Due to having some holiday leisure time, and due to that being such a great game, I did something I rarely ever do, which is go back and watch it a second time to try to pick up on some of the nuances. Hopefully that makes for a fun recap.
Texas A&M is a lot like Syracuse in that they recruit skilled positionless basketball players. They rotate eight guys in and out freely, and switch on every screen because every player is capable of guarding all the other positions. The result is a defense that looks a little bit like a taller Villanova team that doesn't pressure as much.
On offense they remind me of a Ben Howland Pittsburgh team. They're able to put five guys on the court who are excellent passers and they are deadly passing the ball in the paint. Usually passing in that tight area where defenders are packed close together is a recipe for committing a lot of turnovers, but like those old Pittsburgh teams, Texas A&M generated the vast majority of their offense through crisp interior passing, with only 13 turnovers to show for it (most of those coming after half-time when Boeheim had the chance to make adjustments, if we didn't have a hall-of-fame coach, they probably would have had under ten).
Bilas mentioned during the game that they were #7 in the country in three point shooting. Against us they only shot 30% so we got a little lucky, because they did miss a few wide open shots, however it was clear from the beginning that they thought our weakness was defending the paint, and wanted to attack us there rather than put up a lot of threes.
I found it interesting to see Syracuse cope with this. Texas A&M was clearly a very well coached team and clearly had the tools to hurt us inside – none of the other teams we've played so far had these attributes. They were not in any way daunted by our zone defense. Going into the game I was not at all sure that Syracuse would be able to withstand an attack of this kind.
What we learned is that Coleman is defensively sound, and able to protect the middle – Lydon less so, but going down the stretch, we hit enough 3's to make Texas A&M feel like they needed to hit them too. The result was they took twenty 3's in this game – only five less than us – and we shot 13 more free throws. We managed to throw them off of their “attack the middle” game plan. If anything is going to give you hope that Syracuse will have a good year, it should be this.
Jalen Jones, a 6'7 “guard” was the guy they decided was best able to hurt us down low. They were right. He could hit mid range jumpers, floaters, and make crazy contested lay ups. He pretty much had it all, and his teammates were experts at getting it to him in good position. At half time he had almost half his teams points (16 of 35). Luckily its hard to beat a hall of fame coach by doing the same things over and over, and we were able to make life really difficult on Jones in the second half. Holding him to only seven points and over doubling his missed shots. The key here was making sure Jones was never one-on-one with Lydon (a match up he would always win). The guards were instructed to leave a shooter if necessary to come help shut Jones down.
One of the most interesting things I noticed about this game was that it didn't look that much different from any of the other games this year. Think about it, Elon is terrible, Charlotte is bad, Connecticut is mediocre, and Texas A&M is good – yet all the games went down fairly similarly. The optimistic way of looking at this is Syracuse is capable of doing what they have done in this tournament to anybody. This is not a team that's going to simply overpower weaker teams with athleticism like most Syracuse teams do, but that does not mean they are necessarily a worse team. It does mean that they are more likely to lose to bad teams than usual, but they are also more likely to beat a team who is better than they are. We all figured that would be the case going in, but now we know its true. Try to keep this in mind when Syracuse goes back to putting up uninspiring wins against mid-majors next week.
Late in the game Syracuse clung to a one point lead. The turning point came when Lydon hit a crazy 3, then a miss-communication from Texas A&M lead to a turnover. On the next offensive play Cooney earned two free throws which he made, on the next defensive play he made a huge steal, which lead to an offensive set where Coony drove to the basket, scored and got the foul. Just like that Syracuse is up by nine, game over. Texas A&M didn't have enough time left in the game to break our zone down.
In that stretch Texas A&M really only made one bad error. Syracuse is simply capable of explosive offense (and defense) for stretches. The other key stretch was at the end of the first half. Syracuse went about five minutes without a basket and was down by eight when Gbinije went crazy, and single-handedly got the lead down to two in a matter of about forty seconds. I remember not being nervous at all during this stretch. An eight point lead against this Syracuse team is not very much, and that's a pretty nice feeling.
Syracuse shot 44% from three and just under 80% from the free throw line in this game, when you do that you are usually going to win. In this three game tournament Syracuse shot 34-73 from three point range. That's just under 47% from three. They are a good shooting team, but they are not going to be able to even come close to keeping up this percentage. To put that number in perspective, Golden State is shooting 41% from three right now (for those that don't know they are playing arguably the best basketball that has ever been played right now, and they have pretty much inarguably the greatest shooter of all time leading them). Syracuse is a great shooting team, but they are not 6% better than the best shooting professional team in history kind of good. Their productivity is going to start to fall sooner rather than later, and its not like they've been blowing teams out. Right now their three point shooting is masking a lot of flaws. So what do they have to do to counteract their falling three point percentage? Two things.
First, they have to reduce turnovers. Against Texas A&M they had 16, and they've been making a lot of them in general. They need to get that number down to about 10. You can pretty much rely on this happening. Boeheim lead teams never have turnover problems come March, and this team has all the ball handling, passing, and skill Boeheim needs to work with. He will definitely have that straightened out come January.
Second, they need to improve defensively, especially down low. This could go either way and needs to be monitored. Lydon is not going to be a good defensive center this year. Its not his fault, he's just not a center. Right now he's playing about 25 minutes per game at center and Coleman is playing about 15. These numbers need to be reversed. If that happens Syracuse should be fine. Right now Coleman is clearly not in good enough shape to play a full game (especially not three days in a row) but he seems to be improving daily. He is definitely going to put the necessary work in so I am cautiously optimistic here. If he does earn that time, it will not come at the expense of Lydon who will simply move to the wing, it will probably come at the expense of Richardson, who is also not a very good defender.
Individual player assessments (listed in order of best to worst performances)
Cooney – It was pretty much a tie between Cooney and Gbinije as to who had the best game for SU, but I gave the top spot to Cooney because he pretty much single-handedly won the day with a stretch of offensive and defensive brilliance. Not sure there is much to say bout Cooney that hasn't already been said other than pointing how how many plays he made to take the lead from 1 to 9, which I already pointed out earlier.
Gbinije – I have trouble not giving him player of the game every time because he does so much for us. He quietly scored 20 in this game on 4-6 three point shooting, with great defense and ball handling.
Lydon – When is the last time a team won the NBA title without a stretch 4? The David Robinson/Tim Duncan Spurs? The Lakers (and the Spurs after Robinson) had Robert Horry, MJ's Bulls had Kukoch, the Pistons had Wallace, the Mavericks had Nowitski, the Heat had Bosh, Golden State has everybody. My point is, stretch 4's are very important, and we are reaping the rewards of having one in Lydon. He was 4-5 shooting in this game, and 3-3 from deep. All those 3's came when his man just lost him because bigs are not used to needing to cover other bigs behind the three point line.
Coleman – He is playing extremely good basketball right now (albeit in short stretches) and he is really making a huge difference in how Syracuse plays. If you want a stat to prove this: I've mentioned how Jones hurt us by scoring 23 points (all but 3 of which came in the paint). Only 2 of those 23 points came with Coleman in the game. The other 21 came against Lydon. That's the kind of difference Coleman is making. He is not going to play center the way Christmas did (above the rim). He needs to use his muscle subtly in a way that does not get fouls called against him. Its more difficult, but he's clearly getting it, and he's starting to use his muscle to shut the other team out of the paint. He also has some of the best hands I've seen on a big. When he touches a rebound or a pass, its his, nobody else is getting it.
Richardson – He is tough as nails on the offensive side of the ball. He got Syracuse through a tough stretch in the second half by driving the lane, throwing his body into harms way, drawing fouls and making the free throws. Unfortunately on defense, he's unwilling to do the dirty work. He's getting better at covering threes, he's taking more risks and getting more steals, but under the basket he is a spectator. Never going for blocks, and rarely banging around down low. The truth is this guy belongs at the top of the zone. I, personally, can't wait until he gets there next year, and I wonder, if our back up guard situation does not improve, if we start seeing him get a few minutes at the top of the zone to spell Gbinije and Cooney this year.
Joesph – He played four minutes in this game, and made, by my count 4 mental errors. If you count a possession as one turn at both offense and defense, Joseph is making about a mistake every possession. He's hurting us, and he's not doing anything to help us. I believe he has potential, but his time is running out. Hopefully something changes because we really need a third guard, and I don't think Howard is ready.
