Postgame Thoughts… Colgate

[baggerbob]

We will lose every single game jesse takes 6 shots.

But Joe got his shots and didn't make very many.

 

[Melancer46]

Agreed, but that was on Jesse last night. He fumbled so many passes and rebounds it was like watching Chukwu all over again.

The 6 he took were mostly terrible too. He had no answer for Colgate's physicality, which is obviously terrifying with what's to come.

 

[Newhouser]

I have no problem if Joe is fully squared up and just misses. That's simply being a human being. What I can't deal with are his off-balance/contorted nonsense shots, of which there were several last night.

he has a shot fixation- if he doesn't hoist something up after a few trips you can see his brain switch to "I need to get a shot up" which is usually when he fires up his off balance or too deep and too soon heaves. He (and the whole team) is bad on D, but we need to run sets for him and get him looks, and he is the only kid on the team that can feed the post and Jesse needs 10-15 shots a night or we are doomed.

 

[OttoinGrotto]

he has a shot fixation- if he doesn't hoist something up after a few trips you can see his brain switch to "I need to get a shot up" which is usually when he fires up his off balance or too deep and too soon heaves. He (and the whole team) is bad on D, but we need to run sets for him and get him looks, and he is the only kid on the team that can feed the post and Jesse needs 10-15 shots a night or we are doomed.

My favorite is when someone else starts getting hot and he decides it's time for his own heat check.

It's like bizarro NBA Jam.

 

[Dmcnabbrules]

But Joe got his shots and didn't make very many.

The 2-1 layup he missed down 12 in the second half was huge. Then he chucked up a knockout style three from the corner, it was a clanker.

 

[Noexcuse]

Igor was awesome. The Iggy awards are named after him. Few had such a way with words. He was famous for stirring the pot with exorbitant claims. One of his best was staying that certain players were "getting Boeheimed" and our best talents were rotting on the bench.

Your Job Bol Ajak comment was in that spirit.

Much like Jon Bol, we will never know how good we could have been if only Ethan Cole had gotten more minutes.

 

[Melancer46]

Okay, I went to the movies last night and have zero regrets about that. However, I had some downtime at work today so I went through and watched the game. What follows is going to be a lot of disorganized thoughts:

• When we were in man-to-man, there was zero consistency on how to handle screens. We'd switch one, hedge and recover the next, just fight through with no help, etc. And that inconsistency generally resulted in wide open shots for Colgate as one guy would try to fight through the screen while the other switched it, leaving the screener wide open. Then the next possession the guy guarding the ball-handler would switch it while the guy guarding the screener would not so they'd get an open driving lane. I would recommend switching guard-guard and forward-forward screen actions while playing drop coverage on guard-big screens. Our guards are too small and weak to handle getting switched onto a big.
• I don't really want to elaborate on the 1-3-1 zone outside of saying we should never play it or speak of it ever again. The one thing I will say is that any defense requiring Girard and our center to cover the most space is an insult to the game of basketball.
• In the 2-3, we do not move in sync with one another. There were countless times where Colgate would get the numbers advantage on one side of the court. All we need to do is have everyone slide over a little bit to get the numbers even again. Instead, one guy would rotate and the teammate next to him would not and suddenly their best shooter is getting a wide open look.
• The other issue with the zone, as Jim mentioned post-game, is that we seemingly had no idea what kind of players Colgate has. They always had at least 1 guy on the court that literally never attempts to shoot; oftentimes they had 2 of them on the court at any given time. Doesn't matter; we would not let those guys get space on the perimeter. On the flipside, when those guys got the ball at the free throw line, we'd often panic and vacate Colgate's best shooters to try to stop the non-shooters from doing exactly what we should want them to do. Some of the stuff from these last two bullets go hand-in-hand. Take the screenshots below for example. The guy in the upper right hand corner has attempted one 3 pointer in 3 years. The other 4 guys are all good shooters. You can probably immediately see the issue; Taylor is on an island with the two nearest the TV screen. We need to shift everyone towards Taylor's corner, so essentially, Edwards would end up somewhat shadowing the non-shooter, Benny playing up higher on the wing to cover 33, Mintz on the ball-handler, and Torrence on the near wing covering #2. If the team is communicating, this kind of rotation should be simple to execute. As you can see in the 2nd screenshot, that rotation does not occur. Now we essentially have Benny and Jesse double-teaming the one guy that cannot shoot. In the 3rd screenshot, they get the ball to that big man. Jesse is daring him to shoot; no problem there. However, you'll notice Benny is now standing around covering nobody at all because of our failure to make a simple rotation. Meanwhile, the big man has two open shooters on the TV side as Taylor continues to get stretched beyond his physical limitations. 4th screenshot is where they ultimately get their shot; Torrence finally realizes the defense needs to rotate, so he does. But Mintz and Benny have no idea Torrence was going to do that, so Colgate's best shooter and best player ends up with a wide open 3. If we are going to continue to be a primarily 2-3 team, we have to be able to at least make the simplest of rotations like this one. In our heyday, we'd make these rotations in our sleep while wreaking havoc on teams. Now, we're a team that wants to play zone while not being able to do the most basic parts of it.
• 
• We got to see the 3 guard lineup for an extended period of time in this game; it's bad, at least in zone. We tried to play the 2-3 with Torrence on the backline; he was exploited. Simply too small to handle Colgate's forwards and too unaware to realize he was being sealed off by screeners for open corner 3's. On the offensive end, it doesn't really improve our court spacing so it doesn't create as many advantages for us as you really want to see.
• Jesse was terrible in this game. Couldn't handle the physicality of Colgate's players; gave up easy shots because he was too focused on hunting blocks. Was exploited in man-to-man and the 1-3-1 and wasn't much better in the 2-3.
• I came away pretty impressed with Benny for maybe the first time. The jumpers he hit probably are not sustainable; he desperately needs more arc on his shots and generally shoots on his way down. But he was very active offensively, his free throws looked good, and he's now made really nice passes out of the post in back to back games. I think I might like to see him more involved in the offense. Set screens, try to get switched onto guards and attack in the post. If the defense ignores him on the perimeter as they probably should, teach him to set screens or dribble handoffs to create openings for our guards as it essentially turns into a 2 on 1 (AKA the Draymond Green/Giannis offense).
• Mintz continues to look every bit the great player he was in high school. The first half was probably a sneak peak of some valleys that we'll see in his play when the shots aren't dropping and he isn't drawing fouls, but he rebounded beautifully in the 2nd half.

I also listened to the post-game presser with Boeheim. I honestly agreed with a lot of what he said but I'm probably more pessimistic about the defense than he was and maybe a little more optimistic with the offense. Bad all-around game for Jesse and bad shooting performance from Girard is going to be near impossible for this team to overcome but some promising stuff from Mintz and Benny to hopefully continue building off.

 

[OttoMets]

My favorite is when someone else starts getting hot and he decides it's time for his own heat check.

It's like bizarro NBA Jam.

It's not an unusual trait by any means, but the only Syracuse player I've ever seen do this as much as Girard does was Deshaun Williams.

 

[Melancer46]

Why practice man-to-man if you're not going to use it when a team is abusing the zone?
Again, the worst that could happen is that you'll lose badly.
But that's already happening.

To be fair, they mostly abused our man to man too. That's why we switched to zone in the first place. Zone may have ended up being worse though.

 

[Melancer46]

I have no problem if Joe is fully squared up and just misses. That's simply being a human being. What I can't deal with are his off-balance/contorted nonsense shots, of which there were several last night.

Honestly I think his shot selection was worse in the first game. He's going to have to take and make movement 3's for us to win, and that's mostly what they were last night. The first game had him attempting insane shots where he got stuck picking his dribble up and didn't know what to do.

He probably could have passed on a few of the ones he took last night, particularly the one from the corner after he missed the layup and got the ball back. But he generally takes worse shots than he did last night IMO and we kinda need him to this year.

 

[OCESIP]

For me the major issue regarding Syracuse basketball (and football) isn't about any one player or any one game or any offensive/defensive strategy. It's simply what has happened over the last decade to a once proud program and what, if anything, can be done to fix it.

The answer to the first has a lot of intertwining and debatable elements. Leaving a conference which was a great fit in it's day and joining one which doesn't (by any stretch of the imagination), program sanctions (justified or not), a coach who has a lot of positives to offer but just as many negatives (age, style of play, communication/motivation issues, etc). The facilities, while still unique, which are no longer a great recruiting tool. Our average recruiting results reflect all these factors. While good coaching is always a plus, TALENT in the long run rules college sports.

How can this be turned around?? Start with upgrading the talent level, which is often nothing more than a sales pitch, but it has to include a vision and how that vision can be achieved. Obviously, in today's world, $$ are a part but only a part. All things start with a stated plan on JB's succession. Once that is communicated the air is cleared and the talent that's out there has a least a starting point. Until that's done, SU basketball will be swimming upstream against a pretty strong negative current.

 

[Newhouser]

The 2-1 layup he missed down 12 in the second half was huge. Then he chucked up a knockout style three from the corner, it was a clanker.

That was a huge sequence - as soon as Mintz passed it to him after Joe tipped it away from the Gate kid I said, no chance he makes that and then the rushed 3. Egads.

 

[MSOrange]

 

[OttoinGrotto]

Much like Jon Bol, we will never know how good we could have been if only Ethan Cole had gotten more minutes.

Some might say he would have been the greatest college center of the ESPN era and would have won 2 of the next 3 Wooden awards.

 

[OttoinGrotto]

It's not an unusual trait by any means, but the only Syracuse player I've ever seen do this as much as Girard does was Deshaun Williams.

I gave you the haha emoji for the new avatar.