sutomcat
No recent Cali or Iggy awards; Mr Irrelevant
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- Aug 15, 2011
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Crowd was announced at 26K but there were around 21-22K actually in the seats. Students did not come out for this one; there was no one sitting in the upper deck at the start of the game, though some did eventually filter in later. Not much better performance from the non-students.
Despite this, the crowd was pretty into the game and made a lot of noise late, when it was really needed.
Solid job singing the NA by a young lady. Her country tinged version was really nice and well received by the crowd.
SU came out early struggling on offense and did not get a field goal for over 5 minutes. BC did what everyone is doing to defend Syracuse these days; they played man (almost exclusively), and other than Trevor, packed their defenders into the paint, to take away SU's ability to drive to the hoop. SU was able to get open jump shots whenever it wanted and with even a mediocre shooting night, would have won easily. But the shooting was not even at a mediocre level last night. Everyone, and I mean everyone, looked tight and played that way as well. Despite the packed in defense, SU was still able to get short, quality looks at the basket from almost gimme range (3 or 4 footers) but the bad shooting contagion infected even these shots and for much of the game, SU struggled to score.
We went to Fair a lot. I suspect this was by design, as JB was determined to get him off the schneid and get his confidence back. Simply put, it didn't work. CJ looked lost most of the game. I liked that he abandoned efforts to take outside jumpers early and focused on driving to the basket instead. But he kept uncharacteristically missing even easy 3 or 4 footers near the basket. He keeps taking banked shots with far too much speed on them. I saw he had cotton in his nose late in the game, I assume BC hit him in the face at some point and perhaps that was part of the reason for his problems. At this point, his only reliable method of scoring is to get an offensive rebound and put back the bunny (the BMK signature move). By and large, this team goes as CJ goes and right now, CJ is taking the team to a bad place.
On the other side of the basket, I thought SU did a pretty good job defensively. They forced a number of TOs with shot clock expirations, BC threw up a bunch of bad shots (especially in the first half) and for most of the game we did a decent job on the defensive boards. In the later part of the 2nd half however, Hanlan took over the game. He got in the paint and did damage there, made some 3s, and drew a bunch of fouls too. He is a terrific player and I think he is really underrated. We did a good job on Anderson most of the game but he became a factor late as well and got a number of big baskets for the Eagles. And 33, perhaps the worst athlete on the court, came out of nowhere to score some big baskets in overtime.
Part of this was bad defense; but to be fair, Rak was saddled with 4 fouls and was reluctant to be aggressive defensively with Anderson (after dominating him down low most of the game). It should be noted that BC executed their half court offense beautifully down the stretch. They worked the ball around the zone patiently and were able to find the open guy for a 3 with great consistency. And that guy, whoever he was, consistently drained the open 3. I give the Eagles a lot of credit...they played extremely hard, they shot the ball very well and executed better than we did on offense and defense.
I sat in a court side seat thanks to the generosity of a certain female board moderator (thanks again cto). The team did not looked panicked or confused as the end came down to the final minutes. They looked frustrated. The refs were relaxed and chatty, especially Easy Ed Corbett, who told us we were watching a great game and also mentioned that he will be doing the Duke-UNC game tonight and will not be doing the SU-Duke game on Saturday.
Have no idea what they said to the media but I have never seen a team fiddle with their shorts more than SU did last night. They looked frustrated and irritated with them; kept putting their hands inside the shorts to move them around and try to get more comfortable. At last one of the shirts had a seam that was loose. As with other Nike creations, they looked cheap, poorly made and even the proportions and placement of the graphics was botched. Does anyone know whose idea it was to wear blue shorts with orange shirts? Was that an edict from Nike, something the players decided or was it a Dr Gross decision?
I hope that this shooting issue came from the pressure of keeping the long winning streak alive and I hope that with the streak now history, the team can relax and play at the level we all know they are capable of. They are going to need to in their next couple of games. There are no easy games from this point forward.
Despite this, the crowd was pretty into the game and made a lot of noise late, when it was really needed.
Solid job singing the NA by a young lady. Her country tinged version was really nice and well received by the crowd.
SU came out early struggling on offense and did not get a field goal for over 5 minutes. BC did what everyone is doing to defend Syracuse these days; they played man (almost exclusively), and other than Trevor, packed their defenders into the paint, to take away SU's ability to drive to the hoop. SU was able to get open jump shots whenever it wanted and with even a mediocre shooting night, would have won easily. But the shooting was not even at a mediocre level last night. Everyone, and I mean everyone, looked tight and played that way as well. Despite the packed in defense, SU was still able to get short, quality looks at the basket from almost gimme range (3 or 4 footers) but the bad shooting contagion infected even these shots and for much of the game, SU struggled to score.
We went to Fair a lot. I suspect this was by design, as JB was determined to get him off the schneid and get his confidence back. Simply put, it didn't work. CJ looked lost most of the game. I liked that he abandoned efforts to take outside jumpers early and focused on driving to the basket instead. But he kept uncharacteristically missing even easy 3 or 4 footers near the basket. He keeps taking banked shots with far too much speed on them. I saw he had cotton in his nose late in the game, I assume BC hit him in the face at some point and perhaps that was part of the reason for his problems. At this point, his only reliable method of scoring is to get an offensive rebound and put back the bunny (the BMK signature move). By and large, this team goes as CJ goes and right now, CJ is taking the team to a bad place.
On the other side of the basket, I thought SU did a pretty good job defensively. They forced a number of TOs with shot clock expirations, BC threw up a bunch of bad shots (especially in the first half) and for most of the game we did a decent job on the defensive boards. In the later part of the 2nd half however, Hanlan took over the game. He got in the paint and did damage there, made some 3s, and drew a bunch of fouls too. He is a terrific player and I think he is really underrated. We did a good job on Anderson most of the game but he became a factor late as well and got a number of big baskets for the Eagles. And 33, perhaps the worst athlete on the court, came out of nowhere to score some big baskets in overtime.
Part of this was bad defense; but to be fair, Rak was saddled with 4 fouls and was reluctant to be aggressive defensively with Anderson (after dominating him down low most of the game). It should be noted that BC executed their half court offense beautifully down the stretch. They worked the ball around the zone patiently and were able to find the open guy for a 3 with great consistency. And that guy, whoever he was, consistently drained the open 3. I give the Eagles a lot of credit...they played extremely hard, they shot the ball very well and executed better than we did on offense and defense.
I sat in a court side seat thanks to the generosity of a certain female board moderator (thanks again cto). The team did not looked panicked or confused as the end came down to the final minutes. They looked frustrated. The refs were relaxed and chatty, especially Easy Ed Corbett, who told us we were watching a great game and also mentioned that he will be doing the Duke-UNC game tonight and will not be doing the SU-Duke game on Saturday.
Have no idea what they said to the media but I have never seen a team fiddle with their shorts more than SU did last night. They looked frustrated and irritated with them; kept putting their hands inside the shorts to move them around and try to get more comfortable. At last one of the shirts had a seam that was loose. As with other Nike creations, they looked cheap, poorly made and even the proportions and placement of the graphics was botched. Does anyone know whose idea it was to wear blue shorts with orange shirts? Was that an edict from Nike, something the players decided or was it a Dr Gross decision?
I hope that this shooting issue came from the pressure of keeping the long winning streak alive and I hope that with the streak now history, the team can relax and play at the level we all know they are capable of. They are going to need to in their next couple of games. There are no easy games from this point forward.
