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Message: [QUOTE="Niastri, post: 5649911, member: 722"] 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. [/QUOTE]

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