Some thoughts...

[samspann1]

Guys, stop with the officiating talk. Let's just talk about the game.

 

[br801]

Nobody noticed this, but in the 1st half, Triche actually used a razor blade, WWF-style, to slice open Smith.

You and longislandcuse are going to make me p*ss myself pretty soon.

 

[longislandcuse]

Guys, stop with the officiating talk. Let's just talk about the game.

You're right. It was a free flowing smooth game for the most part. Lets focus on the actual play of these kids.

 

[samspann1]

You're right. It was a free flowing smooth game for the most part. Lets focus on the actual play of these kids.

Yes, all we can ask for is to let the players decide the outcome of the game, and that's what we got yesterday.

 

[samspann1]

You and longislandcuse are going to make me p*ss myself pretty soon.

 

[br801]

Guys, stop with the officiating talk. Let's just talk about the game.

Oh yeah, sorry. Almost forgot the lesson we all learned from that nice OSU fan that started this thread.

 

[br801]

Yes, all we can ask for is to let the players decide the outcome of the game, and that's what we got yesterday.

You know yesterday's game reminded me a lot of the old Auerbach Celtics and Holtzman Knicks teams I watched growing up. When the game is played like that it's beautiful to see, almost like watching a ballet.

 

[longtimefan]

Every single person has brought up officiating, despite a simple request to keep that out of one single thread on the board. One thread, I asked if people could keep their thoughts about officials to themselves. Can't even bite your tongue long enough to do that? There are literally dozens of other threads to discuss that, yet people can't keep it to themselves for one thread?

"Mrs. Lincoln, we need to discuss the play, not the foofaraw involving the President and Mr. Booth."

 

[Orangezoo]

kyles ego has finally left the building.. maybe his comp teacher kindly analyzed his responses to advise him about properly addressing both your argument and the counter argument to eliminate a flawed persuasive writing assignment.. kyle you can thank us all.. its $80 bucks a person for the assistance.. please take out of the "sully" come back fund.

 

[Noexcuse]

kyles ego has finally left the building.. maybe his comp teacher kindly analyzed his responses to advise him about properly addressing both your argument and the counter argument to eliminate a flawed persuasive writing assignment.. kyle you can thank us all.. its $80 bucks a person for the assistance.. please take out of the "sully" come back fund.

He got tired trying to reason with us blockheads. All we wanted to talk about was what a well played game it was.

 

[Loose Nukes]

Because if you can imagine this... I would hope there are actually mature adults that want to talk basketball and dont' give a **** about whether someone is a fan. God forbid someone try to have a civil discussion. Frankly, if that's so hard for people, they shouldn't be on the internet at all, let alone worrying why college basketball fans want to have a discussion with other college basketball fans.

Do you think people should only mingle with their own gender/race/orientation as well?

Are you really playing the race card right now? I like coming here to get a perspective from other Syracuse fans and fanatics. I don't come here to have a fan from Ohio State try and convince me that I should ignore the officiating that took place in that sad excuse of a game that ended our season. I'm not the sit around in a circle and sing kumbaya type.

 

[RF2044]

Poor officiating is in no way germane to the wide-open missed layups that I was speaking of.

And neither poor officiating nor missed layups have anything to do with the unforced turnovers that took place.

The point is, there is no magic bullet for why we lost--it was attributable to a combination of factors, of which poor officiating was clearly one. Factoring it out of the discussion doesn't make any sense.

 

[Wallo]

Was the 10 second call when Ohio State called a TO after a few seconds? If so (and I remember my buddy bringing it up) I'm about 99% sure a time out call resets the 10 second count.

It most certainly does !!!!!!

 

[kingtidge]

What you jerk off to is your business. I don't care one iota about baiting it into officiating. If I did, I would have just kept discussing the officiating in the thread last night that I bowed out of, or I could have joined in one of the other two-dozen threads about the officiating. Yeah, that makes a lot of sense... your theory

I find it laughable that you can start a thread 'to talk about the game' with the caveat that no talk of the officiating be part of the discussion.

You know that most posters here feel the officiating was an integral part of the game - period.

Therefore, your premise for starting this thread is flawed and your disappointment in responses received is baseless...

 

[SWC75]

More Fouls than the 6 OT Game

Nope: 49 fouls called in this game, 66 in that one:

http://espn.go.com/ncb/boxscore?gameId=320840183

http://espn.go.com/ncb/boxscore?gameId=290710041

 

[SWC75]

I want to, again, apologize for involving myself in the officiating thread last night. We wholly disagree on that issue, but there was nothing to be gained by going tit-for-tat on that. So again, accept my apologies for mixing it up... it is a lost cause. With that out of the way, I only ask that this specific thread be left void of officiating talk. I'm committing to setting that issue aside, so please do me the favor of keeping it out of here. Fair?

* I thought the biggest key was Syracuse getting no points in transition. I said yesterday, though I was scorned for it, that Ohio State was really good at limiting teams in transition. Ohio State works hard on getting back to get their defense set and they try to limit turnovers. In fairness, Syracuse missed two lay-ups in the first half and had a secondary break on the alley-oop that Amir Williams didn't get back to defend, but for the most part, Syracuse didn't get anything before the defense was set -- which was a big deal.

* I thought Syracuse went away from the pick-and-roll with Joseph/Waiters a bit too soon. I noticed they had a few of those mismatches on the OSU bigs in the first half, though they were on switches. Nonetheless, the pick-and-roll has been Ohio State's biggest weakness defensively all year, and that clear-out they did on the wing with a pick-and-roll worked at least 2-3 times that I can remember. In the second half, it appears Syracuse went away from it.

* A big key, in my mind, was Ohio State keeping Scoop Jardine out of the lane for much of the game. The offense seems to revolve around him at the beginning, and by forcing everything in the second half to his left off ball screens, Ohio State seemed to cut off penetration. Syracuse did have that one pick-and-roll from Jardine to Keita (if memory serves me correctly) where he flashed inside and Jardine delivered a pass for an easy dunk as Sullinger had shown on the screen. There were a few times I thought Jardine missed an open look on that play.

* What can I say about Waiters? That guy is the real deal. I've seen a lot of good players this year, even against Ohio State, and I haven't seen someone that gets to the rim as well as he does. Ohio State did a decent job against him, but I don't think they stopped him once without getting help defense inside. He's so quick and has tremendous touch inside.

* Ohio State did a magnificent job executing their game plan. In the first half, they really worked the high-low with Thomas/Sullinger (and Williams when he came in). As the Syracuse defense dropped a bit and took away the baseline, Ohio State worked the baseline post area. Truthfully, Syracuse couldn't have done more than they did to stop Sullinger, but he's just that effective at finishing. The shots he was making were usually contested and a few of them were from difficult angles. This was definitely a game where Fab Melo would have helped as his strength and length may have challenged Sullinger a bit more.

Honestly, I said this yesterday and I mean it: I don't think the Syracuse guards get nearly enough credit. I think the 2-3 zone gets so much media attention, the zone has become larger than the actual players executing it. Make no mistake: the players in that zone are long and active. I absolutely am impressed with how difficult they make passing lanes and shot attempts. They cover so much ground it's unbelievable.

That said, the offense should be getting even more credit with or without Melo. Waiters is going to be a stud in the NBA. I don't know about the other guys and how their games will translate at the next level, necessarily, but Scoop Jardine, Brandon Triche, C.J. Fair, Kris Joseph and James Southerland -- these guys are terrific college scorers and compliment one another really well.

KenPom gave a team with Ohio State's efficiency margin a 64 percent chance of winning yesterday. That's more a way of saying they might win 64 times if they played out of 100. That sounds about right, I suppose, but play these two teams 10 times and I think my money would be on 5-5. Yesterday was a coin flip. Ohio State is a great team that had to execute their gameplan to near perfection to win the game. They were able to defend Syracuse and limit easy shots. If they laced them up again tomorrow, would they be able to do the same? Hard to say. I was a bit of a skeptic about Syracuse without Melo. I'm not any longer. It's a shame these things have to come to an end so abruptly.

Scoop Jardine made a relevant point through his post game tears: Ohio State is a better defensive team with Sullinger out and that was why we weren't able to build up a lead with him out of it, a big key to the game.

 

[OttoMets]

And neither poor officiating nor missed layups have anything to do with the unforced turnovers that took place.

The point is, there is no magic bullet for why we lost--it was attributable to a combination of factors, of which poor officiating was clearly one. Factoring it out of the discussion doesn't make any sense.

Agree with all of that. Except, regarding the last line, someone asked to factor that out of the discussion. No harm in doing that. Not trying to be contrary.