The Downside- Clemson | Syracusefan.com

The Downside- Clemson

SWC75

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- Sport is supposed to be fun but SU basketball hasn’t been fun for quite a while and it has been downright painful to watch in the last week. The end of the season might actually be welcomed if things don’t change.

- Everybody’s been talking about what we need to do in these last games to get a chance at the NCAA tournament. Our players seem as if they have ceased to care. Why should we?

- For every game a team has to be aware of the other team’s leading shooter and make sure someone, perhaps two guys, are on that guy at all times. Make someone else beat you. Our guys were backing off Tyson the whole first half, seemingly more worried about the drive than the shot. Five threes later and we’re down double digits. I can’t believe JB isn’t telling them to guard Tyson, so it must be they aren’t listening.

- We made the same percentage of threes as Clemson did, 38.9%. But they attempted twice as many, 36-18 and scored 21 more points from the arc than we did. For the season, we are actually ahead of the opposition 36% to 34% but they have taken 327 more threes and outscored us from the arc by 309 points. Good defense isn’t just about making them miss, (or hoping they do). It’s about preventing them from getting the shots they want.

- One person who is being prevented from getting the shots he wants is Jesse Edwards. At the half he was 0 for 1 and had scored 1 point. With the 2/3 he had against Duke, he’d attempted 4 shots in the last 60 minutes of play, one every 15 minutes. He got four more shots in the second half and wound up with 12 points, the last 11 while we were pressing, long after the game had been decided. The story against Duke was that they could double-team him with two seven footers. Clemson didn’t have any.

- We again got walloped on the boards. It wasn’t supposed to be a Clemson strong suit but they got three offensive rebounds on their opening possession and didn’t miss the fourth shot. For the game, it was 28-38. And having 11 turnovers to 7 doesn’t make up for it.

- Where we really got killed was inside, where Clemson was 20 for 29, (69%). Part of it was getting stretched out trying to cover all the threes. But Jesse’s defense was as bad as his offense tonight.

- I know that our offensive strategy, (20 foot drives to the basket), prevents us from having as many assists as our option that tries to beat us with jump shots. But 9 assists to 28 is a malfunctioning offense vs. one that is operating smoothly.

- Nothing short of winning the ACCT would put us in the NCAAs now. We’ve never won two games in it. And this team isn’t exactly rising to the occasion. They mentioned in the post-game show that our players were even getting chippy with each other. This team isn’t coming together. It’s coming apart.
 

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