Pittsburgh. Virginia. Louisville.

[CuseFaninVT]

I would pump the brakes on Chukwu. Those are crazy expectations for him at this point. You're just setting yourself up to be disappointed.

Come on br... We are talking 4 guaranteed HOF NBA players in the making right there. It's so easy to see.

 

[TheCusian]

Someone tell me how it's acceptable to have not 1, not 2, but three...THREE teams dominate you in your own Conference? It's embarassing and something needs to change. These teams don't have better players every time, in fact, one would probably argue that we usually have more NBA talent than those 3 teams combined year in/year out. So if it's not the players, what is it? A). Our unimaginative offense? B). Our 2-3 zone that we NEVER switch out of, not even for one play? C). Both.

I love these kind of posts. Sky hurts.

 

[CuseFaninVT]

Over the last 5 years we are:
4-5 vs. Pitt
4-3 vs Louisville

So, that's 8-8 over the last 5 seasons vs. two top 20 basketball programs. Not a disaster.

Virginia has been better than us all 3 years we've been in the ACC, and we've played them there 2 out of the 3 games. We had them at home during one of our worst seasons in decades.

Has Pitt even been in the top 20 the last 5 years?

 

[longislandcuse]

I would pump the brakes on Chukwu. Those are crazy expectations for him at this point. You're just setting yourself up to be disappointed.

Might be. I'm just going off what has been reported on him by coaches of Cuse and his other teams. 7'2 at a major program, with a starting role, gets you fast tracked into the NBA these days.

 

[longislandcuse]

Come on br... We are talking 4 guaranteed HOF NBA players in the making right there. It's so easy to see.

Not sure how my projection is so crazy. Battle is an NBA size, highly recruited guard. Lydon and Richardson are already easy 1 st round picks in '17 NBA Mock Drafts. Chukwu has universally high praise from everyone who's seen him and he's 7'2.

So, I'll rephrase, 3 NBA players and one with potential.

 

[EnnisEnvy]

Any body see Coach K 's post game? He said Louisville's comeback was "Amazing"

 

[raf4488]

Has Pitt even been in the top 20 the last 5 years?

I checked, and no they haven't, so I changed it. We've been better than them for most of the last 5 years, but the point is they aren't "dominating" us.

Louisville has been better than we have for most of the past 5 years and they have a losing record against us in that timespan

 

[CuseFaninVT]

Not sure how my projection is so crazy. Battle is an NBA size, highly recruited guard. Lydon and Richardson are already easy 1 st round picks in '17 NBA Mock Drafts. Chukwu has universally high praise from everyone who's seen him and he's 7'2.

So, I'll rephrase, 3 NBA players and one with potential.

Yeah, we've been hearing those kinds of things for a long time. Very few turn out that way, and even fewer actually play once they get drafted.

 

[br801]

Come on br... We are talking 4 guaranteed HOF NBA players in the making right there. It's so easy to see.

You're right. I was still in shock after today's game.

 

[JoeSU]

They are all 3 very physical teams that do a lot of handchecking and can rebound.,SU hasnt been very physical since the days of Otis Hill and AO. Face it, It was men against boys the last 2 games.

Speaking of hand checking, the NCAA rules committee supposedly made this a point of emphasis this year. Has anyone noticed that the refs are calling these fouls any closer? I sure haven't

 

[longislandcuse]

Yeah, we've been hearing those kinds of things for a long time. Very few turn out that way, and even fewer actually play once they get drafted.

I'm not talking about playing time. I'm just saying I'd put higher odds on all 4 getting drafted than not and Howard is not starting over any of them.

 

[NorSyr66]

Cooney and G were both terrible coming back and getting rebounds. We get them to take contested threes and then give up the long rebound. Why? So our guards can run the break? I don't recall a single fast break by us today. Needed to crash the boards all day long.

JB got outcoached.

Not sure it was a legitimate fast break but the one that sticks in my memory is in the second half when it was still close and Gbinije is breaking alone with one defender and he pulls up from the right of the basket, inside of the arc, and completely misses everything. Just a sample of the entire game.

 

[CuseFaninVT]

Not sure it was a legitimate fast break but the one that sticks in my memory is in the second half when it was still close and Gbinije is breaking alone with one defender and he pulls up from the right of the basket, inside of the arc, and completely misses everything. Just a sample of the entire game.

I believe that's the definition of NOT a fast break.

I love when our team plays as a team. I HATE hero ball.

 

[Marsh01]

Give me duke or unc anytime over pitt, virginia pr louisville. Not even close

 

[Jack Hall]

Speaking of hand checking, the NCAA rules committee supposedly made this a point of emphasis this year. Has anyone noticed that the refs are calling these fouls any closer? I sure haven't

Yeah i dont get it. I used to get so excited to watch college ball but at times its unwatchable this year. I know reffing is tough but the college refs are still really struggling imo

For example , the ul duk game. EVERY SINGLE TIME Grayson touched the ball , he was aggressively hand checked, in fact usually even before he caught the ball. To combat the handchecking, he was shoving off w one hand, hooking w one arm to get around a guy, one time he even shoved off with 2 hands before he caught a ball. So what that basically means is that every single time he touched the ball there was a foul on both grayson AND the ul defender. Its just a complete joke because it all comes down to which foul the ref arbitrarily picks. Just like on graysons double travel at end of uva game, he was fouled too, but arbitrarily the refs let ALL THREE go. Its a joke. You could see when the refs arbitrarily chose to call a foul on grayson today, k was ready to cry or choke a ref because he is so used to the arbitrary calls going his way, ala wisconsin last year

 

[HoustonCuse]

Also, don't get me wrong, I don't dislike the zone. I actually really like it. I like recruiting long, athletic players.

In a year like next year, we will probably beat all three of those teams but you can't sustain a starting lineup of 6-6, 6-6, 6-9, 6'9, 7'2 or whatever that freak show team measures out to next year.

You need to be able to ADAPT when teams have you figured out. You can't just run the same offensive sets and the same defense and expect different results. If it's not working, you need a fallback, at the very least just to throw a new look at the other team for a few minutes to disrupt their flow.

It's absurd that we don't do that and it's even more absurd that we have to chalk up 3 teams in our own conference to a likely loss every year.

Don't even start. We are not beating Pitt next year. Louisville is more possible. We have about a 25% chance in any given matchup to beat UL, but less than 5% to beat Pitt. It is just a fact guys. No sense trying to analyze it.

 

[Orangeblue2]

Yeah i dont get it. I used to get so excited to watch college ball but at times its unwatchable this year. I know reffing is tough but the college refs are still really struggling imo

For example , the ul duk game. EVERY SINGLE TIME Grayson touched the ball , he was aggressively hand checked, in fact usually even before he caught the ball. To combat the handchecking, he was shoving off w one hand, hooking w one arm to get around a guy, one time he even shoved off with 2 hands before he caught a ball. So what that basically means is that every single time he touched the ball there was a foul on both grayson AND the ul defender. Its just a complete joke because it all comes down to which foul the ref arbitrarily picks. Just like on graysons double travel at end of uva game, he was fouled too, but arbitrarily the refs let ALL THREE go. Its a joke. You can see when the refs arbitrarily chose to call a foul on grayson today, k was ready to cry or choke a ref because he is so used to the arbitrary calls going his way, ala wisconsin last year

I'm not seeing the defensive hand-checking so many are IMAGINING they are seeing, not even from Louisville, Pitt or UVa. What I am seeing is a forearm push-off from every drive to the basket that guy makes, not to mention 3 blatant travels a game.
Bottom line, every team that plays good defense ( and I do not include Pitt in that group, but I do include Duke when they play man-to-man) is accused of getting away with hand-checking. It's a bogus argument and maybe it's high-time to mix in some M2m with this 2-3 zone that any good coach knows how to exploit.

 

[orangecuse]

BUT we own COLGATE !

(i think if you go back 10 years we're like 5-15 against PITT ) that's bad!

Dixon is 14-6 against JB, a staggering 7-2 in the Dome.

 

[Jack Hall]

I'm not seeing the defensive hand-checking so many are IMAGINING they are seeing, not even from Louisville, Pitt or UVa. What I am seeing is a forearm push-off from every drive to the basket that guy makes, not to mention 3 blatant travels a game.
Bottom line, every team that plays good defense ( and I do not include Pitt in that group, but I do include Duke when they play man-to-man) is accused of getting away with hand-checking. It's a bogus argument and maybe it's high-time to mix in some M2m with this 2-3 zone that any good coach knows how to exploit.

Watch a replay of duk ul game. They are either handchecking him or bumping him every time he touches the ball. Every time there is contact. And yes he fouls back. Imo if you dont play defense this way, you better have 4 nba guys if you want to win the Natl Championship. The nba refs can probably call the things that are going on with the supposedly best defensive teams, but the college refs really struggle to call all the contact (hands, arm hip, etc) . So i cant blame teams like uva and pitt , etc who are not super athletic for playing as physical as possible. They ll probably get away w it. Just look at how butler beat us in '10 and went on to 2 straight title games. My guess is a guy like bennett noticed exactly how butler played and what they got away with.

 

[Orangeblue2]

Watch a replay of duk ul game. They are either handchecking him or bumping him every time he touches the ball. Every time there is contact. And yes he fouls back. Imo if you dont play defense this way, you better have 4 nba guys if you want to win the Natl Championship. The nba refs can probably call the things that are going on with the supposedly best defensive teams, but the college refs really struggle to call all the contact (hands, arm hip, etc) . So i cant blame teams like uva and pitt , etc who are not super athletic for playing as ohysical as possibleAll imho

I know that having just lost to Pitt for the 4th or 5th straight time, it's natural to ascribe their play as being like Virginia's, but they are not even remotely alike. If they were, they would be playing Va, Duke and UNC close. The fact is they are 0-4 against Va , and 0-3 against Duke and UNC, if my quick wiki lookup is correct, since joining the league. Face it, Pitt stinks and we just didn't show up.

 

[Orangeblue2]

Cooney, Richardson and Roberson all played their worst games of the season, and Gbinije was largely ineffective as well. SU got virtually no offense from their primary scorers and was dominated on the boards at both ends. It was a small miracle that this game was tied at the 7:00 mark. Kudos to Lydon and Coleman for showing up and keeping the team in game.

It's quite a statement to say TC played his worst game of the season. There are about 5 other games that are strong contenders for that 'honor'

 

[Jack Hall]

The way i see it, they (both dixon and bennett) have had some tremendous regular season success in their career but neither has validated it with a FF. ul/ pitino would be the outlier of the 3 teams based on that. All imo

 

[Jack Hall]

I know that having just lost to Pitt for the 4th or 5th straight time, it's natural to ascribe their play as being like Virginia's, but they are not even remotely alike. If they were, they would be playing Va, Duke and UNC close. The fact is they are 0-4 against Va , and 0-3 against Duke and UNC, if my quick wiki lookup is correct, since joining the league. Face it, Pitt stinks and we just didn't show up.

Look at the scores of their games since both in acc, not that dissimilar imo. But yes uva has been better in that time, no question

 

[CuseCPT]

You need to be able to ADAPT when teams have you figured out. You can't just run the same offensive sets and the same defense and expect different results. If it's not working, you need a fallback, at the very least just to throw a new look at the other team for a few minutes to disrupt their flow.

Agreed 110%. JB has his system and his guys. If either of them are off, hell if both are off, doesn't matter, nothing will change. It just goes in the loss column.

 

[anglerman]

The simple reality is those 3 teams have.much better coaches. That's the bottom line. They beat him again and again and again. Face it they are just better !!