General20
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One of my favorite aspects of college basketball is the developmental nature of it. Players improve. They are not the same from season to season, and some vastly improve over the course of the same season. Just look at last year. Early on while dealing with covid delays and absences SU was barely a top 80 team, but by March they were playing at something close to a top 10 level, and that despite missing their starting center and Kadary Richmond being hobbled to the point of uselessness. They could have even been quite a bit better than they were. This developmental aspect makes early season games especially interesting to me personally, because I enjoy watching the game for its own sake but there is that additional layer of evaluating players to see how they develop and how that development affects the overall quality of the team. It also makes trying to predict how the season is going to turn out based on vague second or third hand practice reports an exercise in futility. I have always found predictions boring, especially where college basketball is concerned, because if a team like last year's Syracuse team can fluctuate from the 80th best team in the country to the 10th within 2 or 3 months what good is a prediction that only shows what the end record is and not how they got there?
Long story short, predictions are stupid, but pinpointing key developmental areas and watching early season games closely to see how they unfold is exciting (at least to me). So here are a few things to look out for in the exhibition and early season games that could make the difference between being in the top 10 and being on the bubble.
Big Picture Stuff
The Defense. The biggest difference between my opinion of this year's team and the general consensus is that I think Swider and Jimmy will be pretty good zone defenders for us. Unfortunately there's a caveat. It usually takes a month or two for guys to truly grasp where they are suppose to be in the zone, and this year we will be playing Indiana, Florida St, Georgetown, Villanova, VCU and possibly any of Baylor, Auburn, Michigan St, etc. all within the first month or so of the season. That's a lot of potential losses to take while our guys are still getting their feet wet. I'm fairly confident SU's defense will be good in the ACC portion of the schedule, but this year they are going to have to be playing D at a competent level pretty much right from the get-go. Usually our guys look a little confused defensively in the exhibition games and its no big deal. This year, they might not have the luxury of figuring it out while they go.
Rebounding. I don't want to spend too much time on this, because I'm going to address it in detail later, but the quick and dirty of it all is I question Edwards hands, and see rebounding as a potential weakness of this team.
Buddy. Any SU fan old enough to remember 2003 should understand that having the best player on the court is a massive advantage. I don't think I'm exaggerating when I say that Buddy Boeheim was the best basketball player in the country during last year's post season. In 5 post season games he averaged 25ppg on 45% shooting from 3 - and three of those five games came against top 10 ranked defenses (the other two were NC State and West Virginia who both had pretty good D's as well). This is a small sample size that will not necessarily translate to a full season of top notch success, but it is not random meaningless sample. These were the most important games of the season, against the countries best defensive teams, who knew that all they had to do was stop Buddy to advance. It means something that he was able to put up those kind of numbers, against those teams, in that situation. If he can do something similar for a full season SU's upside is very high. The farther off those numbers he falls the lower SU's upside gets.
The fine details ... or put another way, here are the 5 players whose offseason improvement (or lack thereof) will determine if this year's team is really good, or mediocre.
#1) Jesse Edwards - If you want to see Syracuse in the top 10 then pay close attention to how Jesse Edwards looks. A top 10 SU team has a center who can protect the rim (something I'm confident Jesse will be able to do), stay out of foul trouble (jury is still out), rebound, and score. Lets look at these last two a little more closely. With scoring, its hard for me to picture Jesse being anything other than the 5th option so his overall production doesn't matter much. In other words whether he scores 5ppg or 10 wont make much of a difference. What will matter is his gravity. If opposing defenses can ignore him, double team Buddy, and not pay any price for it, that is a huge (potentially fatal) flaw. On the other hand if Jesse doesn't score any points, but his man knows he needs to stick by him or pay the price and everybody else on our team gets to operate free from any potential double teams, then Syracuse isn't going to have much problem scoring the ball. Rebounding concerns me for two reasons. First, maybe the hardest thing to do in the zone is be a center and decide in the split second a shot goes up whether you want to go for the block or get in position for the rebound. Jesse is in there for his rim protection. He's going to need to contest shots. That's going to make rebounding hard for him, and I'm not sure he has the instincts to always make the split second decision of when to rebound and when to block correctly (few do). On top of this problem is the fact that Jesse has terrible hands. Its possible that some of his troubles catching the ball came from him being light/weak and getting banged around, and now that he is heavier/stronger his hands problem will go away. But usually when a big guy has bad hands, he always has bad hands and there is nothing that can be done about it.
#2) Jimmy Boeheim - Jimmy was probably the guy on the team with the least amount of preseason hype before the tipoff scrimmage. After, people certainly noticed that he was the best player on the court, though I wouldn't put much stock in a scrimmage that doesn't feature much defense. What I do put stock in is the fact that his skillset is absolutely perfect for the openings defenses are going to have to give us to cover all our shooters. Think of Jimmy as this year's Quincy Guerrier. He might take a few 3's, but he's mostly going to operate inside, taking advantage of the space our shooters open up. Quincy was a banger. He didn't have a great handle, and he didn't have much in the way of a post up game. What he liked to do is catch the ball close to his preferred spot then throw his shoulder into the opposing defender until he got directly on his spot. There is nothing wrong with scoring this way (he would have been awesome on the '18 team), the problem was it didn't really fit what defenses were giving us last year. Quincy generally dominated when a smaller player tried to guard him, so I was excited for the NCAA tournament knowing he was going to go up against exclusively smaller opponents, yet Quincy struggled in all 3 games (at least relative to what I was expecting). The San Diego St. player who guarded him may have been the best defensive player I saw all year so I'll give Quincy a pass in that game. West Virginia's hectic pressing style left Quincy (and everybody else at different times) wide open down low, unfortunately his lack of a handle or polished post game made it hard for him to take advantage of the space he was given. Even though West Virginia had a smaller defender on him the fact that he was closing in quickly and forcing Quincy to move faster than he wanted really bothered him. I think Houston saw this tape and purposely did what West Virginia's haphazard pressing style did accidentally. They were quick to leave Quincy all alone to double team someone else (usually Buddy) counting on the fact that they could close down on Quincy before he got his shot off. It worked perfectly. Buddy had a double team in his face all game (they also doubled liberally off Dolezaj and Kadary) and Quincy only scored 8 points on 3-9 shooting despite being left wide open on multiple possessions. Jimmy is good at what Quincy was bad at. He's got a great handle and a myriad of slick post moves he can break out in any given situation. He will burn any team that gives him tons of space to operate in, but how can you not give him space? Shooters like Buddy, Swider and Girard must be accounted for. Jimmy has a real opportunity this year because he will be living in that lucky zone where your skillset is perfect for exploiting what the defense is giving you. What we don't really know about for sure is talent. Yes, he averaged 17 & 6 in the Ivy League but how does that translate to the ACC? You might think it would be impossible for him to put up similar numbers against much better competition, but I think there are two reasons for hope. One, Jimmy took a redshirt and probably got better during his year off. He's noticeably bigger and stronger (jacked!) and according to Eric Devendorf who helped train him, he's a lot more skilled too. As I mentioned, players don't stay the same from year to year they evolve. Second, Jimmy got double teamed basically every time he touched the ball inside the 3 point line in the Ivy League. Go back and look at any highlight from his junior year, its constant. He's never going to see a double team here, in fact there will probably be possessions where he is left completely alone. While there is no doubt that one ACC defender is better than one Ivy league defender, I dont think one ACC defender is better than constant double teams, and being the player opposing teams are focused on stopping in the Ivy league.
#3) Joe Girard - Covid. Asthma. I don't need to rehash the Joe Girard story for the millionth time. I will just say this ... he played very well in all three NCAA tournament games, scoring 12 in each, and him playing well was a huge difference maker for us. He might not be the best player, but when he plays good it matters more than when other players do, and I'll explain why. With a hot Girard SU was doing the same thing to teams that the championship Golden State Warrior teams did. With both Steph and Klay hitting from 25+ feet they were the best team in the NBA by a huge margin. When Klay got hurt and it was just Steph they were the 8 seed, despite Steph scoring 32 points per game and putting up probably the greatest shooting season in NBA history. I'm not comparing Joe and Buddy to Steph and Klay, but I am pointing out the fact that having two players hitting from that deep stretches a defense out to the point where normal rotations and help defense becomes impossible. Don't underestimate how powerful a weapon this is. The early practice reports on Joe Girard are good. If he can do this year what he did in the NCAA tournament last year, Syracuse becomes a completely different animal for defenses to contend with.
We can draw a line in the sand here and say that if these three guys develop the way we want, Syracuse is going to be a good team. Probably a very good team. But just for fun (and because I can't shut up) lets add two more guys to the mix.
#4) Benny Williams - I'll probably be screaming into the void with this one but Benny is in a special situation that will require patience. I like Benny a lot. Usually when I do a review of a high school player, I do one paragraph of positives and another of negatives, because almost all high school players (even the very good ones) are unfinished products with holes in their game. When I did a review of Benny it had only one paragraph because he really does everything well. That said, he's a freshman sitting behind two seniors in a year when Indiana, Florida St, Georgetown, Villanova etc are just around the corner. He's a good outside shooter, but Swider is a better outside shooter. He can score near the basket but Jimmy does that better. What Benny gives you is the best mid range game (which is not a bad thing, but not the greatest thing either) and the potential of being a superior shot blocker for a forward - which only pays dividends after Benny understands our zone which takes most of the season for most freshmen. For these reasons we need patience. If Benny isn't producing early, its no big deal, there is a very good chance he evolves during the year and starts producing late. If Benny is producing early despite everything going against him I think its fair to get excited, we will have a star on our hands. Once he does understand the D, I love the potential of putting two legit shot blockers in Edwards and Williams into a D that was already (and usually is) among the nations leaders in 3pt %.
#5) Frank Anselem - I won't lie I was going to put Sidibe here. For all of Sidibe's faults he's one of the best centers we've ever had in the rebounds per minute category. As I mentioned, maybe the hardest ask of anyone playing zone is the center's decision of whether or not to contest the shot or go for the rebound. Sidibe rarely has to make this decision since his bad knees make it impossible for him to contest many shots, therefore he's always going for the rebound, and he's a big guy with good hands so he gets a lot of them. There is a place for this skill on a team that lacks an elite rebounder. But the reports on Frank Anselem have me excited. Did you see that article where Autrey called him the most improved player he's ever coached?? Its hard not to get excited about that kind of praise. Frank reminds me so much of Emeka Okafor physically. He's new to basketball and as recently as last season had no idea how to play it, but his upside is through the roof. Before all these glowing practice reports I would have been surprised to see Frank in the rotation and shocked to see him getting any kind of starters minutes, but maybe? He could solve a lot of our rim protecting and rebounding issues if everything came together for him. When it comes to toughness and hands I think he will be a superior option to Jesse. Perhaps like Benny, he can come along slowly and add a whole new dimension to our team come March?
Hope this gives you a few things to watch for in the exhibitions and early season games, and helps increase your enjoyment of those games as it does mine!
Long story short, predictions are stupid, but pinpointing key developmental areas and watching early season games closely to see how they unfold is exciting (at least to me). So here are a few things to look out for in the exhibition and early season games that could make the difference between being in the top 10 and being on the bubble.
Big Picture Stuff
The Defense. The biggest difference between my opinion of this year's team and the general consensus is that I think Swider and Jimmy will be pretty good zone defenders for us. Unfortunately there's a caveat. It usually takes a month or two for guys to truly grasp where they are suppose to be in the zone, and this year we will be playing Indiana, Florida St, Georgetown, Villanova, VCU and possibly any of Baylor, Auburn, Michigan St, etc. all within the first month or so of the season. That's a lot of potential losses to take while our guys are still getting their feet wet. I'm fairly confident SU's defense will be good in the ACC portion of the schedule, but this year they are going to have to be playing D at a competent level pretty much right from the get-go. Usually our guys look a little confused defensively in the exhibition games and its no big deal. This year, they might not have the luxury of figuring it out while they go.
Rebounding. I don't want to spend too much time on this, because I'm going to address it in detail later, but the quick and dirty of it all is I question Edwards hands, and see rebounding as a potential weakness of this team.
Buddy. Any SU fan old enough to remember 2003 should understand that having the best player on the court is a massive advantage. I don't think I'm exaggerating when I say that Buddy Boeheim was the best basketball player in the country during last year's post season. In 5 post season games he averaged 25ppg on 45% shooting from 3 - and three of those five games came against top 10 ranked defenses (the other two were NC State and West Virginia who both had pretty good D's as well). This is a small sample size that will not necessarily translate to a full season of top notch success, but it is not random meaningless sample. These were the most important games of the season, against the countries best defensive teams, who knew that all they had to do was stop Buddy to advance. It means something that he was able to put up those kind of numbers, against those teams, in that situation. If he can do something similar for a full season SU's upside is very high. The farther off those numbers he falls the lower SU's upside gets.
The fine details ... or put another way, here are the 5 players whose offseason improvement (or lack thereof) will determine if this year's team is really good, or mediocre.
#1) Jesse Edwards - If you want to see Syracuse in the top 10 then pay close attention to how Jesse Edwards looks. A top 10 SU team has a center who can protect the rim (something I'm confident Jesse will be able to do), stay out of foul trouble (jury is still out), rebound, and score. Lets look at these last two a little more closely. With scoring, its hard for me to picture Jesse being anything other than the 5th option so his overall production doesn't matter much. In other words whether he scores 5ppg or 10 wont make much of a difference. What will matter is his gravity. If opposing defenses can ignore him, double team Buddy, and not pay any price for it, that is a huge (potentially fatal) flaw. On the other hand if Jesse doesn't score any points, but his man knows he needs to stick by him or pay the price and everybody else on our team gets to operate free from any potential double teams, then Syracuse isn't going to have much problem scoring the ball. Rebounding concerns me for two reasons. First, maybe the hardest thing to do in the zone is be a center and decide in the split second a shot goes up whether you want to go for the block or get in position for the rebound. Jesse is in there for his rim protection. He's going to need to contest shots. That's going to make rebounding hard for him, and I'm not sure he has the instincts to always make the split second decision of when to rebound and when to block correctly (few do). On top of this problem is the fact that Jesse has terrible hands. Its possible that some of his troubles catching the ball came from him being light/weak and getting banged around, and now that he is heavier/stronger his hands problem will go away. But usually when a big guy has bad hands, he always has bad hands and there is nothing that can be done about it.
#2) Jimmy Boeheim - Jimmy was probably the guy on the team with the least amount of preseason hype before the tipoff scrimmage. After, people certainly noticed that he was the best player on the court, though I wouldn't put much stock in a scrimmage that doesn't feature much defense. What I do put stock in is the fact that his skillset is absolutely perfect for the openings defenses are going to have to give us to cover all our shooters. Think of Jimmy as this year's Quincy Guerrier. He might take a few 3's, but he's mostly going to operate inside, taking advantage of the space our shooters open up. Quincy was a banger. He didn't have a great handle, and he didn't have much in the way of a post up game. What he liked to do is catch the ball close to his preferred spot then throw his shoulder into the opposing defender until he got directly on his spot. There is nothing wrong with scoring this way (he would have been awesome on the '18 team), the problem was it didn't really fit what defenses were giving us last year. Quincy generally dominated when a smaller player tried to guard him, so I was excited for the NCAA tournament knowing he was going to go up against exclusively smaller opponents, yet Quincy struggled in all 3 games (at least relative to what I was expecting). The San Diego St. player who guarded him may have been the best defensive player I saw all year so I'll give Quincy a pass in that game. West Virginia's hectic pressing style left Quincy (and everybody else at different times) wide open down low, unfortunately his lack of a handle or polished post game made it hard for him to take advantage of the space he was given. Even though West Virginia had a smaller defender on him the fact that he was closing in quickly and forcing Quincy to move faster than he wanted really bothered him. I think Houston saw this tape and purposely did what West Virginia's haphazard pressing style did accidentally. They were quick to leave Quincy all alone to double team someone else (usually Buddy) counting on the fact that they could close down on Quincy before he got his shot off. It worked perfectly. Buddy had a double team in his face all game (they also doubled liberally off Dolezaj and Kadary) and Quincy only scored 8 points on 3-9 shooting despite being left wide open on multiple possessions. Jimmy is good at what Quincy was bad at. He's got a great handle and a myriad of slick post moves he can break out in any given situation. He will burn any team that gives him tons of space to operate in, but how can you not give him space? Shooters like Buddy, Swider and Girard must be accounted for. Jimmy has a real opportunity this year because he will be living in that lucky zone where your skillset is perfect for exploiting what the defense is giving you. What we don't really know about for sure is talent. Yes, he averaged 17 & 6 in the Ivy League but how does that translate to the ACC? You might think it would be impossible for him to put up similar numbers against much better competition, but I think there are two reasons for hope. One, Jimmy took a redshirt and probably got better during his year off. He's noticeably bigger and stronger (jacked!) and according to Eric Devendorf who helped train him, he's a lot more skilled too. As I mentioned, players don't stay the same from year to year they evolve. Second, Jimmy got double teamed basically every time he touched the ball inside the 3 point line in the Ivy League. Go back and look at any highlight from his junior year, its constant. He's never going to see a double team here, in fact there will probably be possessions where he is left completely alone. While there is no doubt that one ACC defender is better than one Ivy league defender, I dont think one ACC defender is better than constant double teams, and being the player opposing teams are focused on stopping in the Ivy league.
#3) Joe Girard - Covid. Asthma. I don't need to rehash the Joe Girard story for the millionth time. I will just say this ... he played very well in all three NCAA tournament games, scoring 12 in each, and him playing well was a huge difference maker for us. He might not be the best player, but when he plays good it matters more than when other players do, and I'll explain why. With a hot Girard SU was doing the same thing to teams that the championship Golden State Warrior teams did. With both Steph and Klay hitting from 25+ feet they were the best team in the NBA by a huge margin. When Klay got hurt and it was just Steph they were the 8 seed, despite Steph scoring 32 points per game and putting up probably the greatest shooting season in NBA history. I'm not comparing Joe and Buddy to Steph and Klay, but I am pointing out the fact that having two players hitting from that deep stretches a defense out to the point where normal rotations and help defense becomes impossible. Don't underestimate how powerful a weapon this is. The early practice reports on Joe Girard are good. If he can do this year what he did in the NCAA tournament last year, Syracuse becomes a completely different animal for defenses to contend with.
We can draw a line in the sand here and say that if these three guys develop the way we want, Syracuse is going to be a good team. Probably a very good team. But just for fun (and because I can't shut up) lets add two more guys to the mix.
#4) Benny Williams - I'll probably be screaming into the void with this one but Benny is in a special situation that will require patience. I like Benny a lot. Usually when I do a review of a high school player, I do one paragraph of positives and another of negatives, because almost all high school players (even the very good ones) are unfinished products with holes in their game. When I did a review of Benny it had only one paragraph because he really does everything well. That said, he's a freshman sitting behind two seniors in a year when Indiana, Florida St, Georgetown, Villanova etc are just around the corner. He's a good outside shooter, but Swider is a better outside shooter. He can score near the basket but Jimmy does that better. What Benny gives you is the best mid range game (which is not a bad thing, but not the greatest thing either) and the potential of being a superior shot blocker for a forward - which only pays dividends after Benny understands our zone which takes most of the season for most freshmen. For these reasons we need patience. If Benny isn't producing early, its no big deal, there is a very good chance he evolves during the year and starts producing late. If Benny is producing early despite everything going against him I think its fair to get excited, we will have a star on our hands. Once he does understand the D, I love the potential of putting two legit shot blockers in Edwards and Williams into a D that was already (and usually is) among the nations leaders in 3pt %.
#5) Frank Anselem - I won't lie I was going to put Sidibe here. For all of Sidibe's faults he's one of the best centers we've ever had in the rebounds per minute category. As I mentioned, maybe the hardest ask of anyone playing zone is the center's decision of whether or not to contest the shot or go for the rebound. Sidibe rarely has to make this decision since his bad knees make it impossible for him to contest many shots, therefore he's always going for the rebound, and he's a big guy with good hands so he gets a lot of them. There is a place for this skill on a team that lacks an elite rebounder. But the reports on Frank Anselem have me excited. Did you see that article where Autrey called him the most improved player he's ever coached?? Its hard not to get excited about that kind of praise. Frank reminds me so much of Emeka Okafor physically. He's new to basketball and as recently as last season had no idea how to play it, but his upside is through the roof. Before all these glowing practice reports I would have been surprised to see Frank in the rotation and shocked to see him getting any kind of starters minutes, but maybe? He could solve a lot of our rim protecting and rebounding issues if everything came together for him. When it comes to toughness and hands I think he will be a superior option to Jesse. Perhaps like Benny, he can come along slowly and add a whole new dimension to our team come March?
Hope this gives you a few things to watch for in the exhibitions and early season games, and helps increase your enjoyment of those games as it does mine!
- and after two years I get to see Syracuse basketball live! I have learned from football that I can easily wear a mask and screech into it for a minimum of two hours. Piece of cake! (Whoever woulda thunk it?) I get to see all the great people in my section. I have missed them. I hope they recognize me, because my hair is completely white and I’ll be wearing a face covering. But 309 is crafty, so they’ll figure it out.
