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Message: [QUOTE="IthacaMatt, post: 4203649, member: 405"] First and foremost, I will always remember Buddy's great finish to his junior year, when he burst on to the national scene and carried us to a Sweet 16. I am legitimately impressed that Jimmy Junior is such a baller. His final game was his best, but he had plenty of good games, and gave us 13 and 6 every night. So many "old man" back downs in the lane, and kisses off the glass. You could always count on him for at least 1 or 2 threes a game (if not six!). Not bad for an Ivy Leaguer, huh? Cole Swider was, without argument, a better player for Syracuse than he was for Villanova. No question, Boeheim got much more out of him than everyone's favorite head coach, the guy with the nice suits at Nova. Honestly, of all our 1 and 2 year "rental players" at forward this past 10 years or so, I think he's clearly in the Top 4 or 5. He put up way better numbers than Ryan Blackwell, who I remember as not the fastest guy, either. And who wouldn't want Ryan Blackwell back on your team next year? Can Symir play like that all the time? Probably not, but if he can give us 6 or 7 assists, not too many turnovers, and find a midrange jumpshot, then he could probably be good enough to start on next year's team - especially if we have Swider and Girard back to space the floor. Yes, we need to be more physical, and more athletic on the baseline, too. But if you ask me, Jimmy was a worse defender than Cole, especially down low. Jimmy got pushed around worse underneath. Not his fault, but that was the most obvious weakness in Jimmy's game. Well, and the foul shots. I did not see his collapse in mid-season from foul line coming. And from a coach's son! Although I think that Boeheim has under-utilized his bench horribly for many seasons now, we have to acknowledge that it has cost us lots of players. Some will say, "well, none of those guys are stars at their NEW schools, so they must not have been any good anyway." But coaching gets players to learn how to fit, how to find their places within a system. And for a player to leave for another school, then he has *other* guys to compete with, who didn't come in with him and don't necessarily know the player. He has to get to know the new coaching staff, what THEY are looking for from players. So, just because only 1 or 2 of those recent guys are tearing it up in the NBA right now, doesn't mean that the other guys couldn't have turned into Jeremy McNeil, or Josh Pace, or Kueth Duany, or Marius Janulis, or Jason Hart, or Damone Brown, or so many other guys who may not have become "stars", but they grew into essential guys to have on at least 1 or 2 teams in their 4 years. Could Benny grow into one of those guys? Could Symir? Could Joe Girard lead this team, or does he need a couple side-kicks who know how things are supposed to work? I DO like that Coach Boeheim varied the zone this year, going 1-3-1 to cover the foul line during the ACC season, and then springing that Box-and-2 on Duke in the tournament. Nice coaching moves left in the guy. When he wants to coach. What do you think? What do you take away from the end of the 'Boeheim Boys" Era? [/QUOTE]

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