Random Virginia Tech and Miami Thoughts

[Niastri]

Neither team is a bad team. Losing to neither Miami or Virginia Tech, in and of itself, is a disaster. As of this writing, Miami is 36 in the NET rankings and Virginia Tech is 53.

You could even make the argument that losing to both at home isn't disastrous.

Maybe, though it is getting harder, you could argue that losing to both at home back to back isn't a disaster.

Losing to both at home after blowing a game against BC to create a 3 game losing streak?

But, even then, the real disaster is the absolutely crushing way in which each game went.

We had multiple 10 point leads against VPI in the first half, the last being 37-27 at 2:01 remaining in the first half. From that point to 2:40 in the second half, about a full half of basketball, we let them go on a 18-37 run, ending with us down 9 points. This team, with all its talent had 18 points in 20 minutes of basketball. The late game "heroics" made it look close, but the game was over because we couldn't score. Multiple players' parents went public with their unfavorable opinion of Red's coaching.

Coaches make mistakes. New coaches make lots of them. Red is a 3rd year head coach, and had a great offseason. He assembled a tournament team, possibly (given a huge range of possible outcomes) a highly seeded team come Selection Sunday. He isn't coaching them to that goal.

Miami was worse, because the absolute pounding on the boards and on the interior just demonstrated we were beaten by a better team. The replay is harder to watch because it just looked like a mismatch. Since Freeman came back, we have held our own on the boards. Miami crushed us by 16, only 4 away from doubling our total. They only missed 21 shots and got 8 offensive rebounds. We missed 31 shots and got 5 offensive rebounds.

Worse, it felt like we could only get a basket on a great individual effort, yet Miami made a single pass and got a layup possession after possession. In a game where we couldn't handle them inside, why not press sooner? Our biggest advantage as a team is depth. We have a core of guys 2-9 that are pretty indistinguishable. And 10th man Zephir wouldn't hurt us too much playing press 3 minutes a half if other players get tired.

Where's Betsey? With a team that is struggling to score, why can't you find extra minutes for a 6'8 guy who is shooting .407 from 3?

Back to the press. Syracuse is very good at a couple things, one of which is getting to the line, with us ranking 94th in the country in our possessions that result in an opponent fouling. After 20 games, it isn't looking like SSS issues. Somehow we are good at drawing fouls. We shoot 2pt shots well, we shoot 3pt shots miserably. We block shots at an elite level. Why not press, and get ourselves into situations where our bad shooters can try to force turnovers, and get more layups and draw fouls instead of shooting missed threes? Get Souare and Kyle into defensive situations where they can excel (rather than guarding much heavier, stronger guys in the post)?

As an eternal optimist, it hurts more to lose your optimism than it is for you "realists" to be proven right.

 

[MikeSU02]

Neither team is a bad team. Losing to neither Miami or Virginia Tech, in and of itself, is a disaster. As of this writing, Miami is 36 in the NET rankings and Virginia Tech is 53.

You could even make the argument that losing to both at home isn't disastrous.

Maybe, though it is getting harder, you could argue that losing to both at home back to back isn't a disaster.

Losing to both at home after blowing a game against BC to create a 3 game losing streak?

But, even then, the real disaster is the absolutely crushing way in which each game went.

We had multiple 10 point leads against VPI in the first half, the last being 37-27 at 2:01 remaining in the first half. From that point to 2:40 in the second half, about a full half of basketball, we let them go on a 18-37 run, ending with us down 9 points. This team, with all its talent had 18 points in 20 minutes of basketball. The late game "heroics" made it look close, but the game was over because we couldn't score. Multiple players' parents went public with their unfavorable opinion of Red's coaching.

Coaches make mistakes. New coaches make lots of them. Red is a 3rd year head coach, and had a great offseason. He assembled a tournament team, possibly (given a huge range of possible outcomes) a highly seeded team come Selection Sunday. He isn't coaching them to that goal.

Miami was worse, because the absolute pounding on the boards and on the interior just demonstrated we were beaten by a better team. The replay is harder to watch because it just looked like a mismatch. Since Freeman came back, we have held our own on the boards. Miami crushed us by 16, only 4 away from doubling our total. They only missed 21 shots and got 8 offensive rebounds. We missed 31 shots and got 5 offensive rebounds.

Worse, it felt like we could only get a basket on a great individual effort, yet Miami made a single pass and got a layup possession after possession. In a game where we couldn't handle them inside, why not press sooner? Our biggest advantage as a team is depth. We have a core of guys 2-9 that are pretty indistinguishable. And 10th man Zephir wouldn't hurt us too much playing press 3 minutes a half if other players get tired.

Where's Betsey? With a team that is struggling to score, why can't you find extra minutes for a 6'8 guy who is shooting .407 from 3?

Back to the press. Syracuse is very good at a couple things, one of which is getting to the line, with us ranking 94th in the country in our possessions that result in an opponent fouling. After 20 games, it isn't looking like SSS issues. Somehow we are good at drawing fouls. We shoot 2pt shots well, we shoot 3pt shots miserably. We block shots at an elite level. Why not press, and get ourselves into situations where our bad shooters can try to force turnovers, and get more layups and draw fouls instead of shooting missed threes? Get Souare and Kyle into defensive situations where they can excel (rather than guarding much heavier, stronger guys in the post)?

As an eternal optimist, it hurts more to lose your optimism than it is for you "realists" to be proven right.

Gave your post a like. Agree with a lot of it. Here Is where I disagree: our 2-9 is very distinguishable.

In fact, I would argue that Kyle is clearly entrenched as our #2 guy. There is even an argument, one that I wouldn’t make, that he is our most important when you consider games played. He may be our mvp vs best player.

We have an upper tier of Donnie and Kyle.

We have a middle tier of Kingz and Betsey and White and George (basically guys that can be good but are inconsistent). Kingz probably with the biggest upside for this season.

Lower tier: JJ and Kiyan

I know a few other guys play but they don’t have enough minutes to really say.

We have our second most FGA/game taken by JJ who is shooting 49% TS%. Kiyan is shooting 50% TS% and shooting 7.5 FGA/game. We basically are taking 18 FGA/game by two guys that are wildly inefficient. And that’s only on the offensive end in criticizing them.

But we don’t have nine guys in reality. And definitely not nine guys with how they are being coached and utilized.

Back to agreeing — the way we score is individually a lot of times. And it feels like it’s an uphill battle almost all the time.

 

[Scooch]

You do a very nice job with your recap posts Niastri. I enjoy reading them.

Just trying to bring some positivity to a dark time!