Quick Game Thoughts

[SoBristol]

That guard combo (Dion with BT) works because Dion is the one making plays -- driving and kicking out, or driving and feeding CJ. Surprising how Dion is now a playmaking guard -- which happens partly because he is a threat himself. Some say BT is "on the ball" -- but that isn't what is happening. BT did some good spot up shooting; also finishing when set up.

 

[OburgCuse]

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 was wondering that a little too initially, but turning up the tempo doesn't necessarily mean we wear them down or get into more of a rhythm. We are notorious for giving up 4 on 1 breaks once our opponent breaks our press so I think because our defense was playing so well that JB didn't want to start giving them easy baskets either. I think he had more confidence in our offense straightening ourselves out and still getting transition pts as our defense was playing great and keeping us in the game. If we were to start giving them a couple easy pts in transition off our press then maybe that ignites their offense too.

Interesting thought though because it is also quite possible we get a couple TO's and make a run earlier based on this, but I think Jb just didn't want to give up any easy pts to them because VT was really laboring even on the buckets they scored. I think he said something in his press conference how changing defenses or making defensive adjustments when they were playing good defense wasn't going to help their offense (even though it could lead to more easy buckets).

 

[General20]

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.

First off, I dont think that was a bad performance at all, or a sluggish one. Virginia Tech played well and deserves a lot of credit. In my mind this was a good win played at a high level for this early in the year. If you were like me and switched to watch Kansas and Duke play after the SU game ended, you saw two highly ranked teams that played much more sloppy, and quite frankly, worse than either Syracuse or Virginia Tech.

As far as Virginia Tech making some early three's. Syracuse dares teams to shoot from outside early. That is the foundation of our defensive scheme. We extend our D only if the other team proves they can hit them. Virignia Tech hit a few three pointers early, not all of them were defended perfectly, but all of them were from beyond NBA range and none of them were wide open. Give Virginia Tech credit for hitting those shots, but Boeheim figured out what they could and could not do pretty quickly and took away just about any consistent offense they had. Teams that win are teams that have the talent, coaching, and player smarts to adjust. Syracuse showed that against Virginia Tech.

As for the press. We didn't press much because we are a crappy pressing team. People equate depth with the ability to press. Its all well and good to have fresh legs, but if our guys are not well suited to press, then its not an effective option no matter how fresh we are.

The only team our press has looked good against so far is Colgate, and they are about the least athletic team I have ever seen. Other than that one game, we have looked like a bunch of guys who were recruited to play zone trying to press. Which is, of course, what we are.

I think its also a misconception that a press wears teams down faster. Virginia Tech did not have to work very hard to beat our press, and I dont think it would have wore them down, even if we pressed the entire game and rotated our 10 guys in and out constantly.

What eventually wore Virginia Tech out was having to execute perfectly for 35 seconds every single possession against our zone which play by play was figuring out how to stop the things they had worked on.

For the record, I predict we see less and less of the press as the year goes on. Its a nice change of pace weapon to have, especially when you have a lot of fouls to give (which SU does), so I commend Boeheim for practicing it, but it is not our strong suit by a long shot, and not something that should be relied on for anything but short stretches.

I know we are a very highly ranked team, and because of that people expect big wins, but it is very rare to jump on a decent team early and blow them out from start to finish. Virginia Tech came out hot and we came out cold. There is nothing wrong with that, we are going to have cold stretches in most games we play. Most teams we play will get hot for a while. The key is to figure out what needs to be done and execute, SU did that.

I am actually much more positive about this team after the Virginia Tech game than I was going into the game. I do not think we are going to blow teams out on a regular basis this year. Not many teams do. I do think we are going to rack up a lot of wins. I saw signs that we can put five guys on the floor at one time who compliment each other well, and can score in half court sets, which is what I think it takes to win it all. In all our previous blow outs, we never showed that.

My guess is we look good against Stanford, not blowing them out early, but winning comfortably in the end by about 15.

 

[General20]

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.

We scored 69 points against a team that held the ball for close to 35 second on every possession, that is a lot. This was a good offensive game by both teams, you can never go by shear number of points scored because it does not take tempo into account.

We also scored about half our points in transition, so I'm not sure what you saw that made you think we played half court ball. We ran all game, and we ran very effectively.

I'd love to know what you have seen that makes you think pressing is playing to our strength. It seems to me that this team was built from the ground up to play zone.

 

[General20]

Dont agree with the Board crashing out of Vogue, we'll see what happens against Gtown , Uconn,L,ville strategy

I guarantee you that none of those teams send 4 guys to grab offensive boards the way Viringia Tech did. None of them have for a few years now.

 

[Mistakebythelake90]

First off, I dont think that was a bad performance at all, or a sluggish one. Virginia Tech played well and deserves a lot of credit. In my mind this was a good win played at a high level for this early in the year. If you were like me and switched to watch Kansas and Duke play after the SU game ended, you saw two highly ranked teams that played much more sloppy, and quite frankly, worse than either Syracuse or Virginia Tech.

As far as Virginia Tech making some early three's. Syracuse dares teams to shoot from outside early. That is the foundation of our defensive scheme. We extend our D only if the other team proves they can hit them. Virignia Tech hit a few three pointers early, not all of them were defended perfectly, but all of them were from beyond NBA range and none of them were wide open. Give Virginia Tech credit for hitting those shots, but Boeheim figured out what they could and could not do pretty quickly and took away just about any consistent offense they had. Teams that win are teams that have the talent, coaching, and player smarts to adjust. Syracuse showed that against Virginia Tech.

As for the press. We didn't press much because we are a crappy pressing team. People equate depth with the ability to press. Its all well and good to have fresh legs, but if our guys are not well suited to press, then its not an effective option no matter how fresh we are.

The only team our press has looked good against so far is Colgate, and they are about the least athletic team I have ever seen. Other than that one game, we have looked like a bunch of guys who were recruited to play zone trying to press. Which is, of course, what we are.

I think its also a misconception that a press wears teams down faster. Virginia Tech did not have to work very hard to beat our press, and I dont think it would have wore them down, even if we pressed the entire game and rotated our 10 guys in and out constantly.

What eventually wore Virginia Tech out was having to execute perfectly for 35 seconds every single possession against our zone which play by play was figuring out how to stop the things they had worked on.

For the record, I predict we see less and less of the press as the year goes on. Its a nice change of pace weapon to have, especially when you have a lot of fouls to give (which SU does), so I commend Boeheim for practicing it, but it is not our strong suit by a long shot, and not something that should be relied on for anything but short stretches.

I know we are a very highly ranked team, and because of that people expect big wins, but it is very rare to jump on a decent team early and blow them out from start to finish. Virginia Tech came out hot and we came out cold. There is nothing wrong with that, we are going to have cold stretches in most games we play. Most teams we play will get hot for a while. The key is to figure out what needs to be done and execute, SU did that.

I am actually much more positive about this team after the Virginia Tech game than I was going into the game. I actually dont not think we are going to blow teams out on a regular basis this year. Not many teams do. I do think we are going to rack up a lot of wins. I saw signs that we can put five guys on the floor at one time who compliment each other well, and can score in half court sets, which is what I think it takes to win it all. In all our previous blow outs, we never showed that.

My guess is we look good against Stanford, not blowing them out early, but winning comfortably in the end by about 15.

Spot on, especially about the press. Even the nobodies on our schedule were for the most part breaking it, except for the mentioned colgate.

 

[General20]

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.

Virginia Tech chose to hold the ball for close to 35 second every time they had it. Are you saying that teams can't run down the shot clock against man D, only zone?

Virginia Tech was playing pressure D down the stretch and we had no problem running down the shot clock against them. John Thompson Sr's Georgetown teams played about the best pressure man D that has ever been played and Princeton famously had no trouble winding down the shot clock against them.

If you are saying you can control how long the other team holds the ball by how much pressure you apply, I'm sorry but you are dead wrong. Any half way decent team can run down the shot clock just as well against man as they can against zone.

A good pressure man defense should be able to force a lot of turnovers, but guess what? We forced Virginia Tech into a ton of turnovers last night, so your point is really not valid in any way, shape or form.

 

[tipphill]

I was wondering that a little too initially, but turning up the tempo doesn't necessarily mean we wear them down or get into more of a rhythm. We are notorious for giving up 4 on 1 breaks once our opponent breaks our press so I think because our defense was playing so well that JB didn't want to start giving them easy baskets either. I think he had more confidence in our offense straightening ourselves out and still getting transition pts as our defense was playing great and keeping us in the game. If we were to start giving them a couple easy pts in transition off our press then maybe that ignites their offense too.

Interesting thought though because it is also quite possible we get a couple TO's and make a run earlier based on this, but I think Jb just didn't want to give up any easy pts to them because VT was really laboring even on the buckets they scored. I think he said something in his press conference how changing defenses or making defensive adjustments when they were playing good defense wasn't going to help their offense (even though it could lead to more easy buckets).

sorry but that is speculation ---we could try it a few times and see if were hot with it or not--as it turned out we were--we were not playing duke!!!

 

[General20]

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.

I'm glad you brought this up. I wanted to get into the zone Virginia Tech played but I wrote my original post in about 10 minutes before rushing out the door (which is why its written so sloppy and why I left a lot out).

Virginia Tech's zone was very cool. They started out packed in then rushed at the offensive player who caught the ball. It really threw SU off balance for a few plays. Southerland would not have helped against that kind of zone because the defender was running at you almost like he would in a press. If you dont want Southerland handling the ball in a press (and trust me, you dont) then you would not want him in the game against that ultra aggressive zone.

I was screaming "get the ball inside" at my tv for about three possessions before Boeheim called a time out and taught his guys what to do. When they rush you, drive past them, then pass it to a big guy for an easy two. After Boeheim's time out we scored two easy baskets that way and Virginia Tech immediately called the zone off, knowing we had figured it out.

I would love to see that zone played by a team who has a great shot blocker. It would be very tough to score against. Luckily there is not one to be found on the Virginia Tech roster.

 

[OttoMets]

We scored 69 points against a team that held the ball for close to 35 second on every possession, that is a lot. This was a good offensive game by both teams, you can never go by shear number of points scored because it does not take tempo into account.

We also scored about half our points in transition, so I'm not sure what you saw that made you think we played half court ball. We ran all game, and we ran very effectively.

I'd love to know what you have seen that makes you think pressing is playing to our strength. It seems to me that this team was built from the ground up to play zone.

By "playing to our strength," I meant forcing the game into the 80s. You make two good points: that Tech wouldn't have gotten worn down by the press if they were able to break it every time, and that Tech is so superior to Colgate, et al. that we can't call ourselves a good pressing team based on those earlier performances.

At the same time, I'm not sure that we can say with certainty that we're not a good pressing team - we gave it maybe two or three half-hearted tries against Tech. What I'd like it for us to give the press a sustained run during these games in which the opponent so clearly prefers to play a slow-it-down game (which isn't our strength).

When we cut it to 22-20, I thought pressing for the rest of the half would be a good idea. Unfortunately, we didn't get to see enough of it to deem it effective or not.

 

[OttoMets]

Also, General, out of curiosity, what about this team do you think makes it a poor pressing team? While we don't have a ton of reps, it seems like we have a bunch of guys who should be able to press successfully - a smart and agile shotblocker (Baye), and a handful of long-armed guys with decent-to-good lateral quickness and pretty good anticipatory sense.