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Quick Game Thoughts

General20

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Gotta make this quick because I have a busy day.

As far as the game itself. The SU zone is designed to force opponents to shoot low percentage shots. Namely 3 pointers from beyond the NBA arc, and mid range shots with centers flying at them. We held V Tech to nothing but those two types of shots, and to their credit they did a good job hitting a high percentage of them. The problem they had is that they wanted no part of us under the basket.

Boeheim's adjustment was to extend the guards up. Normally the guard on the side of the zone where the ball is will be extended, the second guard will cover around the free throw line and the center will be under the basket. Boeheim switched to both guards extended up to the 3 point line and the center cheating up towards the foul line. This would have made use vulnerable under the basket if V Tech had the ability to hurt us under there, but as it stood, it made almost all the mid range jumpers they were hitting in the first half turn into blocks or turnovers (Melo played great D), and all their three pointers extremely tough contested shots. V Tech just didnt seem to have an answer for this, their scoring went cold.

On the other side of things V Tech played some tough pressure man. When you see teams play tough pressure man think Joseph and Waiters, they are our best at beating defenders off the dribble. Joseph was huge all day. Waiters looked absolutely lost in the first half for some reason, and the long term implications of that scared me (if he couldn't play well against this team which was tailor made for him, what kind of season was he going to have?). But the coaches sat him down for a long time and were in his ear, explaining what was going on, and it seemed to work. Waiters came in the second half looking like a new man, and dominated.

Our defensive adjustments, and Waiters emergence, effectively ended the game. We dominated on both ends of the court once that took place.

A few other observations.

V Tech decided to crash the boards hard against us (because the zone is vulnerable to letting up offensive rebounds). That has gone out of vogue. The scouting report the last 3 years or so has been that we are too good in transition, and if you send too many guys to the basket to rebound you will get burned on the other side- so I was surprised to see this move. V Tech, to their credit was very aggressive on the boards and did a good job, but they also let up a lot of points in transition. In fact, in the first half we hardly scored at all in the half court (offensively we were stagnant). Almost all our points came in transition, which because of their strategy V Tech was vulnerable to.

Because transition was so important to us this game, rebounding (and rebounding in heavy traffic) became essential. That is why Fair and Joseph played almost the whole game. They both did tremendous jobs on the boards, which really won the game for us - or at minimum, kept us in striking distance until we figured things out and the rout was on.

The biggest negative in the game, to me, was Keita. He got absolutely bullied and pushed around under the basket. We were a whole different team with Melo in the game. On a side note, the game itself is still moving a little fast for him, but as he gets more and more playing time (and he will) its going to slow down. By the end of the year Melo will be a monster for us. Still, we need more out of Keita down low.

V Tech pressured us hard and rarely double teamed, they also crashed the boards hard. In short they were the worst type of team for Southerland to go up against. He's not going to beat his man off the dribble, and they weren't going to leave him much, so his shooting would have gone unused, and it was essential that we rebound, and he is not our best in that area, so he sat. Dont give up on him though. When team's play passive D (to try to keep Joseph and Waiters from going to the basket at will) and when they dont crash the boards (to keep us from burning them in transition), I still think Southerland will play, and play well.

Christmas made a bone-headed mistake on D early that resulted in a V Tech dunk, at the time I said "he's coming out and he's not coming back in" and that is exactly what happened. Freshman make freshman mistakes, and that is to be expected, but when we are losing and Joseph and Fair are playing the best on our team, it means Christmas is not going to play. He is going to play and he is going to improve, but he is also going to sit the bench until he figures a few things out, this SU team is too good to play through freshman mistakes.

One last note about depth. As I've said before. It looks great in those games where you would play ten guys anyway, but when things get tough, you need to find a five man line up that works and stick with it. Boeheim found that today. Waiters, Triche, Joseph, Fair, and Melo all played great. Nobody else played particularly good. I'm upset that Keita didn't play better. I wish Southerland could have played a little more, but I understand why he did not. The freshmen are simply freshmen. The only judgement I will make from this is that Triche and Waiters have looked like our best guard combination all year, and they did now against good competition.

This is not necessarily a knock against Jardine, I think it has more to do with styles. Triche is better on the ball, than he is at shooting guard. Waiters and Jardine's skills are too similar and dont complement each other all that well. I think you will see Triche and Waiters on the court when it matters all year long.

I'm very happy about this game. In the second half we showed we had 5 good players who can rebound, defend, score in transition, and most importantly score in half court sets. THAT is what it takes to win a championship. While I dont think we are championship material just yet, some steps were taken to get us there, some cohesion was formed, and our freshmen learned a valuable lesson about what it takes to compete in division 1. I expect things to improve from here.
 
Good analysis again. I'm starting to look forward to your recaps as much as I look forward to SWC's.
 
Excellent "quick" analysis. I wonder how long your "slow" analyses are? :)
 
Great post. Just wanted to add that VT did make one adjustment in the second half. They had one guy run down and seal CJ as soon as they entered the ball to the FT line (which we were leaving open as you described) and then bounce passed it to him twice in a row drawing fouls each time. I thought with the way we were playing the zone and all the blocks that Fab had made that it was a great adjustment by Greenburg but either CJ caught on or they never really went back to it.

Great point about our transition points and VT's offensive rebounding. Sure it looks bad when they score 12 points off of offensive rebounding but how many did we get in transition as a trade off? A lot more.

Fab and Baye specifically need to step it up rebounding. I was a bit surprised that Baye struggled that much and you are right he needs to get better.
 
Great post. Just wanted to add that VT did make one adjustment in the second half. They had one guy run down and seal CJ as soon as they entered the ball to the FT line (which we were leaving open as you described) and then bounce passed it to him twice in a row drawing fouls each time. I thought with the way we were playing the zone and all the blocks that Fab had made that it was a great adjustment by Greenburg but either CJ caught on or they never really went back to it.

Was it Davila who did that?

He looked solid for them during a brief period in the second half; I think he could've used more touches.
 
Was it Davila who did that?

He looked solid for them during a brief period in the second half; I think he could've used more touches.

Not sure what his name was. But I was confused that they didn't go back to that because it was a really good play against us when we were basically letting them enter to the FT line so we could defense the 3pt line better. I think your right because Davila was the guy who got into foul trouble in the first half.
 
Good analysis again. I'm starting to look forward to your recaps as much as I look forward to SWC's.
very good recap, but not all the 3 pointers were contested many uncontested shots in the first half. we were sluggish and slow to respond---out hustled on both sided of the ball -- second half was a good effort, but i agree, not championship or even top 10 at this point. we cannot afford to take anything for granted--to me this was classic take for granted.
i wonder if we are so deep, why we did not press much sooner???and wear them down????---would appreciate your thoughts on that. i felt if we created chaos,we would get the adrenalin pumping,get onto the game, and shake them early.
 
i wonder if we are so deep, why we did not press much sooner???and wear them down????---would appreciate your thoughts on that. i felt if we created chaos,we would get the adrenalin pumping,get onto the game, and shake them early.

Sore subject around these parts; tough to get an answer.

A win is a win, but we'd beat that team by 25 if we'd successfully pressed (and on the two or three press possessions and most of their inbounds plays, Tech looked very shaky). Doesn't make any sense to me to choose not to play to our strength.

Yes, Tech came in with a gameplan and executed it well, as another poster noted. But did we? I can't imagine our gameplan involved playing half-court basketball and scoring in the 60s, despite a pretty good shooting night and few turnovers.

At the risk of sounding like the poster who gets categorically ignored by the whole board, it's a strange choice to let the inferior team dictate the tempo.
 
Gotta make this quick because I have a busy day.

As far as the game itself. The SU zone is designed to force opponents to shoot low percentage shots. Namely 3 pointers from beyond the NBA arc, and mid range shots with centers flying at them. We held V Tech to nothing but those two types of shots, and to their credit they did a good job hitting a high percentage of them. The problem they had is that they wanted no part of us under the basket.

Boeheim's adjustment was to extend the guards up. Normally the guard on the side of the zone where the ball is will be extended, the second guard will cover around the free throw line and the center will be under the basket. Boeheim switched to both guards extended up to the 3 point line and the center cheating up towards the foul line. This would have made use vulnerable under the basket if V Tech had the ability to hurt us under there, but as it stood, it made almost all the mid range jumpers they were hitting in the first half turn into blocks or turnovers (Melo played great D), and all their three pointers extremely tough contested shots. V Tech just didnt seem to have an answer for this, their scoring went cold.

On the other side of things V Tech played some tough pressure man. When you see teams play tough pressure man think Joseph and Waiters, they are our best at beating defenders off the dribble. Joseph was huge all day. Waiters looked absolutely lost in the first half for some reason, and the long term implications of that scared me (if he couldn't play well against this team which was tailor made for him, what kind of season was he going to have?). But the coaches sat him down for a long time and were in his ear, explaining what was going on, and it seemed to work. Waiters came in the second half looking like a new man, and dominated.

Our defensive adjustments, and Waiters emergence, effectively ended the game. We dominated on both ends of the court once that took place.

A few other observations.

V Tech decided to crash the boards hard against us (because the zone is vulnerable to letting up offensive rebounds). That has gone out of vogue. The scouting report the last 3 years or so has been that we are too good in transition, and if you send too many guys to the basket to rebound you will get burned on the other side- so I was surprised to see this move. V Tech, to their credit was very aggressive on the boards and did a good job, but they also let up a lot of points in transition. In fact, in the first half we hardly scored at all in the half court (offensively we were stagnant). Almost all our points came in transition, which because of their strategy V Tech was vulnerable to.

Because transition was so important to us this game, rebounding (and rebounding in heavy traffic) became essential. That is why Fair and Joseph played almost the whole game. They both did tremendous jobs on the boards, which really won the game for us - or at minimum, kept us in striking distance until we figured things out and the rout was on.

The biggest negative in the game, to me, was Keita. He got absolutely bullied and pushed around under the basket. We were a whole different team with Melo in the game. On a side note, the game itself is still moving a little fast for him, but as he gets more and more playing time (and he will) its going to slow down. By the end of the year Melo will be a monster for us. Still, we need more out of Keita down low.

V Tech pressured us hard and rarely double teamed, they also crashed the boards hard. In short they were the worst type of team for Southerland to go up against. He's not going to beat his man off the dribble, and they weren't going to leave him much, so his shooting would have gone unused, and it was essential that we rebound, and he is not our best in that area, so he sat. Dont give up on him though. When team's play passive D (to try to keep Joseph and Waiters from going to the basket at will) and when they dont crash the boards (to keep us from burning them in transition), I still think Southerland will play, and play well.

Christmas made a bone-headed mistake on D early that resulted in a V Tech dunk, at the time I said "he's coming out and he's not coming back in" and that is exactly what happened. Freshman make freshman mistakes, and that is to be expected, but when we are losing and Joseph and Fair are playing the best on our team, it means Christmas is not going to play. He is going to play and he is going to improve, but he is also going to sit the bench until he figures a few things out, this SU team is too good to play through freshman mistakes.

One last note about depth. As I've said before. It looks great in those games where you would play ten guys anyway, but when things get tough, you need to find a five man line up that works and stick with it. Boeheim found that today. Waiters, Triche, Joseph, Fair, and Melo all played great. Nobody else played particularly good. I'm upset that Keita didn't play better. I wish Southerland could have played a little more, but I understand why he did not. The freshmen are simply freshmen. The only judgement I will make from this is that Triche and Waiters have looked like our best guard combination all year, and they did now against good competition.

This is not necessarily a knock against Jardine, I think it has more to do with styles. Triche is better on the ball, than he is at shooting guard. Waiters and Jardine's skills are too similar and dont complement each other all that well. I think you will see Triche and Waiters on the court when it matters all year long.

I'm very happy about this game. In the second half we showed we had 5 good players who can rebound, defend, score in transition, and most importantly score in half court sets. THAT is what it takes to win a championship. While I dont think we are championship material just yet, some steps were taken to get us there, some cohesion was formed, and our freshmen learned a valuable lesson about what it takes to compete in division 1. I expect things to improve from here.
Good analysis. It will be interesting to see how things pan out with Scoop. If he accepts that there will be games, and maybe a lot of them, where he plays 20 minutes and sits the last 10 minutes of the game, then he will be a big asset. That is not an easy thing for a 5th year sr to accept, and is a big test of his character.
 
i sincerely felt that we can design all the clip board strategy we want, when we blow away all the smoke, this game was all about energy, hustle and excitement---none of which we had in the first half---by the way triche shot lights out and was excellent in 2nd half---all around
 
Nice!
Dirty has to come strong to the ball as well as the other things. He seems to stand around with his thumb in his bum and his mind in neutral. Just the opposite of CJ.
 
General made the point in part, but I think the big reason we looked out of sync in the first half was the pace of play. Not that it was anything we won't continue to see, but it was a much faster pace with better players than the previous games.

It was said by more than one person that Dion would have trouble just putting his head down and going to the basket once we faced better competition. The first half showed it. The faster pace with better players also showed the rookies it wasn't going to be quite as easy as they thought.
 
Excellent, excellent post. Very insightful and accurate. My only point of disagreement is your comment that Waiters & Scoop have similiar skillsets. I actually see them as opposite skillsets, Dion being firstly a natural scorer & Scoop being firstly a natural play maker.

I did not think our D was bad in the first half, we got them to take the shots that we wanted them to take, but they simply made those shots, many of which were tough. But, the second half adjustments that you described took even that away.
 
i wonder if we are so deep, why we did not press much sooner???and wear them down????---would appreciate your thoughts on that. i felt if we created chaos,we would get the adrenalin pumping,get onto the game, and shake them early.

Because JB coaches scared in games that matter. 2-3 is playing not to lose. Even gottleib @ halftime was saying they need to increase the pace and energy in the game because they are an average team if you force them to run halfcourt sets. Birdwatching in a zone just puts everyone to sleep.

And predictably the post-game presser he always blames the offense when it's a close game. In a slowdown game, giving up 62 is not wonderful, but it's a cute stat for the mathematically challenged who want to pretend all is well. You win 6 games in March by imposing your will. The 2-3 relies on hope, prayer, and lots of caffeine to stay awake.
 
Dont agree with the Board crashing out of Vogue, we'll see what happens against Gtown , Uconn,L,ville strategy
 
...aside from VT game plan, which they stuck too into the 2nd half before falling behind, was slowing it down...they made 3-3pt shots with the clock nearly run down in the first half...but, Scoop is not quick/fast with the ball, The key difference with Triche and Waiters is they both are faster coming up and make faster decisions than Scoop...it is as if Scoop is playing at 3/4 speed vs. Triche and Waiters. As such, there is more movement with Triche and Waiters than Scoop with either of those two (if you would like, count the # of passes in the half court with Scoop on the floor vs. the combo of the other two).
 
Because JB coaches scared in games that matter. 2-3 is playing not to lose. Even gottleib @ halftime was saying they need to increase the pace and energy in the game because they are an average team if you force them to run halfcourt sets. Birdwatching in a zone just puts everyone to sleep.

And predictably the post-game presser he always blames the offense when it's a close game. In a slowdown game, giving up 62 is not wonderful, but it's a cute stat for the mathematically challenged who want to pretend all is well.

"When you have thoroughbreds you don't make them into trotters"
 
I did not think our D was bad, we got them to take the shots that we wanted them to take, but they simply made those shot.

And that's the problem. The 2-3 is designed to allow certain shots. Why on earth is a defense supposed to concede any type of shot? A well-coached pressure scheme - with the right athletes - won't let you get comfortable taking any shot inside halfcourt. It's not a fantasy.
 
Because JB coaches scared in games that matter. 2-3 is playing not to lose. Even gottleib @ halftime was saying they need to increase the pace and energy in the game because they are an average team if you force them to run halfcourt sets. Birdwatching in a zone just puts everyone to sleep.

And predictably the post-game presser he always blames the offense when it's a close game. In a slowdown game, giving up 62 is not wonderful, but it's a cute stat for the mathematically challenged who want to pretend all is well. You win 6 games in March by imposing your will. The 2-3 relies on hope, prayer, and lots of caffeine to stay awake.

Some of what you say has merrit but apparently you missed the most important development. We found a line up that has the ability to become a good and even dangerous offensive team in the halfcourt. (Dion, Brandon, Kris, CJ and Fab.) This is what held us back last season and what you need to win in the big tourney.

There is no doubt that playing 2-3 allows the other team to have more control over tempo than playing m2m or pressing does. That being said if we can score efficiently in the halfcourt and they cannot against our 2-3 zone then the tempo does not matter as much and as the game goes on they will press more and more to shot more quickly when they have the ball. VT had a lot of success early in the game late in the shot clock taking shots we wanted them to shoot. We struggled in halfcourt sets the entire first half.
 
Good post but disagree on South, in this way: The VT D you described was their man. They switched to zone and it worked for a while. I think South could have been an asset.

Also, I thought Keita did fine during the second half and was part of the reason for the comeback. I'll have to watch it again.
 
M2M is designed to allow certain shots. Many of the same shots. It's called team defense and help defense. It leaves people open on the perimeter. All the time. On purpose.

And that's the problem. The 2-3 is designed to allow certain shots. Why on earth is a defense supposed to concede any type of shot? A well-coached pressure scheme - with the right athletes - won't let you get comfortable taking any shot inside halfcourt. It's not a fantasy.
 
On the Keita point - I agree that he looks a little behind out there and he will be fine soon enough.

He has had a few games where he has played great D and I think he has gotten a little too amped up and trying too hard to block shots. He Jeremy McNeal'd it last night jumping for every pump fake and committing fouls.

He definitely showed some passion in the first half down low.

And BC - we know you don't like the zone but let it go a little man, at least wait until we lose a game. They shot really well making shots the zone is designed for them to take (all defenses allow shots).
 
I counted 4 three's right over Brandon. His "close out" still leaves quite a bit of room for a shooter. Whereas Waiters will get right in a shooters grill.
 
And that's the problem. The 2-3 is designed to allow certain shots. Why on earth is a defense supposed to concede any type of shot? A well-coached pressure scheme - with the right athletes - won't let you get comfortable taking any shot inside halfcourt. It's not a fantasy.

No D can not concede something. You have to analyze what your opponent is good at & try to concede something else. I certainly don't pretend to know VT well enough to say whether Jimmy conceded the wrong thing in the first half or whether they just got uncommonly hot.

Regardless, Jimmy made the proper adjustments at the half in terms of both strategy and personnel.

What more do you want ?
 
2-3 is playing not to lose. The 2-3 relies on hope, prayer, and lots of caffeine to stay awake.
I agree, we did do pretty well against the VaTech zone in the second half, Greenberg probably should have switched out of it if he wanted to win...
 

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