find the open man more as well. Lots to learn and improve for him.
 
Judah only took 9 shots and the only one I remember that I didn't like was the long, contested two. Although I don't remember if that one was taken late in the shot clock or not.

I also only had Joe taking two bad shots.

I think, on average, shot selection was much better in this game across the board and I think the ball movement definitely helped to get everyone better looks.

I also think there was much more of a concerted effort to find Jesse early and often.
I also think some of Joe's value is that he can make a deep three and a contested three. He's better when he's not taking those shots but I'm not overly concerned about him putting up a bad shot from time to time. I'd rather he's confident and feeling it rather than have him thinking too much.
 
I think this is going to be a short one. It should be a short one...

No Bville band. Sad. They do an excellent job.

Haven't read almost any of the writeups on the game but it looked to me as though we ran a new offense last night. The standing around, super stagnant, hoping someone can make an iso move offense we have been attempting to use for years was replaced by a dynamic half court set that featured the guards and the small forward doing constant loops from out on the wing to under the basket to out out the other wing.

The center and the power forward were more static. It appeared JB had Jesse trying to establish position closer to the basket, more in his usual scoring position. And they positioned Maliq down low, opposite the side Jesse was on, very consistently.

VT was small and had forward types covering Jesse all game long. They were mostly effective pushing him out of position and when he got the ball, they bodied him hard, as other ACC schools have been doing. This got him off balance and led to weird shots that didn't have much chance to go in. They doubled him as soon as he got the ball, which again is standard OP for defending SU right now. But with Maliq moving well and positioning himself well in the low post (he was in the game most of the time), Jesse had a good option for his passes. And he took advantage of it a lot. Nice job by him finding Brown. Us playing two guys down low presented VT with a lot of problems. They just didn't have the size to handle this.

And all the movement caused confusion and missed assignments as well. We had some open jumpers and some lanes opened up for our slashers. Very nice change that makes this team markedly harder to defend.

Was unhappy early. VT destroyed the zone last year by getting the ball into Mutts in the paint. He is a fine passer and can score from that range as well, so he is well suited to be their zone buster. Yet our guards let VT get the ball to him without any trouble almost every possession, and Jesse was late getting to him, and when Jesse came out to challenge Mutts, our the forwards did not remember to look out for a VT forward sneaking down lot to get an easy basket. VT was able to execute their zone offense without any trouble. I am sure this was a point of emphasis in practice and it looked like we had no idea it was coming.

This eventually changed. The guards rotated closer to the paint, especially on the opposite side from the ball. Jesse got a lot more aggressive coming out. And perhaps most importantly, Brown came in to replace Benny, who had been napping again on defense.

Brown is well suited to play in the zone. He anticipates the low post pass well, is quick and has long arms and when he came in, and Jesse got in Mutts' face, along with better work by the guard to prevent the ball from getting in the paint, it shut the VT offense down. They were reduced to launching 3s, mostly well covered low percentage 3s, and they shot poorly from the outside.

VT tried to replicate the extended pressure man defenses that others have used to good effect against Syracuse this season but their guards are small and not as strong and seasoned as some of the guys our guards have gone against, and maybe our guards are learning to handle the pressure better now. So it didn't disrupt things much and our guards were sometimes able to beat the pressure and get inside for 3 on 2 action, which usually led to an easy basket.

The only way VT was able to stop us was by feigning charges when a Syracuse player dribbled near them with the ball. That is on the refs, who were generally okay but really need to work on making blocking calls (or the lack thereof).

It was nice to see s have a good day shooting from the outside. Joe was a big factor here but Justin and Chris Bell also contributed and even Symir got one (late in the shot clock, where he threw up a tear drop that bounced around and fell in). That one almost broke that old guy who coaches VT and likes to stand on the court. Mike Young might be his name.

Judah was again a little wild and looked for his shot too much. I think his judgement here is slowly getting better though. He is really trying to draw fouls and I think the ACC refs have decided for some reason they are not going to give him any help at all this year. He cannot get a close call to save his life. Pretty sure there will be no Christmas cards being sent to ACC refs from the Mintz household this December.

Nice win. The first 5 minutes of the second half was really nice. We played solid on offense and defense and broke the game open then.

Still not sure how good this team is. They are well better defensively than last season and I think are harder to cover on offense most games too. JT and especially Maliq seem to get more comfortable and solid with each game they play. Benny and Chris have their moments but to me, they don't understand how to play the game was well as the Virginia boys. It is a shame Bell got hurt, as he was looking good when that happened.

Gotta give some props to Joe, who played like you want a senior to play and got a lot of important baskets to initially keep us in the game and later to end the game. Yes, he took a a few questionable shots but he was efficient and I am impressed that he was able to keep his confidence and return to form after than awful 3 game spell. That would have broken many.

I am enjoying watching this team. The young guys are developing. I like what JB is doing with subbing, playing the guys who are playing the best from game to game. If Jesse can remember how to make a 2 foot shot and stay out of foul trouble, we are going to be a problem for many in the conference.

Looking forward to ND Saturday already.
The movement was really good in this game for the most part offensively. That's important. Joe has really improved in this area as well as in finding a way to get a bucket from time-to-time inside the paint. Hasn't shot better than like .385 from two in his career, I don't think, and while his numbers aren't dramatically better than that this year, he's been much better inside the arc the last 9 games or so (whenever he broke out of the slump). Brown does a nice job sliding to open spots and making himself available without the ball as well.

Thought it was a nice all-around game for Jesse but I didn't really think Va Tech did much to slow him down. Thought he sort of accomplished that all on his own. He's really good getting to good spots, presenting a big target and then making a tough catch and finish. But that's still the vast majority of his offensive game. I couldn't believe some of the opportunities he failed to convert given his size/athleticism/skill. Don't want to be overly critical since he hit the boards, anchored the defense, made a lot of nice passes and even put the ball on the deck a bit in this one, but he's just not real effective creating his own shot even when he gets it deep in the post. Would love to see a bit more of the spot-up jumper that I'm convinced he can make.

Taylor will be interesting to watch. Nice instincts and hands defensively, he's made some shots, good, mature frame, some nice offensive skills ... but I'd just like to see him be a bit more of a factor offensively.

Nice win for a team that has improved a bunch since the beginning of the season. I'm old enough to be able to appreciate that even though it's not going to be the most successful team we've had ... or even a team that finishes with a particularly exciting W/L record.
 
I also think some of Joe's value is that he can make a deep three and a contested three. He's better when he's not taking those shots but I'm not overly concerned about him putting up a bad shot from time to time. I'd rather he's confident and feeling it rather than have him thinking too much.
Two rules for shooters:
Shoot until you make one.
Shoot until you miss one.
 
I'm old enough to be able to appreciate that even though it's not going to be the most successful team we've had ... or even a team that finishes with a particularly exciting W/L record.
Why the negative take to end an otherwise good post?
 
Why the negative take to end an otherwise good post?
agreed.

its impossible to say how the rest of the season will go...and with my orange colored glasses on...I would point out the ongoing and constant improvement the team has made throughout the season and ask why should anyone think the current level of the team is its ceiling?

there's a greater than zero chance this season turns out very well in the end.
 
agreed.

its impossible to say how the rest of the season will go...and with my orange colored glasses on...I would point out the ongoing and constant improvement the team has made throughout the season and ask why should anyone think the current level of the team is its ceiling?

there's a greater than zero chance this season turns out very well in the end.
Production from the 1,2 and 5 is solid with the 3 and 4 trending upwards. The youth movement is internalizing the the zone and are improving at it. And we have a number of shooters who can get hot from 3. who knows how things will go, but I'm liking the overall direction.
 

Forum statistics

Threads
167,139
Messages
4,682,201
Members
5,900
Latest member
DizzyNY

Online statistics

Members online
321
Guests online
2,253
Total visitors
2,574


Top Bottom