my two cents

[kcsu]

After watching today's game I'm not sure what should be done. I started watching SU basketball when Roy was the coach and since that time I have never seen an SU team that has been as messed up as this one. Nothing is right. Its hard for me to describe as everything is off. There isnt one thing about this team that i can point to as being good. Not a single thing. Offense, Defense, Shooting, Rebounding nothing. More disturbing is that there seems to be a lack of any type of game plan. Usually we can all point to specifics that are off, to plays or specific substitutions that didnt make sense. Not with this team as nothing makes sense. There is no cohesion in anything that they do on the court. Total chaos is what I see. In short, a disorganized mess that has no plan and for this reason it is apparent that Red baring some type of miracle isn't the right person to coach Syracuse basketball back to relevance.
However, the one thing that I can't get my head around is the good job that Red did last year. Getting 20 wins out of that group was a good accomplishment. He had a mess on his hands and by all accounts handled it extremely well.
Fast forward to today's season and yesterday's game and the question is what happened. Is it as simple as the team not having any talent. With the operative word being any. I mean if you look at each player individually there isn't one player with the possible exception of Donnie and JJ that would start for any other ACC team. Maybe BC but i doubt it. The talent level on this team is horrible. Nobody can defend. Nobody is a force on the offensive end. Nobody is a fierce rebounder. Most importantly not one player is a leader. So, is it Red or is it a complete lack of talent. Obviously Red has to own the roster as he is the one that has constructed it. Still would JB be winning with this roster. Would he have won today or last game? My answer is no. The games would have been closer, but we wouldn't have won.
My take is that we have a team that has little to no talent and leadership and we have a coach who isn't very good.
I have been saying that Red will get a third year, and I still believe that to be the case. Still, I'm not sure as this team might not win more than two or three more games and I believe Red has either already lost them or at best they have one foot out the door. If that is the case, how do we move forward? What can JW do to save next year's recruiting class? Most importantly save the support that Melo is going to provide. For me if not for Melo I wouldn't give Red a third year. I would make the move after this season. But the power of Melo is so strong that I think he has to be part of the equation. I know this is a rant and ramble but I'm truly at a loss. There is simply nothing that I can see that can fix the team this season. I guess Red could focus on the future and play the kids that might be back, but I don't know.
I'm pissed and sad to see what has happened to our program. I will keep watching and keep supporting as I have for close to 60 years. Hopefully we find a miracle and win a few games. This sucks.

 

[Cuseball]

After watching today's game I'm not sure what should be done. I started watching SU basketball when Roy was the coach and since that time I have never seen an SU team that has been as messed up as this one. Nothing is right. Its hard for me to describe as everything is off. There isnt one thing about this team that i can point to as being good. Not a single thing. Offense, Defense, Shooting, Rebounding nothing. More disturbing is that there seems to be a lack of any type of game plan. Usually we can all point to specifics that are off, to plays or specific substitutions that didnt make sense. Not with this team as nothing makes sense. There is no cohesion in anything that they do on the court. Total chaos is what I see. In short, a disorganized mess that has no plan and for this reason it is apparent that Red baring some type of miracle isn't the right person to coach Syracuse basketball back to relevance.
However, the one thing that I can't get my head around is the good job that Red did last year. Getting 20 wins out of that group was a good accomplishment. He had a mess on his hands and by all accounts handled it extremely well.
Fast forward to today's season and yesterday's game and the question is what happened. Is it as simple as the team not having any talent. With the operative word being any. I mean if you look at each player individually there isn't one player with the possible exception of Donnie and JJ that would start for any other ACC team. Maybe BC but i doubt it. The talent level on this team is horrible. Nobody can defend. Nobody is a force on the offensive end. Nobody is a fierce rebounder. Most importantly not one player is a leader. So, is it Red or is it a complete lack of talent. Obviously Red has to own the roster as he is the one that has constructed it. Still would JB be winning with this roster. Would he have won today or last game? My answer is no. The games would have been closer, but we wouldn't have won.
My take is that we have a team that has little to no talent and leadership and we have a coach who isn't very good.
I have been saying that Red will get a third year, and I still believe that to be the case. Still, I'm not sure as this team might not win more than two or three more games and I believe Red has either already lost them or at best they have one foot out the door. If that is the case, how do we move forward? What can JW do to save next year's recruiting class? Most importantly save the support that Melo is going to provide. For me if not for Melo I wouldn't give Red a third year. I would make the move after this season. But the power of Melo is so strong that I think he has to be part of the equation. I know this is a rant and ramble but I'm truly at a loss. There is simply nothing that I can see that can fix the team this season. I guess Red could focus on the future and play the kids that might be back, but I don't know.
I'm pissed and sad to see what has happened to our program. I will keep watching and keep supporting as I have for close to 60 years. Hopefully we find a miracle and win a few games. This sucks.

Agree with a lot of what you have said . I do disagree and think Autry only did an okay job last year. We had 19 wins and 12 losses. 9 of those losses were by complete blowouts (15+ points). The path forward does seem a little hopeless but it does need to start with an acknowledgement that Autry is not the right coach . We need to cut losses and try and move forward. I hope that a conversation with Melo can be had and he could play a role in helping find the right coach to lead his son. There is no use continuing this failed experiment when we all know how it ends.

 

[SmilinBob]

All I can say is hopefully JJ heals and Red puts him a PG. It's the best this current group can do this season.

 

[Newhouser]

In the paper this AM, Red said changes are coming. Um what changes can he instill now? Presto you're talented. Abra cadabra you will now play hard.

 

[oldpinepoint]

Had this conversation about last year and how they got 20 wins:

1. Maybe GMAC was a greater influence on that team, could also be the reason why he left.
2. Maybe all the discord about Judah and Q and whomever was them not listening to red that got us to 20 wins. Last years team would beat this years team by 20.

 

[NKR1978]

In the paper this AM, Red said changes are coming. Um what changes can he instill now? Presto you're talented. Abra cadabra you will now play hard.

Somehow this staff is going to learn how to coach offense, defense and rebounding.

 

[HRE Otto IV]

Last year's team had the talent to make the NCAAT, we didn't make it. Generally we beat teams we had more talent than and got blown out by NCAAT calibre teams. Talent wasn't an issue. We were told it was player management, and despite taking a decent hit in talent level this year we would be better because of better team buy in. That has been proven to be completely wrong. It now looks like last year's failures were Red, and not the players.

 

[Orangefan1]

His savings grace right now is that Starling is out but there is no reason for Carlos to be playing 40 minutes a game

 

[atlanticuse]

19 D-1 games.
+ Chaminade.

 

[capeorange]

19 D-1 games.
+ Chaminade.

62.5% including Chaminade, 20 games or 19 is not what it used to be.

 

[Nicknack]

After watching today's game I'm not sure what should be done. I started watching SU basketball when Roy was the coach and since that time I have never seen an SU team that has been as messed up as this one. Nothing is right. Its hard for me to describe as everything is off. There isnt one thing about this team that i can point to as being good. Not a single thing. Offense, Defense, Shooting, Rebounding nothing. More disturbing is that there seems to be a lack of any type of game plan. Usually we can all point to specifics that are off, to plays or specific substitutions that didnt make sense. Not with this team as nothing makes sense. There is no cohesion in anything that they do on the court. Total chaos is what I see. In short, a disorganized mess that has no plan and for this reason it is apparent that Red baring some type of miracle isn't the right person to coach Syracuse basketball back to relevance.
However, the one thing that I can't get my head around is the good job that Red did last year. Getting 20 wins out of that group was a good accomplishment. He had a mess on his hands and by all accounts handled it extremely well.
Fast forward to today's season and yesterday's game and the question is what happened. Is it as simple as the team not having any talent. With the operative word being any. I mean if you look at each player individually there isn't one player with the possible exception of Donnie and JJ that would start for any other ACC team. Maybe BC but i doubt it. The talent level on this team is horrible. Nobody can defend. Nobody is a force on the offensive end. Nobody is a fierce rebounder. Most importantly not one player is a leader. So, is it Red or is it a complete lack of talent. Obviously Red has to own the roster as he is the one that has constructed it. Still would JB be winning with this roster. Would he have won today or last game? My answer is no. The games would have been closer, but we wouldn't have won.
My take is that we have a team that has little to no talent and leadership and we have a coach who isn't very good.
I have been saying that Red will get a third year, and I still believe that to be the case. Still, I'm not sure as this team might not win more than two or three more games and I believe Red has either already lost them or at best they have one foot out the door. If that is the case, how do we move forward? What can JW do to save next year's recruiting class? Most importantly save the support that Melo is going to provide. For me if not for Melo I wouldn't give Red a third year. I would make the move after this season. But the power of Melo is so strong that I think he has to be part of the equation. I know this is a rant and ramble but I'm truly at a loss. There is simply nothing that I can see that can fix the team this season. I guess Red could focus on the future and play the kids that might be back, but I don't know.
I'm pissed and sad to see what has happened to our program. I will keep watching and keep supporting as I have for close to 60 years. Hopefully we find a miracle and win a few games. This sucks.

A lot of good points, kcsu. I echo a lot of what you're saying especially the chaos and mess on the court we're watching. The one thing that I'll say about giving Red credit for what he did last year (sure, I have no problem with that) but I think this is overstated on this board. I tend to think it was more of a PG who carried the team on his back at times and got us some wins that otherwise would have been losses. I'm not a Mintz fan, but he was a lot for other teams to handle at times and we have no one like that this year. The other thing that is really apparent to me is that last year we had more clarity of what we were trying to do versus this year's mess.

In the first half yesterday, two things screamed out: 1) Lack of talent, 2) Lack of a consistent approach to what we're trying to do which leads to a lack of clarity of roles. I'm no basketball coach, far from it. However, it's painfully obvious to see.

I don't mean to slam Carlos, he's doing what he can but for us to "have" to rely on him for 36-37 minutes a game is a death sentence. No way we can compete against good teams with him logging so many minutes (in addition to what else we're putting on the court - way too many zero offense production). He logged 40 minutes yesterday yet scored 2 points and had 4 turnovers to go along with his 4 assists but apparently he's the only guy who can dribble.

It took about 15 minutes in the first half before Bell got even a reasonably good shot from 3. That's just awful. We can't run something offensively for our best shooter to get an open shot? I don't even know what to say about Bell this year. How on earth do you regress this badly? I feel for him in that regard.

Lampkin does what he can but I've said it before, if he's your best option on offense, you're in trouble. He's a great talent to have within the system but not as your featured guy wearing #44.

I was surprised by Jyare yesterday. He struggled mightily. Not sure why he got pulled so early in the game to return later but perhaps Red has a good reason. I'll give him a pass as he is usually much better.

Lastly, what a shame that we're wasting a year of Donnie. Who knows how good he could be if he were on a decent team. Maybe the silver lining is that we're so bad that he won't get much attention and we will get another year with him (although I'm not holding my breath as another team could come in and poach him).

 

[Dick_in_MI]

However, the one thing that I can't get my head around is the good job that Red did last year. Getting 20 wins out of that group was a good accomplishment. He had a mess on his hands and by all accounts handled it extremely well.

The off the court soap opera had to be insane.

Then you look at how some of those guys are doing now. Judah had his detractors, but he was always going to be a huge loss. Maliq as well.

The rest of them? Benny is the 6th man at UCF. Copeland is only 9th in terms of minutes played at freaking McNeese State. Taylor isn't playing much...injury? Clearly, these guys were not only not ACC material, they aren't even good enough to start at lower levels.

And yet, that pile of Misfit Toys would crush this year's team. Heck, last year's Chris Bell would mop the floor with this year's Chris Bell. And all of that makes the current disaster even scarier.

So, Red did accomplish something last year. This year is a total mess though, from players to coaches. Right now, I'd keep Freeman, Choppa, and maybe Petar. He is only a frosh but seems to have some upside. As for anyone else? Hey, you guys are getting paid a lot of $$$. Welcome to the real world and a round of massive layoffs at work. Stop by HR on your way out. By the way, your company car and SU uniform stays here.

 

[Nicknack]

In the paper this AM, Red said changes are coming. Um what changes can he instill now? Presto you're talented. Abra cadabra you will now play hard.

If one of the first changes isn't at starting point guard who is logging 37.6 minutes over the last 5 games, we're totally screwed. It's embarrassing. Unfortunately, I don't think that's going to be it. I don't really think even Red knows (truly).

As for last year, some here like to point to what some of our guys who transferred are doing this year to support their point that they weren't very good. Following that logic, then we could say Bell really wasn't good last year either since this year he is a shell of himself. However, that would be stupid to say. He was an elite shooter.

Also, Mintz was a beast at times. Him alone on this year's team would have us with a couple more wins. Brown was terrific. Bell last year was lights out. Copeland had his moments. Last year we had a team (albeit a dysfunctional one). This year we just have players - there is zero team in what we're watching.

 

[capeorange]

If one of the first changes isn't at starting point guard who is logging 37.6 minutes over the last 5 games, we're totally screwed. It's embarrassing. Unfortunately, I don't think that's going to be it. I don't really think even Red knows (truly).

As for last year, some here like to point to what some of our guys who transferred are doing this year to support their point that they weren't very good. Following that logic, then we could say Bell really wasn't good last year either since this year he is a shell of himself. However, that would be stupid to say. He was an elite shooter.

Also, Mintz was a beast at times. Him alone on this year's team would have us with a couple more wins. Brown was terrific. Bell last year was lights out. Copeland had his moments. Last year we had a team (albeit a dysfunctional one). This year we just have players - there is zero team in what we're watching.

The bold text says it all. Last year I complained about Mintz passing only when he had no where to go. This year the whole team, with the exception of Eddie who wants to get noticed for his passing, seems to not like to share the ball until they are cut off.
I was disappointed with Choppa yesterday. He scored 16 pts but there were several times he should of passed to an open player.

 

[baggerbob]

Had this conversation about last year and how they got 20 wins:

1. Maybe GMAC was a greater influence on that team, could also be the reason why he left.
2. Maybe all the discord about Judah and Q and whomever was them not listening to red that got us to 20 wins. Last years team would beat this years team by 20.

You at least had 2 players on last years team in Judah, and Q who could make plays.
This team has no one who can make a play.
Judah and Q on the floor at the same time caused opposing teams problems.
You had to account for both of them, which allowed players like Bell open looks.

 

[dasher]

After watching today's game I'm not sure what should be done. I started watching SU basketball when Roy was the coach and since that time I have never seen an SU team that has been as messed up as this one. Nothing is right. Its hard for me to describe as everything is off. There isnt one thing about this team that i can point to as being good. Not a single thing. Offense, Defense, Shooting, Rebounding nothing. More disturbing is that there seems to be a lack of any type of game plan. Usually we can all point to specifics that are off, to plays or specific substitutions that didnt make sense. Not with this team as nothing makes sense. There is no cohesion in anything that they do on the court. Total chaos is what I see. In short, a disorganized mess that has no plan and for this reason it is apparent that Red baring some type of miracle isn't the right person to coach Syracuse basketball back to relevance.
However, the one thing that I can't get my head around is the good job that Red did last year. Getting 20 wins out of that group was a good accomplishment. He had a mess on his hands and by all accounts handled it extremely well.
Fast forward to today's season and yesterday's game and the question is what happened. Is it as simple as the team not having any talent. With the operative word being any. I mean if you look at each player individually there isn't one player with the possible exception of Donnie and JJ that would start for any other ACC team. Maybe BC but i doubt it. The talent level on this team is horrible. Nobody can defend. Nobody is a force on the offensive end. Nobody is a fierce rebounder. Most importantly not one player is a leader. So, is it Red or is it a complete lack of talent. Obviously Red has to own the roster as he is the one that has constructed it. Still would JB be winning with this roster. Would he have won today or last game? My answer is no. The games would have been closer, but we wouldn't have won.
My take is that we have a team that has little to no talent and leadership and we have a coach who isn't very good.
I have been saying that Red will get a third year, and I still believe that to be the case. Still, I'm not sure as this team might not win more than two or three more games and I believe Red has either already lost them or at best they have one foot out the door. If that is the case, how do we move forward? What can JW do to save next year's recruiting class? Most importantly save the support that Melo is going to provide. For me if not for Melo I wouldn't give Red a third year. I would make the move after this season. But the power of Melo is so strong that I think he has to be part of the equation. I know this is a rant and ramble but I'm truly at a loss. There is simply nothing that I can see that can fix the team this season. I guess Red could focus on the future and play the kids that might be back, but I don't know.
I'm pissed and sad to see what has happened to our program. I will keep watching and keep supporting as I have for close to 60 years. Hopefully we find a miracle and win a few games. This sucks.

What I disagree with is...nothing. You nailed it. I think that Melo's help will be great. But are we really sure that if we threw Cooper Flagg and others out there, would Red coach them up? I have seen nothing to suggest that Red can coach in practice, game plan, and in game coach. Nothing. I know he can recruit. My questions on this team are way past wins and losses at this point. Can we keep Moore and Freeman for next year? And even if we do, can this staff do anything with talent. I think there has to be a change on the staff at the very least.

 

[PhatOrange]

If he's guaranteed to get next year then you have to blow it up and start over. There are 5 players imo worth keeping around with the incoming frosh; JJ, Freeman, Moore, Petar and JDavis.

I think both Freeman and Moore are gonzo though. It'll take some loyalty. They'll have opportunities to play on tournament teams and this team is looking at 8-22 or worse.

It's imperative they find a P4 starting PG.

 

[Sdot]

If he's guaranteed to get next year then you have to blow it up and start over. There are 5 players imo worth keeping around with the incoming frosh; JJ, Freeman, Moore, Petar and JDavis.

I think both Freeman and Moore are gonzo though. It'll take some loyalty. They'll have opportunities to play on tournament teams and this team is looking at 8-22 or worse.

It's imperative they find a P4 starting PG.

Davis is graduating this year.

 

[RyanCuse44]

The off the court soap opera had to be insane.

Then you look at how some of those guys are doing now. Judah had his detractors, but he was always going to be a huge loss. Maliq as well.

The rest of them? Benny is the 6th man at UCF. Copeland is only 9th in terms of minutes played at freaking McNeese State. Taylor isn't playing much...injury? Clearly, these guys were not only not ACC material, they aren't even good enough to start at lower levels.

And yet, that pile of Misfit Toys would crush this year's team. Heck, last year's Chris Bell would mop the floor with this year's Chris Bell. And all of that makes the current disaster even scarier.

So, Red did accomplish something last year. This year is a total mess though, from players to coaches. Right now, I'd keep Freeman, Choppa, and maybe Petar. He is only a frosh but seems to have some upside. As for anyone else? Hey, you guys are getting paid a lot of $$$. Welcome to the real world and a round of massive layoffs at work. Stop by HR on your way out. By the way, your company car and SU uniform stays here.

How JB said this one or his best recruiting class is beyond me and probably a lot of posters on this board.

 

[Sdot]

How JB said this one or his best recruiting class is beyond me and probably a lot of posters on this board.

His best class in the last 15 years was 2015…we got Richardson,lydon and Frank Howard.

 

[RyanCuse44]

His best class in the last 15 years was 2015…we got Richardson,lydon and Frank Howard.

Ugh you said Frank Howard, that brings back bad memory's.

 

[Sdot]

Ugh you said Frank Howard, that brings back bad memory's.

He’d be the best player on this year team consistency wise. Which is crazy

 

[atlanticuse]

We’re going to be like SJ State, as it relates to transfers.
We’ll be starting from scratch come April.
And Red can’t pull together a plan with a misfit menagerie.