sutomcat
No recent Cali or Iggy awards; Mr Irrelevant
- Joined
- Aug 15, 2011
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Left home for the game at 5:05 AM. Horrible weather in the Syracuse area. By the time I left, there were 2 or 3 inches down, heavy lake effect snow was falling, there were strong winds, and near white out conditions for the first 35 miles or so (things slowly improved after the Oneida exit on I90).
I was originally planning on taking I81 to Binghamton, then Route 17E to get to Croton-on-Hudson, then take Metro North into the city but based on what I was seeing with the radar, opted to take I90E to I87. then take that south to Poughkeepsie (infamous home of rascals and scoundrels) , then take Metro North to NYC from there. The ride to Poughkeepsie is actually longer than to Croton-on-Hudson, the train ride is longer and more expensive and there are much fewer trains that run all the way to Poughkeepsie, but it was the safe choice. Got there around 8:40 AM, took an express to Grand Central Terminal and made the short walk (maybe 14 blocks) to Penn Station. The Poughkeepsie option and bad weather meant I didn't arrive at GCT until 11 AM or so. Tried to stop by the Blarney but there was a big line and it was so packed I knew it was going to be impossible to have a conversation, so I grabbed a cheese steak at Charlies, across the street and headed to MSG.
Ran into cto and VAOrange in the lobby, waiting for the doors to open. Ran into OrangeBuddha and his buddy on the way to my seat. Good seat in section 115, near the baseline, close to the Temple band.
The Temple band was interesting. Most of the instruments didn't match, the kids didn't appear to play their instruments very well, but they had a lot of spirit and enthusiasm, so they were okay in my book. TU had a group of maybe 50 students who were very loud, and might have brought 1K total to the game, which was impressive to me given most Big East schools struggle to bring 500 fans during non holiday season games.
They did the "Lord and Taylor" chant for MCW a lot. Maybe it affected him. For whatever reason, he was a mess today. I give him credit for drawing a lot of fouls but his defense was not up to normal standards, his ball handling and judgement was bad, he couldn't shoot FTs, and most shocking, didn't make many good passes. Got way too selfish, maybe lost confidence in his teammates in this game where there was a crisis of confidence with almost every Syracuse player.
Before getting into the game more, SU had about a 10 to 1 advantage in fans. They weren't very loud which was largely a function of the listless and dismal play of the SU players today. Over the past 10 years, I see the demographic of the typical SU fans slowly changing...much younger now than 10 years ago (on the whole), lots of women (though not as many as in Syracuse), lots of young kids in tow (though not as many as in Syracuse). Would be very interested to see how many are SU alums, how many as relocated CNYers, how many travel from CNY and how many are SU fans with no direction connection to the school. I have no idea.
Like the renovations to MSG. It has become a pleasant venue to visit, the aisles are far wider, lots of nice food choicse (though a number were not open today). No pee troughs or foot operated hand wash stations though. Perhaps this will come with the next renovation.
Temple played an extremely aggressive man to man defense. Laid their hands on SU players, held and pushed, bumped and nudged. Very much along the lines of what Pitt does. It really bothered the SU players. Especially MCW. Good job by the Temple coaching staff to pick up on what happened in the Detroit game.
They also did a fine job attacking the 2-3, getting the ball inside for good shots at will, getting open 3s at will, drawing a lot of fouls (we are doing a terrible job defending inside without fouling). But more than anything, they made a tremendous commitment to pound the offensive boards and had huge success in this area.
When it became apparent we had no one about to knock down 3s, we changed things up offensively and attacked the paint with a similar maniacal passion, much along the lines of the San Diego state game. This was successful, we drew a lot of fouls, got some of their best players in foul trouble, but it ultimately failed because we just couldn't make our FTs.
I don't know who the refs were or where they were from. Yes, they did a bad job, blew some calls, were inconsistent, let the players play too much, etc. But I don't blame the game on them.
This one is on the Syracuse players. They got destroyed on the boards by a smaller, weaker team. They got beat to loose balls, they played some of the worse defense I have seen in the last 5 years by a Syracuse team and they missed tons of layups, put backs and free throws. They played awful basketball and deserved to lose.
This is a good Syracuse team. It has a chance to be great but this standing around, do nothing half court offense at crunch time stuff has to end. The great interior passing of the 1st half needs to be on display all game long. We have to play defense, have to be more physical, have to use the body and get proper position. We have to knock down our FTs. And perhaps most of all, we have to rebound better on the offensive boards (that got us back in the game late after we did a terrible job here most of the game) and most of all, on the defensive boards.
Lots of major problems. Perhaps the loss will drive the major changes needed to make this good team a great team. Time will tell.
Epilogue:
Got back to my house at 7:57 PM. Pretty good time for a game that ended around 2:15-2:20 PM. Thank goodness the weather on the way home was good.
I was originally planning on taking I81 to Binghamton, then Route 17E to get to Croton-on-Hudson, then take Metro North into the city but based on what I was seeing with the radar, opted to take I90E to I87. then take that south to Poughkeepsie (infamous home of rascals and scoundrels) , then take Metro North to NYC from there. The ride to Poughkeepsie is actually longer than to Croton-on-Hudson, the train ride is longer and more expensive and there are much fewer trains that run all the way to Poughkeepsie, but it was the safe choice. Got there around 8:40 AM, took an express to Grand Central Terminal and made the short walk (maybe 14 blocks) to Penn Station. The Poughkeepsie option and bad weather meant I didn't arrive at GCT until 11 AM or so. Tried to stop by the Blarney but there was a big line and it was so packed I knew it was going to be impossible to have a conversation, so I grabbed a cheese steak at Charlies, across the street and headed to MSG.
Ran into cto and VAOrange in the lobby, waiting for the doors to open. Ran into OrangeBuddha and his buddy on the way to my seat. Good seat in section 115, near the baseline, close to the Temple band.
The Temple band was interesting. Most of the instruments didn't match, the kids didn't appear to play their instruments very well, but they had a lot of spirit and enthusiasm, so they were okay in my book. TU had a group of maybe 50 students who were very loud, and might have brought 1K total to the game, which was impressive to me given most Big East schools struggle to bring 500 fans during non holiday season games.
They did the "Lord and Taylor" chant for MCW a lot. Maybe it affected him. For whatever reason, he was a mess today. I give him credit for drawing a lot of fouls but his defense was not up to normal standards, his ball handling and judgement was bad, he couldn't shoot FTs, and most shocking, didn't make many good passes. Got way too selfish, maybe lost confidence in his teammates in this game where there was a crisis of confidence with almost every Syracuse player.
Before getting into the game more, SU had about a 10 to 1 advantage in fans. They weren't very loud which was largely a function of the listless and dismal play of the SU players today. Over the past 10 years, I see the demographic of the typical SU fans slowly changing...much younger now than 10 years ago (on the whole), lots of women (though not as many as in Syracuse), lots of young kids in tow (though not as many as in Syracuse). Would be very interested to see how many are SU alums, how many as relocated CNYers, how many travel from CNY and how many are SU fans with no direction connection to the school. I have no idea.
Like the renovations to MSG. It has become a pleasant venue to visit, the aisles are far wider, lots of nice food choicse (though a number were not open today). No pee troughs or foot operated hand wash stations though. Perhaps this will come with the next renovation.
Temple played an extremely aggressive man to man defense. Laid their hands on SU players, held and pushed, bumped and nudged. Very much along the lines of what Pitt does. It really bothered the SU players. Especially MCW. Good job by the Temple coaching staff to pick up on what happened in the Detroit game.
They also did a fine job attacking the 2-3, getting the ball inside for good shots at will, getting open 3s at will, drawing a lot of fouls (we are doing a terrible job defending inside without fouling). But more than anything, they made a tremendous commitment to pound the offensive boards and had huge success in this area.
When it became apparent we had no one about to knock down 3s, we changed things up offensively and attacked the paint with a similar maniacal passion, much along the lines of the San Diego state game. This was successful, we drew a lot of fouls, got some of their best players in foul trouble, but it ultimately failed because we just couldn't make our FTs.
I don't know who the refs were or where they were from. Yes, they did a bad job, blew some calls, were inconsistent, let the players play too much, etc. But I don't blame the game on them.
This one is on the Syracuse players. They got destroyed on the boards by a smaller, weaker team. They got beat to loose balls, they played some of the worse defense I have seen in the last 5 years by a Syracuse team and they missed tons of layups, put backs and free throws. They played awful basketball and deserved to lose.
This is a good Syracuse team. It has a chance to be great but this standing around, do nothing half court offense at crunch time stuff has to end. The great interior passing of the 1st half needs to be on display all game long. We have to play defense, have to be more physical, have to use the body and get proper position. We have to knock down our FTs. And perhaps most of all, we have to rebound better on the offensive boards (that got us back in the game late after we did a terrible job here most of the game) and most of all, on the defensive boards.
Lots of major problems. Perhaps the loss will drive the major changes needed to make this good team a great team. Time will tell.
Epilogue:
Got back to my house at 7:57 PM. Pretty good time for a game that ended around 2:15-2:20 PM. Thank goodness the weather on the way home was good.
