No matter how things unfold, no matter who the next head coach ends up being...

[rrlbees]

Primarily, because his HC was unrelateable.

you'll have to take that up with ryan who indicated several reasons.

 

[PhatOrange]

Yeah it seemed like JB couldn’t keep both Kadary and Joe happy at the same time, and absent reducing Buddy’s minutes (haha), something had to give and he favored Joe. Agree it was the wrong move, Kadary was great in the zone compared to Joe and just made plays Joe couldn’t make

I don't remember the lineup at the time but Kadary at point guard Joe at shooting guard with Buddy at the 3 would've been fine. Joe always played out of position at point anyways.

 

[RF2044]

you'll have to take that up with ryan who indicated several reasons.

Favoritism and dysfunction being atop the list of reasons.

 

[rrlbees]

Favoritism and dysfunction being atop the list of reasons.

ok. one example you must have forgotten was he and newton filming their attendance at a wall to wall "covid party" and putting it up on social media until someone got to them and they took it down. or maybe the early games where he spent a lot of time on the bike? jb rode his ass hard. he also hated the area. ryan knew late december early january he was leaving for a number of reasons.

 

[OttoinGrotto]

ok. one example you must have forgotten was he and newton filming their attendance at a wall to wall "covid party" and putting it up on social media until someone got to them and they took it down. or maybe the early games where he spent a lot of time on the bike? jb rode his ass hard. he also hated the area. ryan knew late december early january he was leaving for a number of reasons.

Oh man, Newton. That guy one me an improbable Iggie.

Weird player. Supposedly wasn't very good and didn't show much on practice, but got into games and just made multiple immediate plays.

 

[JonB]

With JB, they very rarely had good players leave. If you look at the last couple of years, they had Westry, Brown, Copeland all leave. Westry and Copeland were superior PG's and are shining elsewhere. Even a Sr. Girard went on to transfer, and make a difference at Clemson. That is 4 guys in two years. Can you name 4 guys in 47 JB years that transferred and were better than these guys? Glen Sukuna, Tony Bland, Richmond, and who else? Those guys left to mid majors because we recruited over them. We replaced Mintz with Carlos, and recruited over Westry with George. This program is a joke now. Get this Autry guy outta here.

 

[Millhouse]

...I really hope that we get back to having a superior point guard. PG is such a competitive advantage in college hoops -- the most important position on the floor, and most years we aren't as good there as we need to be.

we prioritize height too much even now

 

[Millhouse]

Syracuse starting point guards since Tyler Ennis departed...

2015: Kaleb Joseph
2016: Michael Gbinije
2017: John Gillon
2018: Frank Howard
2019: Frank Howard
2020: Joe Girard
2021: Joe Girard
2022: Joe Girard
2023: Judah Mintz
2024: Judah Mintz
2025: Jaquan Carlos
2026: Naithan George

This may be the most depressing list I've ever posted here.

john gillon was very good but he was never going to work in the zone

 

[hoopsupstate]

Might be some possible point guards from the ACC going into the portal. Duke has Rippey coming in with Boozer and Foster both expected back. Carolina has young Dixon with the nations top ranked point guard coming in.

 

[CuseFaninVT]

Oh man, Newton. That guy one me an improbable Iggie.

Weird player. Supposedly wasn't very good and didn't show much on practice, but got into games and just made multiple immediate plays.

Won

 

[PhatOrange]

ok. one example you must have forgotten was he and newton filming their attendance at a wall to wall "covid party" and putting it up on social media until someone got to them and they took it down. or maybe the early games where he spent a lot of time on the bike? jb rode his ass hard. he also hated the area. ryan knew late december early january he was leaving for a number of reasons.

lol a Covid party. What an insane and wild time.

 

[Millhouse]

lol a Covid party. What an insane and wild time.

The death toll of healthy young people must've been horrific...

 

[kingtidge]

...I really hope that we get back to having a superior point guard. PG is such a competitive advantage in college hoops -- the most important position on the floor, and most years we aren't as good there as we need to be.

Let's make sure we have a good point guard and good coach.

Nait George led the ACC in assists last year as an all-conference PG as a sophmore.

He certainly isn't the best PG we've ever had, but running a terrible and poorly-coached system is a big part of his problems this year methinks and his talent was squandered.

He'd be quite capable with the right system and coach.

 

[NKR1978]

Had a crazy run of PGs with Flynn, MCW, Triche, Ennis, Gbinije

You forgot Scoop.

 

[OttoinGrotto]

Won

Autocorrect did me dirty twice in that post.

 

[EnviroSciGuy]

The death toll of healthy young people must've been horrific...

Nope, just the vulnerable folks they knew.

Always funny when this stuff draws out the folks who dgaf about any consequences to others.

 

[RF2044]

ok. one example you must have forgotten was he and newton filming their attendance at a wall to wall "covid party" and putting it up on social media until someone got to them and they took it down. or maybe the early games where he spent a lot of time on the bike? jb rode his ass hard. he also hated the area. ryan knew late december early january he was leaving for a number of reasons.

It would be an understatement to suggest that JB has always been hard on certain players. Even going back decades, there were often players he'd ride harder than others / single out as that season's whipping boy.

And the players reacted to that differently. Some chafed under this acerbic criticism and didn't cooperate even if they weren't "bad" kids [too many players to list, but Flynn and Mintz are examples]. Some used it as motivation, worked harder, and didn't let it bring them down [Jason Hart]. Some got into contests of wills with Boeheim, and had to be talked down off the ledge by ACs [Harris, Coleman]. And some nearly let it break them [Roberson] because they internalize the criticism. And some struggled early, but then came through the crucible stronger and thrived later on, after earning Boeheim's trust [Scoop].

This isn't an overt criticism of Boeheim. Exceptional coaches [and players] are often unusual people who are driven and sharp edged -- its part of what makes them excel in a competitive environment. But it also meant that he was like a bull in a china shop in terms of interpersonal dynamics, and the assistant coaches had to do a lot of clean up for this insensitivity. And it wasn't as pronounced earlier in his time as SU as it was later on.

And to Boeheim's credit, there are plenty of examples of guys who after their playing careers had ended -- even players who gave Boeheim the most difficulty, like Harris / Coleman / Devo -- view their time under Boeheim differently, and give him lots of credit for helping them grow up.

But toward the end of Boeheim's time on the hill, a couple of things had changed. First, he was substantially older, and had more difficulty relating to players who were teens / in their early 20s. Net result: he was more emotionally distant - more of a program figurehead at that point.

Second, the composition of the staff changed. Mike Hopkins had been the yin to Boeheim's hard edged yang -- and was a guy who was kind of like a big brother / the players' best friend. The good cop counter to the bad cop of the head coach. And he left. Red had many of those same qualitities and could certainly relate to many of the players culturally, but wasn't quite the same as Hopkins, so the safety valve that had depressurized many situations in the past was no longer there.

Third, as he got older, Boeheim's tolerance for "head cases" precipitously diminished, and he didn't tolerate shenanigans as much as he had earlier, when he'd put up with a lot more in pursuit of wins. He started recruiting guys who wouldn't give him trouble, because he lacked the patience to put up with that type of off the court nonsense anymore. And as his tolerance went down, his knee jerk reaction to player speed bumps became sharper.

And finally, at the end of his tenure, there was a new wrinkle: the perception of family-related favoritism. This had not been an issue at any prior point of JB's lengthy coaching career -- but by the time Kadary was here for his lone season on the hill, JB was featuring his son as the team's top shot taker [and the following year, would also have a second son transfer in], and the perception was that he treated Girard like another "son."

So what does this have to do with Kadary? He wasn't as bad as many of his predecesors had been, in terms of off the court stuff. And he was far from the first player to feel isolated in CNY, or not like it. And he certainly was not alone in not resonating with JB's interpersonal style.

But for many other players [not all of them], they were able to get over these challenges either because of AC intervention, or because the team was winning at a high level. Think: Dion Waiters, who was about as big of a headcase as there was, but sublimated a lot of that his second year and was willing to come off of the bench [despite being the eventual #3 pick in the draft] because the team went 30-1 that regular season; winning cures all.

Toward the end, the team wasn't winning as much. Grousing became more prevelant. Hopkins was gone, and the "good cops" weren't as "good" at that role as Hop had been. And an inner city kid like Kadary found himself not enjoying the experience. He couldn't relate to a nearly 80 year old man, who her perceived as showing blatant favoritism to a player who wasn't as good of a point guard as he was.

And from Kadary's standpoint, he didn't get with the program as much as he should have -- it wasn't all on Boeheim.

Maybe things would have been different if Hop had been on the staff. Maybe he would have headed things off at the pass and depressurized the situation, like he had with strong-willed guys like Paul Harris. Or maybe Kadary would have suffered in silence like a similarly taciturn player, who broke under this style of coaching, like Tyler Roberson.

Nevertheless, as it turns out Kadary was pretty good. Borderline NBA good [although his inability to shoot consistently ultimately held him back]. It was a faux paux to squeeze him out and tell him he was going to sit behind a player who was being misutilized as a PG, and wasn't as good at is as Kadary was.

But Boeheim marched to his own drum, and at that stage of his tenure, at the end of his career, he was less tolerant of push back.

It's too bad, because Kadary probably could have turned that losing season with both Boeheim boys into an NCAA squad -- that is only my opinion, but I believe it fully. I can only imagine how dynamic that offense would have been with scorers like Cole, Buddy, Jimmy, and Joe -- with Jesse manning the middle and Kadary pushing the ball, handling full court pressure with ease, and distributing the ball with his outstanding court vision to a floor full of shooters. On that type of squad, he could have easily led the ACC in assists.

What might have been.

 

[newmexicuse]

Let's make sure we have a good point guard and good coach.

Nait George led the ACC in assists last year as an all-conference PG as a sophmore.

He certainly isn't the best PG we've ever had, but running a terrible and poorly-coached system is a big part of his problems this year methinks and his talent was squandered.

He'd be quite capable with the right system and coach.

George will never be an elite PG, but he can be an adequate to above average PG if he can cut his TOs. How much of that is system and coaching ????

I am OK with bringing him back, but if it is at all possible to recruit over him that would be a big plus.

 

[Orangezoo]

The death toll of healthy young people must've been horrific...

Leave your substack BS elsewhere.

 

[Bayside44]

With JB, they very rarely had good players leave. If you look at the last couple of years, they had Westry, Brown, Copeland all leave. Westry and Copeland were superior PG's and are shining elsewhere. Even a Sr. Girard went on to transfer, and make a difference at Clemson. That is 4 guys in two years. Can you name 4 guys in 47 JB years that transferred and were better than these guys? Glen Sukuna, Tony Bland, Richmond, and who else? Those guys left to mid majors because we recruited over them. We replaced Mintz with Carlos, and recruited over Westry with George. This program is a joke now. Get this Autry guy outta here.

The transfer rule being completely different might be 99.5% of the reason for that.

 

[RF2044]

Syracuse starting point guards since Tyler Ennis departed...

2015: Kaleb Joseph
2016: Michael Gbinije
2017: John Gillon
2018: Frank Howard
2019: Frank Howard
2020: Joe Girard
2021: Joe Girard
2022: Joe Girard
2023: Judah Mintz
2024: Judah Mintz
2025: Jaquan Carlos
2026: Naithan George

This may be the most depressing list I've ever posted here.

Crazy.

Obviously, Gbinije had about as good of a senior season as anyone could have hoped. He morphed into a plus lead guard, who was also a good scorer / shooter, and a plus defender. Prior to that he was a backup PG, but bounced around between wing, 2, and backing up Ennis since there was nobody else to do so. But safe to say that by his senior year, he was a difference maker -- an all conference, borderline all american type who had a season that propelled him into the NBA.

Other than that...

We've only had a couple of passable seasons from PGs throughout that span. Gbinije was the gold standard. Mintz / George flashed intermittently, but failed to elevate their teams. Gillon was solid in his one year here, but had some limitations [especially on the defensive end]. That's it.

Joseph and Carlos were flops.

George is OK.

Howard wasn't very good.

Mintz wasn't a really lead guard, but was reasonable.

Girard wasn't really a lead guard, and was miscast in that role / utilized improperly here.

Gillon was a break glass in case of emergency add, but was a terrific offensive player, but a defensive liability and an average playmaker / ballhandler.

So we've had... what, maybe 3 or 4 years out of 12 with even just adequate PG play over that span you list?

Very good year with Gbinije, which coincided with a final four run.

Mintz and George were adequate.

JB waited too long to insert Gillon into the starting lineup, and we missed the NCAAT by an eyelash after a dreadful performance in the non-conference portion of the schedule in 2017.

Howard was a buffoon.

We struggled with Girard at the helm [he was much better at Clemson, used more properly off-the-ball].

Joseph was the hand-picked successor to Ennis, and he was a huge miss.

Carlos was similarly a huge miss.

 

[Millhouse]

Leave your substack BS elsewhere.

It's the first I've heard of this heinous unspeakable atrocity and I was just expressing my horror

 

[Orangezoo]

It's the first I've heard of this heinous unspeakable atrocity and I was just expressing my horror

 

[Sherman20]

Telling Kadary Richmond that he was going to come off the bench for another year backing up Joe Girard was a colossal blunder on JB's part, IMO.

Richmond had flaws, but he absolutely also had the goods to put the team on his back and make us better than what those teams ended up being. That losing season would have looked totally different with Kadary feeding the ball to Buddy, Jimmy, and Cole.

What a dumb, self-inflicted mistake that was in retrospect. But such was JB's loyalty to his guys.

He was our last great PG. We would’ve been so good with him if he stayed all 5 years.

 

[Sherman20]

according to ryan blackwell, on a podcast with a few other ex su players, he made it known early his freshman season he was gone at the end of the season. he hated being in syracuse for a number of reasons.

You should remember that was Covid year. Which was not fun for college kids in any way. That was a very stressful and unusual season for everyone with all the restrictions. I think he would’ve had a very different experience here with no pandemic. And JB did not help matters.