Spent my morning rewatching Cuse v Florida

[swish7]

Thought it appropriate since we played Florida, Florida played Kentucky, and if all goes well, we will play Kentucky. Also I have this nagging concern (despite the pom pom crew's vehement protestations) that we are not playing like we are capable of.

I won't go so far as to say we were a different team back then, but we kinda were a different team back then.

First of all, some context. College football was still king. It was our second televised game removed from the breaking of the Fine fiasco. Not sure if it was before or after the infamous JB presser. By all accounts, we should have been on the ropes (emotionally).

But the opposite was true. We were in control. We played as a team. We had passion, intensity, fight. While every player was not perfect, they gave their all in that game.

On the negative sideKJo and BT had a few of the completely avoidable What turnovers that are so common with our team. BT started the game with one. We occasionally ball watched on D, especially as the shot went up.

But for the most part, we played much better then than we are now. That might be because FL played at a high tempo. That gave us more transition opportunities. Watching this game, I noticed some positives:

• KJo was active and involved on O and D. He got rebounds! He had a sweet transition dunk. He took and made some big shots.
• BT drove into the lane with great determination. He did not "settle" for 3s.
• Fair showed flashes of what he would become about a month later, a monster inside outside player.
• Melo was drastically different. He ran the floor extremely well. He was all over the place on D. Taking charges, blocking shots, just sortof relentless.
• Scoop played with more control. He (gasp) looked to Fab, setting him up for some dunks. He seemed less reckless on O, taking his time, setting things up.
• Keita provided good energy off the bench.
• The whole team was more purposeful, more intense, and under a much greater cloud of uncertainty.

I hope we get these guys back to their highest possible level of play. To get that great 8 appearance that anybody but a zombie would expect of a #1 seed, we will need these guys to gel again.

 

[OttoMets]

They don't look to involve Fab in the offense at all anymore. It's ridiculous. This isn't some failing on the part of the guards - we'd see Boeheim pulling guys if he wanted us to feed the post and they weren't doing so. It's become a very conservative offense in the past month.

 

[SoBeCuse]

They don't look to involve Fab in the offense at all anymore. It's ridiculous. This isn't some failing on the part of the guards - we'd see Boeheim pulling guys if he wanted us to feed the post and they weren't doing so. It's become a very conservative offense in the past month.

Agreed. He could make a simple 5ft jump hook, no? That Patric Young on Florida is so overrated, btw. He has a NBA PF body and is athletic but he really has no skills. I'm watching the DVR of the Cincinnati game now and Joseph is so soft on D and the boards...unreal. I would think any coach with brains would attack him somehow. We'll be fine if we choose to penetrate and probe the paint. If we try to play like Missouri then we don't last past Sat, imo.

 

[iommi]

Fab really hasn't been the same player since his suspension... I was hoping we'd see the guy who dominated against Seton Hall but that guy is long gone.

 

[OttoMets]

Agreed. He could make a simple 5ft jump hook, no? That Patric Young on Florida is so overrated, btw. He has a NBA PF body and is athletic but he really has no skills. I'm watching the DVR of the Cincinnati game now and Joseph is so soft on D and the boards...unreal. I would think any coach with brains would attack him somehow. We'll be fine if we choose to penetrate and probe the paint. If we try to play like Missouri then we don't last past Sat, imo.

This Joseph thing is mind-boggling. He's just not putting forth effort out there, yet he's playing important minutes. Southerland and Christmas play hard; let them off the bench.

I don't like how Boeheim has managed the team over the past few weeks. He's been tight and we're worse for it.