Pretty amazing development in 5 games...

[bhallsyrfan1]

The team has much more clearly defined roles this season. Boeheim teams are best with an 8 man rotation. Having two centers who can play defense is nice to see again. IMO the best thing that happened to this team was Thompson leaving. No problems with the rotation or chemistry now. Frank and Tyus are doing a great job on and off the court. I can’t wait for the next three games.

 

[pearl31]

(yes this is me, pearl31, saying this)
It appears people are getting ahead of themselves. Decent wins this week but we won't really have a good idea until after the next 3 games. Pump the brakes a tad, I'd say.

 

[upperdeck]

we could play our best 3 games so far and lose these next few. we have a long way to go just to be competitive in the ACC

 

[hungrychuck]

(yes this is me, pearl31, saying this)
It appears people are getting ahead of themselves. Decent wins this week but we won't really have a good idea until after the next 3 games. Pump the brakes a tad, I'd say.

Some people, yes.

Thought Jake's take was great.

But yeah, we still don't have enough information on this team. All signs encouraging, but need to see more.

 

[pearl31]

we have a long way to go just to be competitive in the ACC

and, conversely, this is just as off-base as those jumping the gun on how good we are. "just to be competitive in the ACC" to me means we'd struggle just to have a close game against any/all acc teams - which is ridiculous

 

[moqui]

we could play our best 3 games so far and lose these next few. we have a long way to go just to be competitive in the ACC

we were competitive last year; this year's squad is better. imo, much better

 

[Jake]

(yes this is me, pearl31, saying this)
It appears people are getting ahead of themselves. Decent wins this week but we won't really have a good idea until after the next 3 games. Pump the brakes a tad, I'd say.

Agreed. I'm not convinced we can get to .500 in the ACC, this stretch will tell us a lot.

 

[kcsu]

Regardless of our final record this team has chemistry, heart, hustle and plenty of raw talent. Most importantly it is JBs team. Should be a fun season.

 

[realorange]

We have the type of team that will have one or two What losses. But I predict we will also have at least one win over one of the top four in the ACC.

 

[upperdeck]

time will tell whether we are a better rebounding team. we need to be to be a better team this year

 

[Jake]

Sorry but by far the most important thing in the zone is rebounding

our zone often gets people to miss shots but we have to get the rebound that's the most important thing year in and year out in the zone

Meh. I was talking mechanics, rotation of the zone. But yes, Rebounding is obviously an important part of any defense.

 

[Orangezoo]

(yes this is me, pearl31, saying this)
It appears people are getting ahead of themselves. Decent wins this week but we won't really have a good idea until after the next 3 games. Pump the brakes a tad, I'd say.

Yep. The one thing I worry about is what happens after the first loss. Part of me thinks that going 2-1 or better is far more important to get to a point where the first loss does not put holes in the mental armor and result in a major step back and lead to more losses. I think beating Maryland is more important than Kansas for that matter as well.

 

[Sgt Cuse]

We have the type of team that will have one or two What losses. But I predict we will also have at least one win over one of the top four in the ACC.

IMO, our team this year looks more like a typical JB team, long athletic, with a good zone D.

Typical JB teams are more consistent team than the jump shooters of last year. Almost every team gets a What loss, but generally winning the games they are favored in and losing the games they are underdogs in.

As for a path to 500 in the ACC, I can now see this team taking 5 of 6 of the BC, Wake, and Pitt games - 3 out of the 4 against VTech, GTech, Clemson, and NC State, and 1 out of 3 of Notre Dame and the two Virginia games.

I'm much more excited about this team now than preseason. And to me the odds look better to get in the NCAAT than they are to go sub 500.

 

[Rage4CUSE]

The most easily noticeable difference between this years team and the past several years teams, is that we Can actually close the game out in the late 1st, mid 2nd half, even against mid-major programs. We rarely got a 20 point lead against anybody. That's just fact.

 

[Trueblue25]

We have 3 or 4 guys who can finish with contact.


That’s huge compared to last year when we had arguably none.

 

[pearl31]

Yep. The one thing I worry about is what happens after the first loss. Part of me thinks that going 2-1 or better is far more important to get to a point where the first loss does not put holes in the mental armor and result in a major step back and lead to more losses. I think beating Maryland is more important than Kansas for that matter as well.

yeah I've been looking at the Mary/ucon/KU/gtown combo as going 2-2 as a plus, but 1-3 more likely. Really just hoping we can beat ucon/gtown and would then consider Mary/KU as gravy

 

[malpearl31]

My biggest concern is that the offense seems to rely (so far) on too many long, 2-pt jumpers. Granted, Battle and Howard have shot well through 5 games - but long 2s are a pretty inefficient way to play. They really haven't shown much of an ability to throw the ball into the post so far (although Sidibe has surprised me a little bit with his skill level). And the 3pt shooting hasn't been great so far. But I think overall they've played pretty well - and they're very likable so far. Should be fun to see them develop and grow over the course of the year.

 

[jordoo]

If you read the iggy prediction thread there are a good number of posters who had this team at 21 or more wins. That wasn't the majority but there where some well known, knowledgible posters who where in that group. What these people envisioned is showing in the games. Much better team defense and rim protection. Much better team chemistry. Better rebounding. Tyus playing like an NBA 2G. Howard being a contributor on both ends. Thorpe and Brissett showing offensive potential.

For me Frank, Chucky and our rebounding have all been better than I envisioned. Brissett has been sort of backward from what I expected. (Thought he would be a good offensive player out of the gate who was inconsistent on defense and rebounding. Turns out he is an excellent rebounder and defender while still finding his way offensively) the best part is that every player is going to continue to improve as the season goes along. Only Thorpe has all that much game experience but he isn't healthy nor completely acclimated to our system. This defense has the potential to be something truly special by seasons end. The offense is going to be a slow evolution but I liked the peices there as well.

 

[007]

Again, we do not know enough about this team until we see how they perform in half court sets against teams that can play pressure, in your face man defense.

Good defensive teams, like Kansas and the majority of the ACC, are going to pressure our guards in general and try to take Battle away. If teams are able to do that, we will definitely struggle to score running our set offense. The effective counter to that, assuming teams can limit what Battle gets, is to have at least 2 other consistent 3 point shooters, and an interior scoring threat.

We will know more by 12/6.

 

[kirbivore]

This team will dance

 

[IthacaMatt]

This team will dance

It's still early. We are going to have games this year where we really struggle to score.
I see a lot of positive signs compared to the first couple exhibition games, though. This team has gotten a lot better in the last month.

 

[SoBeCuse]

My biggest concern is that the offense seems to rely (so far) on too many long, 2-pt jumpers. Granted, Battle and Howard have shot well through 5 games - but long 2s are a pretty inefficient way to play. They really haven't shown much of an ability to throw the ball into the post so far (although Sidibe has surprised me a little bit with his skill level). And the 3pt shooting hasn't been great so far. But I think overall they've played pretty well - and they're very likable so far. Should be fun to see them develop and grow over the course of the year.

Good stuff in this thread. Yes I agree with this. We have played some decent teams so far but I also have seen too much settling for long jumpers as well. I’ve only seen really one or two games max of some consistent penetration from Frank. We haven’t played the tougher teams yet. Whether the offense has been just stalling and we settle, or, we don’t have enough quickness from the ballhandlers (not Battle) to get around guys; that is what I have been seeing. Fortunately the defense is looking good but we need to pick it up on offense.

Somebody (Moqui?) showed the offensive efficiency after the Oakland game maybe. We are getting lots of possessions because of so many turnovers and good defense but leaving points out there. Against a mediocre schedule we are only 69 in KenPom AdjO. I’m interested to see where we will be after 12/6. Kansas is at 6. They beat Oakland by almost 50! Slaughtered Texas Southern as well and have a nice win VS Kentucky. Kansas is obviously a much better team but just comparing the offensive efficiency numbers and they have played a tougher schedule, IMO.

Also, our AdjT. Virginia deliberately play a slow tempo. We aren’t far behind at 329!

 

[upperdeck]

the bigger question is are we actually playing good D. Until we play this next series of games we wont really know.. Feels like we are, and the rebounding is better which is helping a ton.

 

[orangefog]

the bigger question is are we actually playing good D. Until we play this next series of games we wont really know.. Feels like we are, and the rebounding is better which is helping a ton.

Good question. The effort and athleticism is so much better, as well as the rebounding, as you said. The potential is high for the defense, hopefully they reach it.