Seriously, what's with our fast break? | Syracusefan.com

Seriously, what's with our fast break?

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I have never seen a team more inept at running a break with numbers advantage. Are our guys selfish point counters? Has AAU ruined the concept? Does Red not care? We operate on razor thin margins and constantly give away points because we don't have any understanding on how to run a fast break. It's insane.
 
I have never seen a team more inept at running a break with numbers advantage. Are our guys selfish point counters? Has AAU ruined the concept? Does Red not care? We operate on razor thin margins and constantly give away points because we don't have any understanding on how to run a fast break. It's insane.
If you are talking about us never passing to the guy running the break with the ball handler, yeah. It is incredible. If you do that enough, people stop running with you.
 
If you are talking about us never passing to the guy running the break with the ball handler, yeah. It is incredible. If you do that enough, people stop running with you.
Passing, spacing, everything. I cannot fathom why and or how we are so awful at it.
 
I have never seen a team more inept at running a break with numbers advantage. Are our guys selfish point counters? Has AAU ruined the concept? Does Red not care? We operate on razor thin margins and constantly give away points because we don't have any understanding on how to run a fast break. It's insane.
I hate to hang this on Red. No one seems to want to pass on the fast breaks????
 
We have not been able to run a break for 5+ years. Our inability to make layups on breaks is staggering. I long for the days of Sherman Douglas running point and distributing.
 
I’ve never played organized basketball in my life and even I know that when on a break first thing to do is either take the middle or pass quickly to the guy in the middle which opens the entire width of the court to operate the break in and puts the defender in jail.
 
It's not new. I see it more now across college basketball than ever. And the thing is, most of the time, if the guy gives it up, he should get it right back for an easy layup/dunk.
Nobody wants to give it up…. They all want to be on a YouTube short or tik tok clip
 
I have never seen a team more inept at running a break with numbers advantage. Are our guys selfish point counters? Has AAU ruined the concept? Does Red not care? We operate on razor thin margins and constantly give away points because we don't have any understanding on how to run a fast break. It's insane.
I believe it all comes down to Point Guard play. As talented as he is, Judah Mintz is not a very natural or instinctive passer, facilitator or orchestrator - those aspects of his game still have much more room for development.

When your Point Guard is more of a scorer than a passer while still the team's primary ball handler, the fast break will suffer. When Judah is pushing the ball downhill, he's usually hellbent on scoring or getting to the line and passing seems to be more of an afterthought.

Bottom line: Mintz is a talented, gifted downhill scorer but he's not very good at leading and setting up his teammates in the traditional point guard sense - he's much more of a shoot-first COMBO or LEAD guard than a classic play-making POINT guard. And since he's the primary ball handler, SU's fastbreak suffers because of it.
 
I have never seen a team more inept at running a break with numbers advantage. Are our guys selfish point counters? Has AAU ruined the concept? Does Red not care? We operate on razor thin margins and constantly give away points because we don't have any understanding on how to run a fast break. It's insane.
It’s absolutely AAU. They teach the kid to hunt contact, prioritizing getting the foul over the made basket. It’s absolutely infuriating. I can’t tell you how often it happened when my kid would be all alone on the wing ready to pop a three and the best player on the team would go 1 on 3 on the break. And he almost never got the call because he initiated all the contact.

As was said elsewhere in the thread, it’s everywhere in college hoops now. Tough to watch, because a well executed break is a thing of beauty.
 
Often it is actually best in a 2 on 1 to look like a threat to pass to the second guy so the defender does not stay on you too tight and then just go strong and lay it in yourself. That is how the vast majority of NBA 2 on 1s that I see end up. There was one in the at the beginning of the second half with I believe Judah and Bell where Judah just stared Bell down the whole time and easily laid it in. It was the right move. Sometimes more can go wrong when you pass in that situation.

Maybe there was another bad one later in the second that I didn't see where someone really should have passed? Turned it off in disgust at some point.
 
I believe it all comes down to Point Guard play. As talented as he is, Judah Mintz is not a very natural or instinctive passer, facilitator or orchestrator - those aspects of his game still have much more room for development.

When your Point Guard is more of a scorer than a passer while still the team's primary ball handler, the fast break will suffer. When Judah is pushing the ball downhill, he's usually hellbent on scoring or getting to the line and passing seems to be more of an afterthought.

Bottom line: Mintz is a talented, gifted downhill scorer but he's not very good at leading and setting up his teammates in the traditional point guard sense - he's much more of a shoot-first COMBO or LEAD guard than a classic play-making POINT guard. And since he's the primary ball handler, SU's fastbreak suffers because of it.
It isn't just Judah who doesn't share it on the break. Q - our designated best passer - fails to dish it on the break as much as anyone. It is a major problem as we aren't good enough to give away easy points.
 
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Just to play devils advocate - there are times like at 7:03 on this where not passing is the right move. 2 on 1 for Judah and Bell but Judah has a guy on his tail. A pass to Bell here could give the guy behind time to catch up. The defender in the middle could tip the pass. Bell could mishandle the pass. There is less that can go wrong if you just look the guy off and lay it in strong yourself. Nothing selfish about this play.

 
It isn't just Judah who doesn't share it on the break. Q - are designated best passer - fails to dish it on the break as much as anyone. It is a major problem as we aren't good enough to give away easy points.
Definitely isn't solely on Judah but he is the primary ball handler and is more times than not the one who gets the ball first whenever fast break opportunities arise. But I agree, it is a team wide deficiency.
 
In general, it’s the spacing. On many of those plays, you’ll see that the player attacking with the ball has no real passing lane to distribute the ball. For this topic, I’ll lay it on coaching because that is taught.

The other thing I’ll say is, for the first 40 years of Boheim’s career, SU was consistently one of the best fast break basketball teams in the nation. Every year. Period. In the end, JB severely lacked in recruiting but also seemed to relax a bit in coaching too. A horrible fast break offense was the result.

If Red wants to run, he better teach the fast break.
 
Yes the player with the ball usually takes it himself, but the runs of the off ball players on the fast break are always wrong. The spacing isn't correct. The off ball players don't push up ahead with any urgency to be there in the right spot to make the defender guard multiple players. These off ball players should try to be just ahead of the player with the ball but instead they trail just behind on the wings for some reason. Very noticeable tonight but its has been happening all year. With our 3 point shooting this is not how it should be run. Sometimes the fault has been the dribbler needs to slow it down a tad to allow these runs to take place as well.
 
Just to play devils advocate - there are times like at 7:03 on this where not passing is the right move. 2 on 1 for Judah and Bell but Judah has a guy on his tail. A pass to Bell here could give the guy behind time to catch up. The defender in the middle could tip the pass. Bell could mishandle the pass. There is less that can go wrong if you just look the guy off and lay it in strong yourself. Nothing selfish about this play.


to play devils advocate Mintz should’ve passed the ball immediately upcourt to Bell. Then Mintz could’ve run the floor. The defender would’ve been forced to stop ball (bell) and Bell would’ve dropped it back to Mintz for an easy bucket.

Instead Mintz keeps the ball and dribbles straight down the court into the lane and into the defender. It’s a pretty piss poor job by Mintz, he has no intentions of sharing the ball.
 
I believe it all comes down to Point Guard play. As talented as he is, Judah Mintz is not a very natural or instinctive passer, facilitator or orchestrator - those aspects of his game still have much more room for development.

When your Point Guard is more of a scorer than a passer while still the team's primary ball handler, the fast break will suffer. When Judah is pushing the ball downhill, he's usually hellbent on scoring or getting to the line and passing seems to be more of an afterthought.

Bottom line: Mintz is a talented, gifted downhill scorer but he's not very good at leading and setting up his teammates in the traditional point guard sense - he's much more of a shoot-first COMBO or LEAD guard than a classic play-making POINT guard. And since he's the primary ball handler, SU's fastbreak suffers because of it.
I don't think it's limited to just the PG though. When you look at our really good teams of the past, most players at every position knew how to share the ball and find guys, especially on the break. It's fundamentals that have faded.
 
to play devils advocate Mintz should’ve passed the ball immediately upcourt to Bell. Then Mintz could’ve run the floor. The defender would’ve been forced to stop ball (bell) and Bell would’ve dropped it back to Mintz for an easy bucket.

Instead Mintz keeps the ball and dribbles straight down the court into the lane and into the defender. It’s a pretty piss poor job by Mintz, he has no intentions of sharing the ball.
But if they took any more time the guy behind Mintz catches up to the play. It is not always the right move to pass. If the defender thought he truly had no intentions to pass he would have face-guarded Mintz completely. Instead he sees Mintz head is up and gets caught in no mans land between him and Bell. Mintz finishes strong and the guy behind still nearly blocks it. 100% perfect play from Mintz here. A pass to Bell there and that guy behind the play almost definitely gets involved contesting the shot.
 
Nope. Mintz needs to pass the ball and run the court hard. The trailing defender is the guy who goaltends the shot but he would not have caught Mintz if Mintz is running hard. Bell is in front of him the entire time to. This is fast break 101. Fact is Mintz completely butchers the break and he's bailed out by a goaltend.
We will have to agree to disagree here. A goaltend is a positive result not a bailout. This type of break happens all the time. Perfect from Mintz
 

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