Of these three things what would you like to see Syracuse do more?

[Orangeyes]

1. Play the bench more?

2. Switch defenses from time to time?

3. Press more?

None of the above?

All of the above?

One or two of the above, if so which ones?

 

[gmoney44]

Play the bench

 

[cuseattle]

3 we are very good at that.
Edit. The 3 times a year we try it.
Go press!!!

 

[Alsacs]

All of them depending on the situation.

Playing the bench more is a given. Players wear down over the course of a 31 game regular season. No kid unless they are hot or Carmelo Anthony/Hakim Warrick 1st/2nd all-American talent should be playing high 30s mpg. We should have atleast 8-10 guys who can play double digit minutes per game. Atleast 1 big for fouls, 1 guard for rest, and 1 swing guy. JB expects these kids to play high minutes and keep their energy up when nowadays scouting is so good that teams can analyze everything about your players. Where they like to take their shots from, where they are hot from, which side they drive too. Playing more guys gives the players more margin for error in case they have a bad game or stretch because someone else can pick them up. If you only play 7 guys and only 4 of them can score and 2 have off nights good luck winning.

I don't hate playing the zone as it works, but switching it up 2-3 minutes during a game wouldn't be a bad thing just to confuse an opponent like an opponent will switch from man to man to zone after a timeout sometimes to confuse an opponent. I wouldn't mind 90-95% of zone and 5-10% of man to man.

I don't like pressing unless we have depth because it wears the players legs out. I wouldn't mind using it though whenever teams plays stall ball against us.

 

[Dave85]

1. Play the bench more?

2. Switch defenses from time to time?

3. Press more?

None of the above?

All of the above?

One or two of the above, if so which ones?

From that list play the bench more. How about this one:

4. Shoot a higher percentage from 3-point range.

 

[Orangeyes]

From that list play the bench more. How about this one:

4. Shoot a higher percentage from 3-point range.

That would be great but isn't a controlable

 

[cuseincincy]

I'd say all of them but #1 is the most important to me. Gotta play 8-10 to keep guys fresh. By playing that many I think it allows you to be more aggressive which comes in handy for #2 & #3. I have no problem with the zone as your primary defense but switch it up. I know JB says they are good at it because thats all they play but a little variety doesn't hurt and keeps your players into the game. The youth teams I coach enjoy playing junk defenses a few times per game. Throw a full court zone trap on em one possession. A couple minutes later if they got a guy hot throw a box and one on them, or triangle and 2 they might not realize it for a couple possessions. Just break it up a little and that includes pressing.

 

[OttoMets]

I'd like to see some proactive pressing now and again; it could help us bury the teams that tend to slow down the tempo and keep games close with us. Then again, our press looks so chaotic that I'm not sure how effective it'd be against the good teams (as opposed to, say, North Carolina State or Boston College this past year). The coaching staff could improve in this area.

We could definitely stand to use our bench more wisely, if not more frequently. We need to see a lot less of Christmas or Gbinije getting an instant hook for a mistake while our veteran star forwards are kept in after repeated missed rotations, forced shots, or failed box-outs. Given our recent depth, as a rule, no starter should play more than 35 minutes; we need to work more guys into the rotation to a) keep everyone fresh and b) keep everyone motivated. It worked so well when Boeheim divided the guard minutes evenly among Scoop, Triche, and Waiters in 2012; I'd hoped this would lead to a long-term change in philosophy and wish they'd revisit this strategy.

I don't care what defense they play as long as they're well-coached, give effort, and take pride in it. Cooney and, especially, Ennis were ineffective at times this season, but that was more due to physical limitations or inexperience - they wouldn't have been better off playing man. The defense has been pretty darn good ever since Flynn and Devendorf left; hopefully the tradition continues this season.

 

[CuseFaninVT]

Definitely play the bench more - it's unrealistic to think, after this many years of experience, that not anticipating injuries will hurt in the long run. I'm not looking to give starters minutes to anyone, just get them some actual game experience.

I'd love to press more, but definitely not the press we ran last year. That was terrible and useless. Too many fast breaks resulted. The press I'd like to see would allow the first pass and then trap.

 

[Orangeyes]

If we are going to press we need someone athletic and long at the back end.

 

[jimsonjunction]

Get out in transition.

In the past, it's been a staple of Syracuse basketball, so I expect to see it return a little bit this year. It's such an important factor in the momentum of the game. Hopefully Joseph and co. look to push the tempo a bit and get some easy scores.

 

[Trueblue25]

Play the bench.

 

[br801]

1. Play the bench more?

2. Switch defenses from time to time?

3. Press more?

None of the above?

All of the above?

One or two of the above, if so which ones?

Press more proactively as a matter of course, and not mainly out of desperation.

 

[nccusefan]

Id love to see us mix in some more press to speed up teams who try to use the clock to limit our possessions. To do that though I believe we would need to also play the bench more.

 

[JohnCuse44]

Win a national championship

 

[Lawrinson14]

Agree with those who are saying a mix of all three. I think the thing that irritates me the most is that Coach B's mindset seems to be "We will be fine. Let them be the ones to adjust to us and our zone".

We are predictable. Zone on D, one-on-one heavy offense with a couple double screens thrown in.

I think that throwing in a couple wrinkles here and there (man-to-man, press, etc). might be beneficial. Hell, you don't have to do it 50% of the time. Just one possession here and there to give the opponent a different look.

 

[Hoov50]

I vote for push the pace and get our transition game going. The years we did that along with our 2-3 we were able to blow out a lot of teams that should have played us close. This is especially important with how awful our half court offense has been the past two years!

 

[SoBeCuse]

1. Switch up defenses
2. 'Develop' a bench. All these good recruits lately. Boeheim says they're not ready, they're not ready. Well get them ready!

 

[orangefan13]

I like the thinking behind all three but I am happy with none of the above.

Playing the bench, unless we are the best team in college ball in the last 15 years, not so much. It should Depend on how ready someone is offensively and defensively to earn more minutes. Would rather have great players who are ready instead of 8th 9th men getting 15 minutes per game but no great scoring leadership in our first 7 guys. However, I would rather have this possibility also, as it can be good for team endurance.

As for switching defenses ok, but not m2m, maybe a box and one, or more realistically tweeking our zone to do different things which we already do. We nearly played some 3-2 zone this year . Would rather just have good on the ball defenders especially up top in the zone. Someone like Andy Rautins, Dion Waiters or MCW's. We haven't had two great on the ball defenders in the backcourt together in the last 10 years, if we did we would have 2 guys extending with on the ball pressure on the floor together at times.

The best part about the press is it can kill 10 seconds off the shot clock then they only have 20 seconds to attack our zone. We use it when we are behind to up the tempo hoping they will take not so good shots, not to wear down our opponents.

I am all for taking risks and tweaking lineups giving new heads a chance, but this is also one of the if ain't broke don't fix it threads.

 

[Brooky03]

3) Press more

We need to take more advantage of our usually overwhelming length and athleticism.

 

[Cheriehoop]

3) Press more

We need to take more advantage of our usually overwhelming length and athleticism.

The press though is effective with speedy players more than long ones. Our guards' athleticism is based more on strength, length than pure speed. Smaller players for the most part are quicker - bit of a conundrum there with the most effective zone players we recruit vs those in a press.

 

[Brooky03]

The press though is effective with speedy players more than long ones. Our guards' athleticism is based more on strength, length than pure speed. Smaller players for the most part are quicker - bit of a conundrum there with the most effective zone players we recruit vs those in a press.

Long arms can help almost as much as quickness, though, as long as they aren't attached to bumbling idiots.

We typically don't have a true PF, so that adds speed to a spot that not all teams can match and we almost always have strong rim protectors for when the press gets broken.

This has the potential to be a pretty scary press to face:

PG: Jospeh - Quickest guard since Flynn, with more size

SG: Gbinije - 6'6" SG who isn't crazy quick but isn't slow of foot either. He would be perfect to guard the inbounder

SF: Roberson - Arms everywhere and athleticism to spare.

SF: McCullough - More arms than Roberson and probably quicker than just about any PF he'll play against

C: Rak - Have fun scoring over/through/around this

 

[Briancuse]

2. Is for the igor's of the world, 1 and 3 kind of go hand and hand. In order to press you need to have a deeper bench. Like someone else mentioned I am hoping to see us get out more in transition.

 

[IthacaMatt]

1. Play the bench more?

2. Switch defenses from time to time?

3. Press more?

None of the above?

All of the above?

One or two of the above, if so which ones?

There have been signs in a few recent seasons (2012 comes to mind) when JB went deeper into his bench, and we had 9 players in the rotation. I think he erred in not developing his bench more this season. Two injuries occurred and instead of working in Roberson more, he ground the main guys into the ground.

I also would like to see us press more, especially in the first half and not only as a desperation measure when we're 15 points behind. Pressing early opens up the offense and gets people running up and down the floor. We had almost zero fast break this past season with Ennis and I think bringing a couple young guys off the bench and pressing the other team about 5 to 10 minutes into a game would shake off the lethargy in our offense, spur turnovers by the other team, and give the offense more confidence for the rest of the game. Easy baskets in transition make the hoop look bigger.

 

[stuckinbig11]

1. Play the bench more?

2. Switch defenses from time to time?

3. Press more?

None of the above?

All of the above?

One or two of the above, if so which ones?

Use the bench only when they can help, not hurt, us
Switch defenses only in exhibition games with LeMoyne
Press only when we want to give up easy lay-ups