Random Thoughts on the Season So Far

[reedny]

Why do you think giving guys like Johnson, Patterson, and Roberson, a few minutes a game last year would have helped their development in any meaningful way? I'd love to hear this argument.

They were playing the likes of Ennis, Grant, Fair, etc. in practice every single day last year for hours a day. Why will a few game minutes against mostly inferior players help so much?

Will these game minutes put more muscle on Johnson?

I just don't understand this logic at all.

Not all players are ready to contribute by their sophomore year. That does not mean there is anything wrong with them or the coaches. You want some guys who will take a few years to develop, but be leaders and big contributors as upperclassmen. It would not surprise me at all if Roberson and Johnson lead SU to a national championship their senior year. You have to look at the big picture here.

Not to mention that ... for each Developmental player you give extended minutes to, you deny minutes to a Starter (generally a better player). This invites losses, erodes team confidence and denies important seasoning for players like Ennis and Grant.

 

[dollarbill44]

Not to mention that ... for each Developmental player you give extended minutes to, you deny minutes to a Starter (generally a better player). This invites losses, erodes team confidence and denies important seasoning for players like Ennis and Grant.

How's that extra seasoning of Ennis and Grant working out for us? But, I'm glad you brought up Grant, because his injury last year was one of the main factors of our late season swoon. We had no one with any seasoning to step in when he was out because he played so many minutes in the first 25 games.

 

[Ghost]

Why do you think giving guys like Johnson, Patterson, and Roberson, a few minutes a game last year would have helped their development in any meaningful way? I'd love to hear this argument.

They were playing the likes of Ennis, Grant, Fair, etc. in practice every single day last year for hours a day. Why will a few game minutes against mostly inferior players help so much?

Will these game minutes put more muscle on Johnson?

I just don't understand this logic at all.

Not all players are ready to contribute by their sophomore year. That does not mean there is anything wrong with them or the coaches. You want some guys who will take a few years to develop, but be leaders and big contributors as upperclassmen. It would not surprise me at all if Roberson and Johnson lead SU to a national championship their senior year. You have to look at the big picture here.

Just for the sake of an argument, to a certain extent if you practice against the same guys every day do you think you may learn to play exclusively against those players?

I mean, you practice against CJ Fair every day. Okay. You are now officially an expert on playing against CJ Fair. You know his tendencies. He knows yours. It's a wash at a certain point. The rest of the time who are you playing against? Competition that is inferior to you - not much help there.

I also think there is something to be learned from stepping on the court and making mistakes. Maybe you sit down on the bench and watch a little closer - observe and see what CJ is doing that you didn't. You learn to be a student of the game. I think people have a tendency to tune out a tad more readily when they feel they have no (not literally NO) vested interest in the outcome. I'm not going to play - sooooooooooo, this is what you get.

You also end up with the bench kids coming in and playing like spazzes when they do get in. Which just creates a vicious cycle. Every moment means too much to them. That's why a BJ, or Buss come in to a game last year and fire up shots like their lives depend upon it - because they know it's either light **** up or see the bench again for another month during somewhat meaningful minutes. I think to a certain extent, you lose the ability to coach them. Maybe it doesn't matter, but I'm not 100% convinced it doesn't either.

As an extension of that, I think when people say Rak didn't have this in him offensively in year's past - this is sort of the reason why. You put far too much pressure upon yourself in limited touches to really accomplish much of anything. As you settle in, you get comfortable, you become a student. You're no longer the equivalent of the fat kid playing in Junior High because of a no-cut rule who shoots his two-hand push shot from three every time because he knows once he hits 9th grade he'll never step foot on a court again.

All hypothetical - I really have no true insight into whether any of that is legit. Just throwing it out there.

 

[Ghost]

Not to mention that ... for each Developmental player you give extended minutes to, you deny minutes to a Starter (generally a better player). This invites losses, erodes team confidence and denies important seasoning for players like Ennis and Grant.

UK needs to abandon the platooon! They are eroding the **** out of those kid's confidence levels!

 

[IthacaMatt]

So your argument is that the reason our sophomores are playing bad is because they are nervous, and if Boeheim had played them a few more minutes per game last year, they wouldn't be nervous now, and thus would be playing a lot better right now?

I'm sorry but no part of that is rational.

Becoming a better basketball player is simply not as easy as you are making it seem. There is no magic pill, and if there was everybody would use it.

It's not simple nervousness, it's that you gain experience playing in actual game conditions against teams who play different than you and are trying like hell to beat you. It accelerates your development as a player. Going against the same guys in practice every day is not remotely close to the same thing.

 

[billsin01]

That, and scheduling challenging opponents, sometimes on the road. If you think playing in practice is all a player needs to excel in front of the TV cameras, I'll give you one name: Ethan Cole.

I never said game experience was useless -- I said it's a small piece of the overall development process and that forcefeeding minutes doesn't simply make the player better, particularly within that same season. It can happen, absolutely. And no, we're not going to start watching kids throw down dunks in practice and start saying they're the next lebron. My point is that simply playing frosh does not necessarily mean they're ready for it or that we're a better team at the end of the year.

 

[NineOneSeven]

Why do you assume that you are playing for losses by using a deeper bench? Sometimes giving your best players some real breaks during the game means they make more plays down the stretch of games.
So, yeah, there might be one or two losses along the way, but there might also be as many, or more additional wins down the stretch.

I don't assume anything.

Don't get mixed up here-- I have voiced my opinion quite openly regarding out substitution patters in years past. Hint: I am all for more substitutions. Sometimes players need to see the court from the bench. We saw this last year in a game with Fair. He was taken out (which was rare) in a game he was struggling, and he came back in and hit his first shot.

I'm simply taking a neutral stance here for the purpose of showing how neither side is 100% right, or wrong.

 

[billsin01]

It's not a secret. By substituting freely from the beginning of the season, you may take some hits to your record, but come February and March, you have a team of 9-10 guys who have all seen regular minutes. They're all used to playing with different combinations of players so there isn't as much of a drop-off in team play when you rotate players later in the season. Everyone has real minutes and has gained valuable experience in "real" games. It's not a coincidence to me that JB's teams typically have a February swoon.

There is also less of a drop-off from year to year because no one is starting from scratch as a sophomore since they all log minutes against legit competition.

Listen, I love JB and everything he's done for SU, but I have always bemoaned his lack of bench usage. His response is always along the lines of, "you can only play 5 guys at a time, so it only makes sense to play your best 5". But, I am a firm believer that your best 5 can be better at the end of a game and season if they are occasionally subbed out. It also acts as a mitigant to losing a player to injury or academics in March (hmm, where have we seen that?).

Again, these are two separate points:

1) Building depth, playing a deeper rotation and committing to system where you're getting more players involved in meaningful games is sound basketball strategy. JB's reluctance to go deeper into the bench is a legit criticism and a very likely factor in our struggles during the grind of conference play (although, let's be clear that when we talk about Feb. swoons, we're discussing a program that has not won fewer than 27 games since '07-'08, hasn't been lower than a 4-seed in the tourney in that time and the 'worst' regular season in that span yielded a 4 seed and a final four run). Regardless, point is that a deeper bench would be a good thing.

2) This idea: Play freshmen at the expense of winning a game or two in December because the improvements in those freshmen will yield more wins in ACC play in February and make us more dangerous in March. It will also mitigate the disaster of losing key players to academics and/or discipline and/or injury.

This second point is ridiculous. Freshmen don't develop into key rotational guys simply because they're playing. Freshmen develop because they get better mentally, they develop physically, they practice their craft with a great coaching staff, etc. Yes, minutes are good -- I agree. But 17-year-old BJ Johnson wasn't going to be averaging double-figures this year because he logged 175 minutes instead of 65 minutes last year. It just doesn't work that way. Would be great if it did, but it doesn't.

So my point is -- if you want to criticize JB, do it for the right reason. You can go after his roster management, and/or his player development and/or his recruiting, and/or his strength and conditioning philosophies. I'm fine with that. Don't agree per se, but if you're going to criticize him do it for the right thing.

 

[IthacaMatt]

I never said game experience was useless -- I said it's a small piece of the overall development process and that forcefeeding minutes doesn't simply make the player better, particularly within that same season. It can happen, absolutely. And no, we're not going to start watching kids throw down dunks in practice and start saying they're the next lebron. My point is that simply playing frosh does not necessarily mean they're ready for it or that we're a better team at the end of the year.

I think empirical evidence shows you're wrong. Force feeding kids minutes makes them learn how to play through mistakes and correct them. It makes them learn how to stay on the court and stay out of foul trouble. Just look at Rakeem Christmas - last season, Coleman was out injured and so Christmas knew he was going to play. What happened? He started having less foul trouble, learned how to stay on the floor longer and commitment somewhat fewer dumb fouls. This year, we need him to play a role in the offense and he's not going to come out for missing a few shots. What happened next? Suddenly he's scoring 3 times as much as he did last year. Coincidence? Did he suddenly get better in practice? Not likely. Players get better from playing in games.

 

[billsin01]

How's that extra seasoning of Ennis and Grant working out for us? But, I'm glad you brought up Grant, because his injury last year was one of the main factors of our late season swoon. We had no one with any seasoning to step in when he was out because he played so many minutes in the first 25 games.

This is completely intellectually dishonest. If you want to argue that a more experienced player is a better option than a less experienced player it's fine, but anyway you slice it, the step down from a sophmore Grant to a freshman Roberson or Gbinije was going to be a HUGE issue any way you slice it.

We had a really experienced Baye Keita replacing Fab when all that crap happened and Baye acquitted himseslf pretty well (11 rebs. vs. OSU, if I recall correctly) but at the end of the day he couldn't replace the force that Fab had become. Would playing more Dash Reilly have made us better equipped to deal with the loss of Onuaku in 09-10? I just don't buy that stuff.

 

[billsin01]

I think empirical evidence shows you're wrong. Force feeding kids minutes makes them learn how to play through mistakes and correct them. It makes them learn how to stay on the court and stay out of foul trouble. Just look at Rakeem Christmas - last season, Coleman was out injured and so Christmas knew he was going to play. What happened? He started having less foul trouble, learned how to stay on the floor longer and commitment somewhat fewer dumb fouls. This year, we need him to play a role in the offense and he's not going to come out for missing a few shots. What happened next? Suddenly he's scoring 3 times as much as he did last year. Coincidence? Did he suddenly get better in practice? Not likely. Players get better from playing in games.

Um, Rak had more fouls in fewer minutes last year (107 in 803 minutes) than he did as a sophomore (100 in 833 minutes). It doesn't get much more empirical than that.

The bottom line is Rak STILL has issues with committing silly fouls. He took tremendous strides last year and we could find flaws in how the staff has handled his development, but he proves nothing with regard to your stance on force-feeding minutes.

 

[two3zone]

As JB said last season and it just makes so much sense. If a player turns the ball over 8 times in practice, how many would he turn it over in a game?

The issues we see in the court with these guys are the same the coaches see at practice day in and day out, nothing is going to change from practice one day and suddenly get better the next during a game situation.

I'm sure the coaching staff is playing the players who help us win the most, I'm sure they aren't thinking "you know what, let's keep these guys who can help us win on the bench".

 

[reedny]

UK needs to abandon the platooon! They are eroding the **** out of those kid's confidence levels!

UK is in a different dimension .. since nearly all of their players are one-and-dones and just pass through the league. You won't hear about "academic" casualties there lol. And confidence isn't as much of a factor because they all have the swag that comes from being part of Pay Pal's exclusive club.

 

[CuseFaninVT]

This is basically it.

The distinction most people don't get is, there is a difference between a McCullough who has the physical ability and the skills necessary to compete and a Johnson who is not physically ready to compete or a Buss who is not skilled enough.

LOTS of PT will help McCullough get better. LOTS of PT won't help either Johnson or Buss get better, because they need hundreds of hours of practice and work in the weight room . . . essentially they need more time.

A few minutes of PT a game will never help anybody get any better.

Then, finally, the thing most people don't want to hear, there is probably nothing Boeheim can do in the short term to make Johnson or Buss any better. Their development is going to take longer than that. This does not mean recruiting them was a mistake (in my opinion). In a couple years Syracuse is going to be VERY talented, and their experience might just be what pushes us over the top.

I understand the developmental questions here, but I don't see anyone addressing the physical breakdown issues that we have seen. Our players who average 35 or more minutes a game look TIRED come mid to late season. This is yet another reason to allow some of the younger guys time on the floor when we are playing Canisius and Cornell. And when we get an actual injury, the guy coming off the bench always makes a mistake within the first minute and we hear the same old - 'See, told you he wasn't ready." It's a cycle that needs to be broken. I'm not asking for Buss to play half the minutes (especially with the way he's been shooting), but I definitely think Roberson should have gotten more minutes last year.

 

[CuseFaninVT]

As JB said last season and it just makes so much sense. If a player turns the ball over 8 times in practice, how many would he turn it over in a game?

The issues we see in the court with these guys are the same the coaches see at practice day in and day out, nothing is going to change from practice one day and suddenly get better the next during a game situation.

I'm sure the coaching staff is playing the players who help us win the most, I'm sure they aren't thinking "you know what, let's keep these guys who can help us win on the bench".

Maybe because they are pressing so hard they make mistakes. Lots of guys who have played for JB seem to have one eye on the bench waiting to get yanked the second they make a mistake. It's a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Much like Rak played a ton better when Baye went out injured last year. He knew he was going to be allowed to play through a mistake or two. It allows the kids to actually just play the game. In my opinion anyway.

 

[two3zone]

Maybe because they are pressing so hard they make mistakes. Lots of guys who have played for JB seem to have one eye on the bench waiting to get yanked the second they make a mistake. It's a self-fulfilling prophecy. Much like Rak played a ton better when Baye went out injured last year. He knew he was going to be allowed to play through a mistake or two. It allows the kids to actually just play the game. In my opinion anyway.

Ok, but if Buss is taking ill advises 3s in practice and not making them. Why would a coach put him on the floor during a game?

 

[CuseFaninVT]

Ok, but if Buss is taking ill advises 3s in practice and not making them. Why would a coach put him on the floor during a game?

Why is it a guy with a defensive set as his handle is asking a question about hoops that is offense related only?

The kid plays decent defense. Have him focus on that for a few sets - tell him not to shoot. If he does, then yank him. But maybe being a contributor on the defensive end, the one JB seems most focused on, will help him find his rhythm on the other end (and yay of me - spelled the r word right the first time).

And I'm talking about a few minutes here and there. Not 15 minute blocks.

 

[two3zone]

Why is it a guy with a defensive set as his handle is asking a question about hoops that is offense related only? The kid plays decent defense. Have him focus on that for a few sets - tell him not to shoot. If he does, then yank him. But maybe being a contributor on the defensive end, the one JB seems most focused on, will help him find his rhythm on the other end (and yay of me - spelled the r word right the first time). And I'm talking about a few minutes here and there. Not 15 minute blocks.

You said it yourself, he plays decent defense, I wouldn't call him a better defender than Cooney at this point.

Defense isn't a bigger issue than offense at this point in time.

 

[CuseFaninVT]

You said it yourself, he plays decent defense, I wouldn't call him a better defender than Cooney at this point.

Defense isn't a bigger issue than offense at this point in time.

I'm sure he's better than a Cooney who has been playing for 39 minutes. See what I'm getting at?

 

[two3zone]

I'm sure he's better than a Cooney who has been playing for 39 minutes. See what I'm getting at?

I guess we'll disagree, I haven't seen Patterson play better defense than Cooney nor G at the top of the zone yet.

 

[RF2044]

I'm sure he's better than a Cooney who has been playing for 39 minutes. See what I'm getting at?

I actually like the combination of Cooney / Patterson at the top of the zone. Joseph has a tendency to lose focus and drift out of position. And on nights where he isn't scoring, I have no problem with Patterson getting some of his minutes in tandem with Cooney.

This lineup seems to work, in that the offense flows primarily through G. And most of the time, we're not relying upon a point guard in a traditional sense to initiate our half court offensive sets anyway.

But it broke down against St. John's on the other end--these guys just couldn't hit shots. And it wasn't for want of good lucks--they just couldn't make anything. That needs to turn around.

 

[CuseFaninVT]

I actually like the combination of Cooney / Patterson at the top of the zone. Joseph has a tendency to lose focus and drift out of position. And on nights where he isn't scoring, I have no problem with Patterson getting some of his minutes in tandem with Cooney.

This lineup seems to work, in that the offense flows primarily through G. And most of the time, we're not relying upon a point guard in a traditional sense to initiate our half court offensive sets anyway.

But it broke down against St. John's on the other end--these guys just couldn't hit shots. And it wasn't for want of good lucks--they just couldn't make anything. That needs to turn around.

That works for me as well. Rotating players through will keep everyone into the game and reduce some of the weariness, especially and hopefully at the end of the season.

 

[dollarbill44]

This is completely intellectually dishonest. If you want to argue that a more experienced player is a better option than a less experienced player it's fine, but anyway you slice it, the step down from a sophmore Grant to a freshman Roberson or Gbinije was going to be a HUGE issue any way you slice it.

We had a really experienced Baye Keita replacing Fab when all that crap happened and Baye acquitted himseslf pretty well (11 rebs. vs. OSU, if I recall correctly) but at the end of the day he couldn't replace the force that Fab had become. Would playing more Dash Reilly have made us better equipped to deal with the loss of Onuaku in 09-10? I just don't buy that stuff.

Intellectually dishonest? Seriously? I don't get this view at all. You seem to be taking the stance in your posts that by developing a deeper bench by giving regular minutes (for some reason you seem to think this must mean a platoon with equal minutes among all players) to guys is going to reduce the effectiveness of the top 5 players. In most seasons, our first 5 are going to be ready mentally and physically to contribute to team success. Last year and this year are exceptions at PG because we had/have a freshman running the offense. But, we certainly have inexperienced guys vying for the 2/3 role and the fact is, most of them were on the team last year and would have benefitted from more meaningful game experience. If you don't believe that game experience counts WAY more than practice time, I won't debate this topic any more.

Speaking of practice vs game experience, I think a lot of people have misconceptions about what takes place at typical team practices. From a lot of comments on this thread, such as "BJ got a lot of experience going against CJ in practice", I get the impression that people think a practice is one long scrimmage where the bench players are getting experience playing against the first team. That's not how practices go. There is a lot of instruction and drilling of both individual skills and team concepts (i.e. where to be in the zone in certain circumstances, full-court press, inbounds plays, fast breaks, etc). I would bet that most practices have very little scrimmaging (10-15 minutes) where they might also be limited to only employing what they learned during that session. While some practices have more intensity than others, it is far different from the intensity of a real game.

Baye was capable as a defender and rebounder, as you point out, but he was an absolute offensive liability that year. As for Riley, I absolutely believe that he would have been more ready to handle stepping in for AO in March had he played more minutes during the season. I guess we will have to acknowledge different viewpoints on this topic, which by your reasoning makes me intellectually dishonest.:bat:

 

[dollarbill44]

I understand the developmental questions here, but I don't see anyone addressing the physical breakdown issues that we have seen. Our players who average 35 or more minutes a game look TIRED come mid to late season. This is yet another reason to allow some of the younger guys time on the floor when we are playing Canisius and Cornell. And when we get an actual injury, the guy coming off the bench always makes a mistake within the first minute and we hear the same old - 'See, told you he wasn't ready." It's a cycle that needs to be broken. I'm not asking for Buss to play half the minutes (especially with the way he's been shooting), but I definitely think Roberson should have gotten more minutes last year.

I have actually addressed this quite a bit. In this thread and in others in the past.

 

[dollarbill44]

Ok, but if Buss is taking ill advises 3s in practice and not making them. Why would a coach put him on the floor during a game?

My HS coach had a pretty simple remedy for bad habits in practice - running. If he takes an ill advised 3 in practice: [whistle] Buss, take a lap. Lather, rinse, repeat. If it keeps happening, [whistle] everyone on the end-line for suicides until Buss learns to not take bad 3s.

Trust me, that eliminates bad habits pretty quickly.

Or, you could have the student trainers throw bricks at him.