Recruiting for the zone has killed the fun of watching this team | Syracusefan.com

Recruiting for the zone has killed the fun of watching this team

They’ve had some postseason success largely by being difficult to prepare for but it’s been ugly basketball to watch for since the Dion team. The zone does not breed up tempo or exciting offense.

Interesting listening to Dakich talk about GT's zone and how they switched from man to man and are now better for it. I guess, that's what lessor teams have to do to stand a chance, that includes us.
 
We recruit nothing but long guards who cannot beat their guys off the dribble and can't shoot. It's boring basketball to watch and not particularly effective
You mean you want guys like barely 6' Jose Alvarado who was ranked 131st and chose Georgia Tech over Rutgers and Seton Hall and torched Cuse yesterday for 19 points on near perfect shooting but only had two assists vs 4 turnovers.
 
You mean you want guys like barely 6' Jose Alvarado who was ranked 131st and chose Georgia Tech over Rutgers and Seton Hall and torched Cuse yesterday for 19 points on near perfect shooting but only had two assists vs 4 turnovers.

Also was on the winning team. I like winners.
 
Interesting listening to Dakich talk about GT's zone and how they switched from man to man and are now better for it. I guess, that's what lessor teams have to do to stand a chance, that includes us.

I do have to question at some point where we start to reach diminishing returns on our zone.

1. It will always be impactful in the tourney as schools struggle with the length, and are less familiar with it. This allows us to keep games close - and we can make a run. That's nice. We've seen it happen a couple times recently.

2. Recruiting for the zone seems to mean having zero aptitude on offense - which means almost everyone plays us close and they can make a run and we're in for some troublesome games - that likely shouldn't be. Thus, bubble every year.

3. How much do we lose by getting a skilled a PG? A shooter? Is it really so awful that it would completely negate the zone's effectiveness? I would think, especially against crap teams, if we could play faster we would increase possessions, as we increase possessions crap teams are going to lose track of us - just because we have superior talent.

This means a better seed perhaps, or at least maybe not being on the bubble. It's so easy to slow us down - when we're not slowing ourselves down that almost any opponent can make a game of it just by minimizing possessions.

4. As more teams can surround the three point arc with shooters - is the zone going to remain as effective?

Who knows. We seem to be recruiting so heavily for the zone that we're becoming the most boring team ever created. I do know that.

That being said, Battle should be better, and maybe we thought he would be the dynamic 2G we needed for an ISO offense. Howard seemed sort of creative and explosive as a Frosh...not so much any more. I don't know what we're trying to accomplish with our centers and PFs. OB seems to fit the mold of what we want at SF or even workable at PF...but he and Battle, and now Howard all seem to have regressed.

I can see where the pieces made some sense - at some point. We just seem unable to adapt, or get anyone to improve. Carey was a good pick-up. It just seems like we're all over the place. I'm not sure what we're doing with recruiting tbh.
 
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You mean you want guys like barely 6' Jose Alvarado who was ranked 131st and chose Georgia Tech over Rutgers and Seton Hall and torched Cuse yesterday for 19 points on near perfect shooting but only had two assists vs 4 turnovers.
No. I want to tge emphasis to be on good basketball players that can shoot rather than the emphasis being on long athletes that we try to make into basketball players.
 
No. I want to tge emphasis to be on good basketball players that can shoot rather than the emphasis being on long athletes that we try to make into basketball players.
It's not like SU gets tall, long kids who are low ranked ball players. Yes they may not be top 25, but are still 4 and 3 * players. Heck MD has pretty good bball smarts, he's just skinny
 

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