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my two cents

kcsu

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I thought that last night's game was a mixed bag. First of it can't be stated how important JJ is to this team. Along with Donnie he is our best player. He is also by all accounts the leader of this team. So, with him out we are limited. In addition, Dry Rub is at best playing at 70%. It is obvious he is injured and doing his best to play through it but he is severely limited.

With that as a background and given the fact that Albany is a step better than Nazareth the guys played a decent game. Ball movement was better and at least in the first half the D was ok. Carlos excelled against Albany maybe because he was playing against a competitive level that he was used to. All in all, I thought the guys did a good job.
The biggest bright spot for me was the play of Chris. He hustled all game and actually looked like he was enjoying himself. I thought that his effort and ability to beat his man off the bounce was as good as I have ever seen from him. He was focused and showing signs of leadership. Not sure what changed but I was really happy for him and hope that it continues. He has great skills so if he can just find himself as a young man and focus on all his gifts he is going to continue to do well. For me this was the best part of the game and the season to date. Last point. Enjoy Donnie while you can as he will be a one and done. Go Orange.
 
We gave up 12 offensive rebounds to them and played basket trading in the 2nd half. It was an atrocious defensive effort once again. There's no positives to take from that end of the court in the game.
 
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Our defense was OK, however, after we got up by 20+ our ballhandling and passing from the point was atrocious. Albany clawed back because we could not initiate our offence. They had 3-4 steals that resulted in a basket and another 2-3 that were almost a basket. They pressed us high around the 3 point line and we crumbled like coffee cake. Again, we have noone that can take a player off the dribble. Our pointguard is unable to penetrate and create at the same time. We continue to have the wrong player get to their spot for the 3 point shot.

On the positive site, we hit our FT early on. We got to a 20+ point lead, we kept a double digit lead in spite of a huge run by Albany. We had our STAR Freshmen go OFF. (I cant even begin to say how excited we all would be by him last few years. I think he is underappreciated due to some of our underperforming players). Everyone did their Job. Good to see Kyle C. and Chance W. get time.

Did anyone notice Cuffe getting pulled after driving to the basket and passing off (to a turnover) and not seeing the floor again? Not sure if it was because of that or something else.

Lots of positives. BTW Cornel just went to Cal and won last night.
 
I think Albany is one of the worst rebounding teams in all of D1 as well.

From Sports Reference, total rebounding they are 348th as of now.

Overall rankings for Albany:
SRS is 266. NET is 215. 233 in KenPom.

This was an atrocious team that the goal should have been to win handily and fix some things. Chris went 0 for 3 from three and his D was not good (no one's was), especially in transition. That second half

Lampkin is hurt and out of shape. Same as it has been, same as it will be.

Donnie was the big winner today. JC is smoke and mirrors because this is the type of team he should be on, not playing against.

GTown will be another solid measuring stick game. 88 in KP. 99 in NET (we are 99 and 141, respectively). If we're better, GTown is the game to show it.
 
Our defense was OK, however, after we got up by 20+ our ballhandling and passing from the point was atrocious. Albany clawed back because we could not initiate our offence. They had 3-4 steals that resulted in a basket and another 2-3 that were almost a basket. They pressed us high around the 3 point line and we crumbled like coffee cake. Again, we have noone that can take a player off the dribble. Our pointguard is unable to penetrate and create at the same time. We continue to have the wrong player get to their spot for the 3 point shot.

On the positive site, we hit our FT early on. We got to a 20+ point lead, we kept a double digit lead in spite of a huge run by Albany. We had our STAR Freshmen go OFF. (I cant even begin to say how excited we all would be by him last few years. I think he is underappreciated due to some of our underperforming players). Everyone did their Job. Good to see Kyle C. and Chance W. get time.

Did anyone notice Cuffe getting pulled after driving to the basket and passing off (to a turnover) and not seeing the floor again? Not sure if it was because of that or something else.

Lots of positives. BTW Cornel just went to Cal and won last night.

In no way, shape or form was our D ok.

Come on.
 
I commend some of you for having the energy to even post much this far into the disaster it’s been.

Glad we got another win and haven’t lost to a low major in this debacle like Cal did to Cornell last night.

The defense is the worst I’ve seen a P4 team play in a while outside of some of Brey’s ND teams.
 
While Bell may have shown some energy on O -

His D was epically atrocious.

I’ve seen folding chairs and traffic cones play better D.

Every time an Albany player hit a shot, it seemed like it was his man.

I do like that he’s not just settling for bricking 3’s, and has gotten to the FT line a lot more this season,
or at least in a few games this season.
 
Good post - a couple of more observations:

1. Loved the Lampkin behind the back pass for a Davis slam

2. Carlos is stepping up the last two games - big difference - he is being more aggressive in going - N to S when he sees an opportunity.

3. Westry - a loooooonnnnnnnnggggggg ways to go. He will NOT supplant Carlos this season. After two seasons of being out and stepping up to ACC caliber play, it would be a major accomplishment if he can work his way to being a reliable 5 to 10 MPG backup this season.

4. As another poster said in a different thread, we have a mishmash of talent. Almost everybody can get hot (or cold). This is a very tricky roster to manage. I think our most consistent pieces at this point in time are Freeman, Carlos, and Davis. Even those guys raise questions - can Freeman consistently hit 35%+ from trey range, will Carlos continue his N to S play against better competition, will Davis be able to do what he has been doing against bigger stronger opponents.

5. Probably Bell's best game ever other than some when he was on fire from trey range. As well as he played yesterday, it wont cut against ACC caliber competition, we BADLY need to be able to count on him for three or more treys per game.

6. When Moore had his two big games he looked fearless, the last two he looked like he was afraid to make a mistake. Step it up young man !!! You can do it !!! EARN PT - dont play like you are afraid to lose the PT that you have.

7. Maj - I like the mobility and energy he adds when he is on the court. Lots of potential there. I liked that he made that nice J.

8. Cuffe - showed he can at least do it in spurts.

9. Red - He pulled all the right O strings yesterday. Disappointed in the D effort in the second half. We never lost control, but we never got to see the walk-ons against a D3 opponent.
 
In no way, shape or form was our D ok.

Come on.

MikeSU02, our D was OK for this team. LOL

I wont even begin to compare what we do now to the type of defense SU used to play when we throttled teams. But we were seriously hurt by not being able to set up our offence in the 2nd half. Rebounding was OK, everything was OK. Freeman Was Fantastic shooting the 3.

I'm still not able to really understand this team style of play. Substitution pattern was awful. We cant give teams a run when we have a 20 point lead. We have to move our big guys to the top of the key to give our guards a chance to dribble and not get caught mid dribble. Takes away from our ability to get 2nd chance points. Also take away our ability to get back to stop/slow a fast break.

We have no way to stop dribble penetration, no weakside help and give up 2nd chance points in the paint as our guards do not rebound. Guards do not collapse in and I saw them just watches these ball fall on the floor.
 
In no way, shape or form was our D ok.

Come on.

Case in point:

The entire Syracuse team had exactly one more steal than I did last night.

Or one more than a dead man.

Related:

1733933911645.gif


I FEEL HAPPY!!!
 
I hope Moore is okay. He definitely was limping a bit after slipping on a wet spot on the floor. We need to play smaller more often with Davis and Petar with Donnie. The occasional nice pass doesn't make up for the dreadful defense. Hopefully it will be less noticeable when we play teams that actually have bigs...but I doubt it.
 
We gave up 12 offensive rebounds to them and played basket trading in the 2nd half. It was an atrocious defensive effort once again. There's no positives to take from that end of the court in that game.

I thought it was about 25 minutes of good defense - after the first 5 minutes of the first half, until about 8-10 minutes into the second half, when we kind of blew it out.
 
I’d like to see Chance come in and play off the ball instead of point guard. He doesn’t look comfortable at the point. He’s trying too hard to not make a mistake.

He hasn't played in 2 years. I agree; keep the pressure on him low. He might look good as the complimentary guard if we had JJ, but I'm not sure he really has any offense yet.
 
I’d like to see Chance come in and play off the ball instead of point guard. He doesn’t look comfortable at the point. He’s trying too hard to not make a mistake.
The last thing that most bball players get back after a long injury is their handle. The less he has to dribble the ball the better he will be at getting back into the swing of things. I agree 100% with you.
 
I don’t know where to put this but it would be real funny if Bryant beat St John’s.
 

startung at the 12 minute mark in the 2nd half, albany scored on 17 of 18 possessons and 12 in a row

bell was getting cooked on defense...whoever said his best game is lunching

Bell wasn’t in the game for 1/2 of that. He came out at the 11:24 mark and we were up by 22. Came back in at 6:21 and we were only up by 12. We won by 17. It was a team effort.
 
I thought that last night's game was a mixed bag. First of it can't be stated how important JJ is to this team. Along with Donnie he is our best player. He is also by all accounts the leader of this team. So, with him out we are limited. In addition, Dry Rub is at best playing at 70%. It is obvious he is injured and doing his best to play through it but he is severely limited.

With that as a background and given the fact that Albany is a step better than Nazareth the guys played a decent game. Ball movement was better and at least in the first half the D was ok. Carlos excelled against Albany maybe because he was playing against a competitive level that he was used to. All in all, I thought the guys did a good job.
The biggest bright spot for me was the play of Chris. He hustled all game and actually looked like he was enjoying himself. I thought that his effort and ability to beat his man off the bounce was as good as I have ever seen from him. He was focused and showing signs of leadership. Not sure what changed but I was really happy for him and hope that it continues. He has great skills so if he can just find himself as a young man and focus on all his gifts he is going to continue to do well. For me this was the best part of the game and the season to date. Last point. Enjoy Donnie while you can as he will be a one and done. Go Orange.
They gave up almost 90 points to Albany how the h*ll was the defense Ok?!!!! Did we watch the same game or are we just looking for silver linings in a orange turd lmao
 
Nothing this team does can remotely be called playing defense. This is a train wreck.

Albany drove and scored at will. Albany.

Take off the Syracuse jerseys and put on shirts that say "Bilbos Bail Bonds".
 
Albany scored 17 of 18 possessions at one point????

Lmao. That's embarrassing.
 
They gave up almost 90 points to Albany how the h*ll was the defense Ok?!!!! Did we watch the same game or are we just looking for silver linings in a orange turd lmao
Yes we watched the same game. I said that in the first half the D was OK. And in the first half it was OK.
 

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