sutomcat
No recent Cali or Iggy awards; Mr Irrelevant
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- Aug 15, 2011
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Haven't read the board, kind of avoiding doing that right now. So there is likely going to be a lot of stuff already touched on.
It was a good sized crowd. Announced at 24K and the real attendance was close to the announced number. The fans were loud when SU played well. Which unfortunately wasn't that long. Props to the students who had a good, not great turnout (they filled their seats on the bottom level, had little or nothing on the third level).
Some local little girl from West Genessee I think sang the national anthem. Her name was Sarah (sp?). She looked really at ease before the song started, standing on the court, waving and smiling to people as she was introduced. I think she was the youngest person I have ever seen sing the NA at the Dome. Given all this, I watched her with great interest to see if she was going to be any good.
Yeah, she was really good. Amazing to hear that voice come out of that body. She hit a home run and received possibly the biggest ovation I have ever seen for someone signing the NA at the Dome. Then, the refs went out of their way to give her fistbumps and even the Great Curmudgeon deigned to acknowledge her performance, also with a very uncharacteristic fistbump.
That moment was, it was unfortunately the highlight of the evening.
I am not going to delve into the ugly details. Too depressing to get into them. Some random thoughts though...
If you follow SU basketball recruiting, this was a really interesting game to watch because it highlighted a major recruiting battle from 2 years ago, when SU was looking to add one more guard to its class, and had targeted a big combo guard from Philly named Rysheed Jordan. Jordan was a terrific athlete, with an excellent handle. Really good passer, excellent point guard but he also was a fine outside shooter, which made him an ideal combo guard. He was exactly what SU needed to fill out the class. SU was on him early, recruited him hard but he eventually decided to go to St John's. SU didn't have a good backup plan, and ended up taking Buss Patterson instead.
It just so happened that last night, Kaleb Joseph had a really bad game, was lost on defense and on offense, and ended up getting benched for an extended period of the second half. The beneficiary of this was Buss. Let me start by stating that I really like Ron Patterson. Great kid, always plays hard. Might be our best defender up top in the zone...he certainly did a good job there last night. On offense, he is at least not afraid to shoot the ball.
The problem with Buss is that he is a shooting guard who can't shoot. He can't really play the point and he can't really play the shooting guard position either. He could be a big weapon on a team that presses a lot, and runs and guns. But on a team that is half court oriented, he is a major liability on offense. St John's left him open when he was in and played 5 on 4 with the other SU players. SU desperately needed a PG in the game to run the offense when Joseph left, and desperately needed another good outside shooter so the Johnnies wouldn't double up our bigs down low but had to make due with with they had.
Meanwhile, Jordan was major force for St John's, the best athlete on the court, someone the SU defense had to account for all game long. I am not blaming this loss on Patterson...this was a team loss all the way. But I am saying sometimes games are won and lost off the court a couple of years beforehand, at press conferences featuring nervous kids with too many brightly colored baseball hats.
Glad to see Silent G play a lot more assertive. He is finishing much better this season but was repeatedly embarrassed by Obekpa, who might have blocked every shot Mike missed (pretty sure he did).
Harrison again did a great job taking TC out of the game. We desperately need a big guy out on a wing or at the top of the key, setting some picks for him to use to get open. DCII, we miss you...he would be perfect doing this.
I thought the refs really let both teams play. Didn't think they routinely favored St John's, but their decision to allow all the pushing, hand checking, holding and shoving played right into the smaller Johnnies hands, as these tactics minimized the size advantage SU had. As often happens when refs left teams beat up on each other, things got out of hand and there was nearly a major fight, as Jordan just took out McCullough on a breakaway, a play that called for a clear ejection. Old friends Karl Hess and Mike Stephens both still are really bad. Maybe the best part of leaving the Big East was getting away from those clowns. You only see refs getting teams together to shake hands after an incident in really badly reffed high school games. Couldn't believe they actually used that in a game at this level. Anyway, the refs didn't cost SU the game, but they were awful, and I just wanted to point it out.
I think the dance team had new uniforms. They looked nice. As usual, they had only a small amount of demon orange on them. If Dr Gross hates Orange so much, why doesn't he change the name of the team to the Syracuse Silver?
No cheerleader cheer in the history of sports is as poorly received and hated by its fans as the Syracuse...Orange (let's see who is louder) thing that the SU cheerleaders have been trying to impose on the fans for the last 10 or more years. Please give it up. It is not working and will never work.
While Kaleb was again plagued by turnovers, often unforced, and poor shooting (often uncovered), I think he was pulled for awful defense. He has been abused repeatedly this season. Loves to over rotate and double cover the player Cooney is covering, leaving a huge gap in the zone someone on the other team inevitably occupies, then gets and makes a wide open 3. He doesn't rotate back to play the safety when someone on SU takes a shot on offense (to head off wide open fast breaks) and even on the rare times when he is well positioned to stop a break, he just stands aside and does a matador style spin to allow the other team to get an uncontested layup. And he makes a lot of foolish fouls too.
The good news is that he has a lot of physical talent, and even at his funkiness, he makes a few really nice plays to let you know what he is capable of (great drive and dish to Gbinje I think in the first half last night). I suspect he is the second best outside shooter on the team and it might help him a lot if sometimes he is relieved of PG duties for some short blocks of time and allowed to play some shooting guard.
One of the other keys to the game was the decision to double Christmas the moment he got the ball in the second half. That stopped him from being able to drive to the basket, and led to several turnovers. Rak has to sense the double and pass out of to the open man. He has gotten much better at that this season but it doesn't help if we don't have anyone who can hit the wide open 3 we get when the double team fails. He is developing a nice chemistry with McCullough, has been feeding him nicely when doubled...and that is a far better bet for a score or at least a foul call.
Hope the decision to play Roberson for a few minutes against Michigan doesn't haunt this team the rest of the season. I have a bad feeling he is never going to be 100% this year. And that happens, it really lowers the ceiling this team has for improvement.
It was a good sized crowd. Announced at 24K and the real attendance was close to the announced number. The fans were loud when SU played well. Which unfortunately wasn't that long. Props to the students who had a good, not great turnout (they filled their seats on the bottom level, had little or nothing on the third level).
Some local little girl from West Genessee I think sang the national anthem. Her name was Sarah (sp?). She looked really at ease before the song started, standing on the court, waving and smiling to people as she was introduced. I think she was the youngest person I have ever seen sing the NA at the Dome. Given all this, I watched her with great interest to see if she was going to be any good.
Yeah, she was really good. Amazing to hear that voice come out of that body. She hit a home run and received possibly the biggest ovation I have ever seen for someone signing the NA at the Dome. Then, the refs went out of their way to give her fistbumps and even the Great Curmudgeon deigned to acknowledge her performance, also with a very uncharacteristic fistbump.
That moment was, it was unfortunately the highlight of the evening.
I am not going to delve into the ugly details. Too depressing to get into them. Some random thoughts though...
If you follow SU basketball recruiting, this was a really interesting game to watch because it highlighted a major recruiting battle from 2 years ago, when SU was looking to add one more guard to its class, and had targeted a big combo guard from Philly named Rysheed Jordan. Jordan was a terrific athlete, with an excellent handle. Really good passer, excellent point guard but he also was a fine outside shooter, which made him an ideal combo guard. He was exactly what SU needed to fill out the class. SU was on him early, recruited him hard but he eventually decided to go to St John's. SU didn't have a good backup plan, and ended up taking Buss Patterson instead.
It just so happened that last night, Kaleb Joseph had a really bad game, was lost on defense and on offense, and ended up getting benched for an extended period of the second half. The beneficiary of this was Buss. Let me start by stating that I really like Ron Patterson. Great kid, always plays hard. Might be our best defender up top in the zone...he certainly did a good job there last night. On offense, he is at least not afraid to shoot the ball.
The problem with Buss is that he is a shooting guard who can't shoot. He can't really play the point and he can't really play the shooting guard position either. He could be a big weapon on a team that presses a lot, and runs and guns. But on a team that is half court oriented, he is a major liability on offense. St John's left him open when he was in and played 5 on 4 with the other SU players. SU desperately needed a PG in the game to run the offense when Joseph left, and desperately needed another good outside shooter so the Johnnies wouldn't double up our bigs down low but had to make due with with they had.
Meanwhile, Jordan was major force for St John's, the best athlete on the court, someone the SU defense had to account for all game long. I am not blaming this loss on Patterson...this was a team loss all the way. But I am saying sometimes games are won and lost off the court a couple of years beforehand, at press conferences featuring nervous kids with too many brightly colored baseball hats.
Glad to see Silent G play a lot more assertive. He is finishing much better this season but was repeatedly embarrassed by Obekpa, who might have blocked every shot Mike missed (pretty sure he did).
Harrison again did a great job taking TC out of the game. We desperately need a big guy out on a wing or at the top of the key, setting some picks for him to use to get open. DCII, we miss you...he would be perfect doing this.
I thought the refs really let both teams play. Didn't think they routinely favored St John's, but their decision to allow all the pushing, hand checking, holding and shoving played right into the smaller Johnnies hands, as these tactics minimized the size advantage SU had. As often happens when refs left teams beat up on each other, things got out of hand and there was nearly a major fight, as Jordan just took out McCullough on a breakaway, a play that called for a clear ejection. Old friends Karl Hess and Mike Stephens both still are really bad. Maybe the best part of leaving the Big East was getting away from those clowns. You only see refs getting teams together to shake hands after an incident in really badly reffed high school games. Couldn't believe they actually used that in a game at this level. Anyway, the refs didn't cost SU the game, but they were awful, and I just wanted to point it out.
I think the dance team had new uniforms. They looked nice. As usual, they had only a small amount of demon orange on them. If Dr Gross hates Orange so much, why doesn't he change the name of the team to the Syracuse Silver?
No cheerleader cheer in the history of sports is as poorly received and hated by its fans as the Syracuse...Orange (let's see who is louder) thing that the SU cheerleaders have been trying to impose on the fans for the last 10 or more years. Please give it up. It is not working and will never work.
While Kaleb was again plagued by turnovers, often unforced, and poor shooting (often uncovered), I think he was pulled for awful defense. He has been abused repeatedly this season. Loves to over rotate and double cover the player Cooney is covering, leaving a huge gap in the zone someone on the other team inevitably occupies, then gets and makes a wide open 3. He doesn't rotate back to play the safety when someone on SU takes a shot on offense (to head off wide open fast breaks) and even on the rare times when he is well positioned to stop a break, he just stands aside and does a matador style spin to allow the other team to get an uncontested layup. And he makes a lot of foolish fouls too.
The good news is that he has a lot of physical talent, and even at his funkiness, he makes a few really nice plays to let you know what he is capable of (great drive and dish to Gbinje I think in the first half last night). I suspect he is the second best outside shooter on the team and it might help him a lot if sometimes he is relieved of PG duties for some short blocks of time and allowed to play some shooting guard.
One of the other keys to the game was the decision to double Christmas the moment he got the ball in the second half. That stopped him from being able to drive to the basket, and led to several turnovers. Rak has to sense the double and pass out of to the open man. He has gotten much better at that this season but it doesn't help if we don't have anyone who can hit the wide open 3 we get when the double team fails. He is developing a nice chemistry with McCullough, has been feeding him nicely when doubled...and that is a far better bet for a score or at least a foul call.
Hope the decision to play Roberson for a few minutes against Michigan doesn't haunt this team the rest of the season. I have a bad feeling he is never going to be 100% this year. And that happens, it really lowers the ceiling this team has for improvement.
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