The 2 keys to a loss

[SoBeCuse]

none of that has anything to do with my post as I wasn't accessing years. I was accessing last nights game where some people think we lost because buffalo runs such a great offense and we don't. I didn't see buffalo running some efficient offense that we couldn't slow down. and that includes some second half 3's by them that were real tough shots. SU takes those shots and we're just jacking up 3's and if they go in we're lucky.

That is utter baloney. UB’s ball movement was fantastic. The dribble penetration was killing us too. They missed a TON of good looks. They easily could have been up 10 at H. As the post above by SUFan44 illustrates, Frank (and Elijah too) often just pounded the rock basically in one area wasting time and lauched a desperation shot off of zero ball movement that happened to go in. Yeah, bravo. How many times did a player dribble off of his leg/foot getting cute coming off a pick or dribble handoff? Turnover...got them going the other way. Carey, Elijah, Oshae had some of those. Just can’t do that. How is that even allowed? The globetrotter stuff out by the 3pt line off of said plays especially in traffic?!

 

[rrlbees]

Don’t even bother trying to use logic and/or trusting what the eyes are telling you.

I know what I saw and its backed up with facts. buffalo struggled just as much if not more than we did shooting the ball. they shot 37% for the game.

 

[rrlbees]

That is utter baloney. UB’s ball movement was fantastic. The dribble penetration was killing us too. They missed a TON of good looks. They easily could have been up 10 at H. As the post above by SUFan44 illustrates, Frank (and Elijah too) often just pounded the rock basically in one area wasting time and lauched a desperation shot off of zero ball movement that happened to go in. Yeah, bravo. How many times did a player dribble off of his leg/foot getting cute coming off a pick or dribble handoff? Turnover...got them going the other way. Carey, Elijah, Oshae had some of those. Just can’t do that. How is that even allowed? The globetrotter stuff out by the 3pt line off of said plays especially in traffic?!

one mans baloney is another mans facts.

 

[Alsacs]

yet our stagnant offense shot better than their ball moving good shots offense. how does that happen?

Our tempo creates less possessions per game.
That is on us. We can shoot 60% but if we play slow and turn the ball over like we typically do and the other rebounds we will lose.

 

[rrlbees]

That is utter baloney. UB’s ball movement was fantastic. The dribble penetration was killing us too. They missed a TON of good looks. They easily could have been up 10 at H. As the post above by SUFan44 illustrates, Frank (and Elijah too) often just pounded the rock basically in one area wasting time and lauched a desperation shot off of zero ball movement that happened to go in. Yeah, bravo. How many times did a player dribble off of his leg/foot getting cute coming off a pick or dribble handoff? Turnover...got them going the other way. Carey, Elijah, Oshae had some of those. Just can’t do that. How is that even allowed? The globetrotter stuff out by the 3pt line off of said plays especially in traffic?!

how many times did buffalo turn it over? the same as SU.

 

[SUFan44]

yet our stagnant offense shot better than their ball moving good shots offense. how does that happen?

We shot 27.6% in the second half. And if you care to re-read my post, I single out the second half.

First half shooting percentage was due to guys making plays one-on-one. Which is all our offense is anymore. Frank slightly nudged his guy, he fell down and hit the shot. Oshae hit a ridiculous and-one going to the basket. Two off the top of my head that had less to do with offensive sets and more to do with circumstance.

We had 7 assists on 24 made baskets and just 2 in the second half. Not a formula to win many games.

 

[SoBeCuse]

yet our stagnant offense shot better than their ball moving good shots offense. how does that happen?

You can’t be that naive. They can make tough shots sometimes. Bad ones. It shouldn’t mask or cover up the root canal and low pct plays we are running. 8FG made in the 2H. It’s not sustainable.

 

[SoBeCuse]

how many times did buffalo turn it over? the same as SU.

They turned it over being aggressive. How many unforced ones did we have by the globetrotter dribbling routines. At least theirs come off doing something positive usually. Come on, man.

 

[SoBeCuse]

I know what I saw and its backed up with facts. buffalo struggled just as much if not more than we did shooting the ball. they shot 37% for the game.

7 assists? 2 in the 2H? That’s stagnation personified and “backed up.” Don’t tell me they got good looks either because they didn’t. They didn’t move the ball.

 

[CuseFaninVT]

I rarely see any 3 point shooter follow their shot.

From the corners, you should. I scream at my kid all the time in that situation. You have 2 choices. Get back, or get the board. Standing and watching is NOT included in those 2 options.

And I'd invite you to come watch me play, but no one is interested in that. Drives guys nuts when I do it. But as a shooter, you typically know the second it leaves your hand if it's going in or not. And when your legs are tired, you know it's going to be short.

 

[Fly Rodder]

Super, SU just needs to rebound better and shoot better from the free throw line.

That's only been the two biggest problems with Syracuse for as long as I can remember.

 

[Alsacs]

Bees you are a smart guy. We can disagree on other things but the people complaining about the offense are all pointing to legitimate problems.
We don’t move the ball. When you don’t move the ball and everything becomes 1 on 1 all the defense needs to do is face guard their player and move their feet laterally and because we have no threat down low the big defender can cheat to the paint. Thus we are forced to chuck up the 3’s and hope they go in or drive and hope our guys can make plays 1 on 1.
The shooting percentages are never going to be sustainable with the talent we currently have. We will make shots and win games like Ohio State but we will miss shots and lose like Old Dominion. That is terrible for our program.

It’s not sustainable unless you have Derrick Rose level speed at PG or guys who excel at making tough shots a la Andrew White III.

 

[CuseFaninVT]

Bees you are a smart guy. We can disagree on other things but the people complaining about the offense are all pointing to legitimate problems.
We don’t move the ball. When you don’t move the ball and everything becomes 1 on 1 all the defense needs to do is face guard their player and move their feet laterally and because we have no threat down low the big defender can cheat to the paint. Thus we are forced to chuck up the 3’s and hope they go in or drive and hope our guys can make plays 1 on 1.
The shooting percentages are never going to be sustainable with the talent we currently have. We will make shots and when games like Ohio State but we will miss shots and lose like Old Dominion. That is terrible for our program.

It’s not sustainable unless you have Derrick Rose level speed at PG or guys who excel at making tough shots a la Andrew White III.

If any game called for some good crisp cuts, it was last night. When you have teams that overplay so much, you have to make them pay with good backdoor screens and cuts. It will loosen them up for so many other options, including freeing up some 3 point shots. Our 'offense' is not designed that way.

 

[HOFCeluck]

I think people need to understand that the statement “If we shot FTs and rebounded better against Buffalo and Old Dominion we would have won” is problematic in and of itself for the Syracuse basketball program.

 

[CuseFaninVT]

I think people need to understand that the statement “If we shot FTs and rebounded better against Buffalo and Old Dominion we would have won” is problematic in and of itself for the Syracuse basketball program.

Buffalo is a good squad, but your point remains extremely valid.

 

[Alsacs]

A ball hog like Russell Westbrook would love playing in our offense.
He would get all the ball in his hand all game long. Could take 30 shots a game and put up insane numbers.

If we are going to run this type of offense we need skilled PGs with lateral speed and can attack the rim like crazy.

 

[SoBeCuse]

A ball hog like Russell Westbrook would love playing in our offense.
He would get all the ball in his hand all game long. Could take 30 shots a game and put up insane numbers.

If we are going to run this type of offense we need skilled PGs with lateral speed and can attack the rim like crazy.

Yup and an Andrew White type at mininum like you said. Tough shot makers. But a really fast PG who can get into nooks, easily get by the guards, and can collapse a D would certainly help. As it stands we are too easy to defend, can’t scheme guys open, and there is little separation/airspace to get good shots off. We just aren’t that quick out there.

 

[stuckinbig11]

FTs and rebounding. That’s it.

People can complain about the offense (and it wasn’t good) and people can go on and on about how good Buffalos offense looked and how they move the ball blah blah blah. But as bad as ours was, we still outshot them by 5 percentage points and turnovers were equal.

But it wasn’t enough to overcome poor rebounding which gave them too many second chances and our woeful foul shooting.

Yep, especially the one and one misses

 

[cuseguy]

Yup and an Andrew White type at mininum like you said. Tough shot makers. But a really fast PG who can get into nooks, easily get by the guards, and can collapse a D would certainly help. As it stands we are too easy to defend, can’t scheme guys open, and there is little separation/airspace to get good shots off. We just aren’t that quick out there.

We’re quicker and a little harder to defend when Carey is at the point. Problem is Carey needs to develop a shot. It’d be nice if Carey had Howard’s shot.

 

[djcon57]

I think people need to understand that the statement “If we shot FTs and rebounded better against Buffalo and Old Dominion we would have won” is problematic in and of itself for the Syracuse basketball program.

At home

 

[OttoMets]

Refused to use his left hand after taking his euro step. That's why he missed. Bad decision making in crisis time.

That was horrible. Uncharacteristic, since he's usually a good finisher, but still so dumb to take that weak flip shot instead of switching to the left and making an easy layup. Too many players on this team are mentally taking plays off.

 

[OttoMets]

none of that has anything to do with my post as I wasn't accessing years. I was accessing last nights game where some people think we lost because buffalo runs such a great offense and we don't. I didn't see buffalo running some efficient offense that we couldn't slow down. and that includes some second half 3's by them that were real tough shots. SU takes those shots and we're just jacking up 3's and if they go in we're lucky.

Um, yeah. Because Buffalo's threes came from player movement and ball reversal (and usually involved players who were squared to the hoop and catching passes at letter-height), while SU's threes are often off-balance, against a stationary defense and a limited number of passes.

Free throws sucked.

Rebounding was roughly a push for 30 minutes and then for some reason we spent 4 minutes with Dolezaj getting his lunch money taken by Perkins.

But the game turned when SU -- shooting over their heads at 50+% on a limited number of threes -- started jacking up prayers after Buffalo created good looks to take the lead. Offense > panicked misses.

 

[OttoMets]

If any game called for some good crisp cuts, it was last night. When you have teams that overplay so much, you have to make them pay with good backdoor screens and cuts. It will loosen them up for so many other options, including freeing up some 3 point shots. Our 'offense' is not designed that way.

That cut Hughes made in the first half assisted by (I think) Brissett off an offensive rebound, for instance. Great play by both of them.

It's weird that we so rarely return to what's successful.

 

[Col. Bleep]

Two points:

First, notwithstanding SU's pretty good game shooting percentage, Buffalo's 2nd half defense was really good.
They were glued to their men and had very quick hands.
So the Orange had a number of poor shots and turnovers.
Even the usual passes around the perimeter were in danger.

Second, I don't know the stats but I suspect Buffalo's offensive execution for the final 8 minutes was above average for the game.
They seemed to turn it up when the game was on the line.
And Tyus Battle didn't take over.
Massinburg did.

But it likely would have been a lot different game if it wasn't for the poor Orange foul shooting and Buffalo's rebounding dominance...especially on the offensive glass.
As others have said, those weaknesses are a familiar story.

 

[Ghost]

Just a real lack of desire to even try to board. I don't understand our guards. Frank (I think) took a three from the corner last night and just watched it. Everyone who has ever played knows the person in the best position to get an offensive board off of a three is the actual shooter. It was short, fell to the ground and was picked up by UB. All Frank had to do was take 2-3 steps in after his shot and he could have easily gotten the board and likely scored. I love this kid, but he is just not there this year. In any phase of the game. And I honestly thought he was going to be a leader this year, but he's leading the wrong way.

That shot made me sad. You could see Hughes looking at him like, "make the backdoor cut, nobody is guarding the rim!!!!" But Frank took a step back for the three.

The second half against Georgetown is the only time in recent memory where the players seemed to maintain a high level of energy for more than a few minutes. I mean, I don't think they're not trying, they're just sort of running through the motions. It looks like a practice at 80% speed most of the time...