sutomcat
No recent Cali or Iggy awards; Mr Irrelevant
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Decent crowd for an unappealing opponent on a Tuesday night. When SU went on the run in the second half to break things open, they made a lot of noise. Student turnout was okay. Would guess 18K were actuall there. The attendance was helped by a strong showing of Bonnie fans. I have been watching St Bonaventure-SU games for many years and I think last night was without question their best turnout ever. They had maybe 500 fans in one of the outlaying sections on the third level and lots of people sitting scattered throughout the Dome. I suspect they had 1000 fans all told there. Impressive for such a tiny school so far away. Lots of them were students. Lots of skinny kids with skin problems and bad haircuts. They seemed nice and happy to be there.
What was up with so many of them wearing Wolfpack t-shirts though? I have a theory. Maybe NC State ordered a thousand t-shirts but the manufacturer screwed up and printed them on brown shirts instead of Last Place Rutgerian Red. And NC State State sold them to St Bonaventure for a song. I know St Bonaventure almost went bankrupt in the 1990s... Seriously, did the same nickname consultants that tried to make SU change its mascot from Otto to a wolf and call the fanbase Wolf Pack start working with St Bonaventure? Weird.
Anyway, props to those fans for coming and making noise. I hope we consider scheduling them more...it was interesting to see some fans from an opposing team in the Dome early in the season. No question in my mind they had far more fans than Cornell or Colgate, or even LeMoyne have been able to muster in recent years.
The NA was sung by a women who works in the North Syracuse Central School District. She was good, hit all her notes and received a big ovation when she finished. Even the Bonnie fans clapped. Solid.
3 tubas in the SSS. Disgusting.
Food alert. That concession stand in the Northeast corner of the Dome, near section 120 (where the Burger King used to be years ago), has added hamburgers to their menu. They also offer Saranac beer, chicken tenders, fries and onion rings. Believe it is the only place in the Dome to get any of those things. I didn't try one but they looked decent. Which would make them better than a lot of what is currently offered.
That Joe Schmoe coach the Bonnies has was really aggressive in his man defense, patrolling his area of the court hard. He yelled a lot and based on his body, body language, coloring and speech patterns, I would say he is likely to suffer a heart attack sometime in the next 24 years. As Bud would say, he might want to mix in a salad or two every now and then.
Don't have a lot of time so here are some disjointed thoughts on the game itself...
This SU team loves to launch threes. They may or may not be good at it but they love to do it. So far, they haven't been very good at it and their stubborn determination to shoot them has helped keep lesser teams in the games. I think JB has this team all wrong. He thinks the only way for them to win is to launch threes all game long. But they look far better, and far more dangerous when he has the guards attack the hoop.
The first half SU relied on threes and outside shooting almost exclusively, and it was no surprise they fell behind and struggled to score for long stretches. Give credit to the Bonnies, who were really patient, milked the clock and got good shots with startling regularity in the first half. Their best outside shooter is small and shoots a set shot that takes a painful amount of time to get off. Should have been bottled up and never got a decent look but he hurt us badly, mostly taking advantage of shaky play from our guards. We did do a pretty good job collapsing inside when they tried to get the ball in the paint and got a lot of steals and turnovers doing this. MR, TC, MG, TR, TL are all good doing this.
In the second half, our strategy changed completely. We attacked the paint relentlessly with our guards, principally Silent G, MR and TC and had great success doing this. Got the Bonnies into foul trouble within 5 or 6 minutes. The Bonnies played mostly man in the first half but with the foul trouble, were forced to switch to a zone, which SU carved up even more than the Bonnie man defense. We kept attacking inside but when they collapsed there, we had a lot of guys wide open on the perimeter and unlike the first half, a lot of these 3s were made.
Was pleasantly surprised at MR's ability to go strong to the hoop and draw fouls. He showed signs of being capable of doing this but it was good to see him making it happen against a relatively decent team, in the second half, when pressive was high and points were badly needed. His defense and rebounding were again surprisingly compentent too.
TC had a bad first half but played much much better in the second. Haven't seen a box score but he got his hands on a lot of passes on defense and he hurt St Bonaventure but going inside hard. Even hit some outside shots in the second half.
It is easy to take Silent G for granted, and it will probably happen a lot this year. But after a slow start, he established himself as the best player on the court and he largely dominated the game in the second half. He is a tough guy to defend...he is so tall and strong and if you lay off him to stop him from getting in the paint, he will hurt you from the perimeter too. Teams so far are having tough times matching up with him...he keeps getting covered by players 6 or 7 inches shorter than he is. He has posted them up a few times but I am hoping for more of this when teams try and play SU man to man. It should be one of our best options against man defenses. His ball handling, rebounding passing and defense all look improved from last year. He is a good one.
TRob continues to look pretty lost on offense but he was dominant on the boards and his defense was solid as well. The team continues to evolve and roles are slowing working themselves out. Hope he figures out a way to play in this offense. We need him to contribute offensively and he is certainly capable of doing it. But for him, I think it all starts with rebounding and he definitely looked better there last night.
Thought Coleman played a little better last night but he is still a step slow and still too tentative to help the team much right now. He did rebound the ball better and finished a play or two inside. I think JB needs to continue to give him minutes now to get him ready for later in the season. He got beat down the court again too many times last night, continuing a season long trend for him. I think it is more of a conditioning thing than just an inability to get up and down the court.
CO is never going to be a force on offense but he has to catch passes thrown directly to him under the basket. Right now, it feels like whenever he touches the ball there is a turnover about to happen. He has zero confidence and it shows. He is playing a bit better on defense and I give him credit for being very fast for a big guy and for hustling hard when he is in.
Thought KJ didn't play very well last night. To me his biggest problem is bad judgement, lack of basketball IQ, whatever you want to call it. Looks like this is slowly getting better but remains worrisome. His defense is somewhat better but still needs work.
JB gave FH a lot of PT last night. When he was in, he ran the half court offense quite well. Looks like our more traditional PG, really tries to find weaknesses in a defense and get the ball to the open man. Maybe forced up a shot or two when he shouldn't have, and maybe passed up a shot or two than he shouldn't have. I like him a lot. Continues to impress me with his defense.
That leaves TL, who seems to get more and more PT at center with each passing game. He is not much of a factor on defense right now and teams hurt us inside when he plays center by crashing the offensive boards. But he is a decent rebounded on the defensive side, can get an occasional block and covers a lot of ground. Got at least one block on a jumper taken from the corner, which is impressive for a player playing in the middle of a 2-3 zone. Anticipates well too and is going to get a lot of steals in his career here.
The reason he is getting so much playing time though is because he is the only center we have that the defense has to worry about. We can play 5 on 5 on offense when he is in, and that makes a huge difference. Teams seeing him hitting 3s like he did on film is just going to make it easier for the offense to score when he is in.
Even as a gangly frosh, he poses a second extremely big challenge to defend for a team trying to play us in man defense (along with Silent G). I was really impressed with his fearlessness. It is really unusual for a freshman to take big shots down the stretch of a game and even more unusual for one to make a lot of them. He almost took the game over during that stretch late in the game when SU drew even and then blew by the Bonnies. He is already trying to do pick and rolls, which one day he will be great at, and is already showing signs of becoming our best high post player in many years. Very very impressive.
What else?
SU does a much better job using the ribbon boards to show stats for basketball than they do for football.
The students sang Happy Birthday to JB just after player introductions. I don't think he acknowledged them but job well done nonetheless.
They did the running of the flags just inside 8 minutes to go. I thought that was a 4 minute to go thing. I think what happened is that in a recent game, the timeouts happened to work out where there weren't any from 4 minutes to about 1 minute, so the running of the flags almost didn't happen, so they moved it up to prevent that from happening again.
So far, this has been a fun team to watch most of the time. I hope that next game, we start with the guards slashing to the hoop from the opening tip. It is a style not unlike what Villanova has used a lot in recent years and I think with our group of slashers and shooters, it is a good fit for this team.
What was up with so many of them wearing Wolfpack t-shirts though? I have a theory. Maybe NC State ordered a thousand t-shirts but the manufacturer screwed up and printed them on brown shirts instead of Last Place Rutgerian Red. And NC State State sold them to St Bonaventure for a song. I know St Bonaventure almost went bankrupt in the 1990s... Seriously, did the same nickname consultants that tried to make SU change its mascot from Otto to a wolf and call the fanbase Wolf Pack start working with St Bonaventure? Weird.
Anyway, props to those fans for coming and making noise. I hope we consider scheduling them more...it was interesting to see some fans from an opposing team in the Dome early in the season. No question in my mind they had far more fans than Cornell or Colgate, or even LeMoyne have been able to muster in recent years.
The NA was sung by a women who works in the North Syracuse Central School District. She was good, hit all her notes and received a big ovation when she finished. Even the Bonnie fans clapped. Solid.
3 tubas in the SSS. Disgusting.
Food alert. That concession stand in the Northeast corner of the Dome, near section 120 (where the Burger King used to be years ago), has added hamburgers to their menu. They also offer Saranac beer, chicken tenders, fries and onion rings. Believe it is the only place in the Dome to get any of those things. I didn't try one but they looked decent. Which would make them better than a lot of what is currently offered.
That Joe Schmoe coach the Bonnies has was really aggressive in his man defense, patrolling his area of the court hard. He yelled a lot and based on his body, body language, coloring and speech patterns, I would say he is likely to suffer a heart attack sometime in the next 24 years. As Bud would say, he might want to mix in a salad or two every now and then.
Don't have a lot of time so here are some disjointed thoughts on the game itself...
This SU team loves to launch threes. They may or may not be good at it but they love to do it. So far, they haven't been very good at it and their stubborn determination to shoot them has helped keep lesser teams in the games. I think JB has this team all wrong. He thinks the only way for them to win is to launch threes all game long. But they look far better, and far more dangerous when he has the guards attack the hoop.
The first half SU relied on threes and outside shooting almost exclusively, and it was no surprise they fell behind and struggled to score for long stretches. Give credit to the Bonnies, who were really patient, milked the clock and got good shots with startling regularity in the first half. Their best outside shooter is small and shoots a set shot that takes a painful amount of time to get off. Should have been bottled up and never got a decent look but he hurt us badly, mostly taking advantage of shaky play from our guards. We did do a pretty good job collapsing inside when they tried to get the ball in the paint and got a lot of steals and turnovers doing this. MR, TC, MG, TR, TL are all good doing this.
In the second half, our strategy changed completely. We attacked the paint relentlessly with our guards, principally Silent G, MR and TC and had great success doing this. Got the Bonnies into foul trouble within 5 or 6 minutes. The Bonnies played mostly man in the first half but with the foul trouble, were forced to switch to a zone, which SU carved up even more than the Bonnie man defense. We kept attacking inside but when they collapsed there, we had a lot of guys wide open on the perimeter and unlike the first half, a lot of these 3s were made.
Was pleasantly surprised at MR's ability to go strong to the hoop and draw fouls. He showed signs of being capable of doing this but it was good to see him making it happen against a relatively decent team, in the second half, when pressive was high and points were badly needed. His defense and rebounding were again surprisingly compentent too.
TC had a bad first half but played much much better in the second. Haven't seen a box score but he got his hands on a lot of passes on defense and he hurt St Bonaventure but going inside hard. Even hit some outside shots in the second half.
It is easy to take Silent G for granted, and it will probably happen a lot this year. But after a slow start, he established himself as the best player on the court and he largely dominated the game in the second half. He is a tough guy to defend...he is so tall and strong and if you lay off him to stop him from getting in the paint, he will hurt you from the perimeter too. Teams so far are having tough times matching up with him...he keeps getting covered by players 6 or 7 inches shorter than he is. He has posted them up a few times but I am hoping for more of this when teams try and play SU man to man. It should be one of our best options against man defenses. His ball handling, rebounding passing and defense all look improved from last year. He is a good one.
TRob continues to look pretty lost on offense but he was dominant on the boards and his defense was solid as well. The team continues to evolve and roles are slowing working themselves out. Hope he figures out a way to play in this offense. We need him to contribute offensively and he is certainly capable of doing it. But for him, I think it all starts with rebounding and he definitely looked better there last night.
Thought Coleman played a little better last night but he is still a step slow and still too tentative to help the team much right now. He did rebound the ball better and finished a play or two inside. I think JB needs to continue to give him minutes now to get him ready for later in the season. He got beat down the court again too many times last night, continuing a season long trend for him. I think it is more of a conditioning thing than just an inability to get up and down the court.
CO is never going to be a force on offense but he has to catch passes thrown directly to him under the basket. Right now, it feels like whenever he touches the ball there is a turnover about to happen. He has zero confidence and it shows. He is playing a bit better on defense and I give him credit for being very fast for a big guy and for hustling hard when he is in.
Thought KJ didn't play very well last night. To me his biggest problem is bad judgement, lack of basketball IQ, whatever you want to call it. Looks like this is slowly getting better but remains worrisome. His defense is somewhat better but still needs work.
JB gave FH a lot of PT last night. When he was in, he ran the half court offense quite well. Looks like our more traditional PG, really tries to find weaknesses in a defense and get the ball to the open man. Maybe forced up a shot or two when he shouldn't have, and maybe passed up a shot or two than he shouldn't have. I like him a lot. Continues to impress me with his defense.
That leaves TL, who seems to get more and more PT at center with each passing game. He is not much of a factor on defense right now and teams hurt us inside when he plays center by crashing the offensive boards. But he is a decent rebounded on the defensive side, can get an occasional block and covers a lot of ground. Got at least one block on a jumper taken from the corner, which is impressive for a player playing in the middle of a 2-3 zone. Anticipates well too and is going to get a lot of steals in his career here.
The reason he is getting so much playing time though is because he is the only center we have that the defense has to worry about. We can play 5 on 5 on offense when he is in, and that makes a huge difference. Teams seeing him hitting 3s like he did on film is just going to make it easier for the offense to score when he is in.
Even as a gangly frosh, he poses a second extremely big challenge to defend for a team trying to play us in man defense (along with Silent G). I was really impressed with his fearlessness. It is really unusual for a freshman to take big shots down the stretch of a game and even more unusual for one to make a lot of them. He almost took the game over during that stretch late in the game when SU drew even and then blew by the Bonnies. He is already trying to do pick and rolls, which one day he will be great at, and is already showing signs of becoming our best high post player in many years. Very very impressive.
What else?
SU does a much better job using the ribbon boards to show stats for basketball than they do for football.
The students sang Happy Birthday to JB just after player introductions. I don't think he acknowledged them but job well done nonetheless.
They did the running of the flags just inside 8 minutes to go. I thought that was a 4 minute to go thing. I think what happened is that in a recent game, the timeouts happened to work out where there weren't any from 4 minutes to about 1 minute, so the running of the flags almost didn't happen, so they moved it up to prevent that from happening again.
So far, this has been a fun team to watch most of the time. I hope that next game, we start with the guards slashing to the hoop from the opening tip. It is a style not unlike what Villanova has used a lot in recent years and I think with our group of slashers and shooters, it is a good fit for this team.
