The Downside (Cornell)

[SWC75]

- Now for the gripes. We let an inferior team stay in the game until the late going and it’s anybody’s game at that point. Fortunately, we made the plays we needed to make to win it. But we flirted with what would have been a disastrous loss. We’ve got some tough games coming up and need to be building momentum. There was little sign of that today.

- I have never seen such an unbalanced game. There were three double figure scorers between the two teams: Mike Morgan had 26 for Cornell. Tyus battle Oshae Brissett had 19 for us. No other Syracuse player scored more than 4 points. When have we ever had such a limited offense?

- Where was Elijah Hughes before those last three minutes? He’d already played 21 minutes and got off one shot which he missed for zero points. He averages 15 a game.

- He was one of three starters that didn’t score in the first half: Chukwu, Hughes and Howard. Our sixth man, Marek Dolezaj, didn’t score either. They wound up the game with a combined 12 points on 13 shot attempts in 100 minutes. Dolezaj had a wide-open three in the late going that he refused to shoot to the audible disappointment of the crowd. We were supposed to have all kinds of weapons this year that defenses would never be able to cover.

- We out-rebounded a smaller team by only 26-24. We had fewer turnovers 10-14 but had some lazy ones when the Big Red was making their big comeback.

- Both teams had similar ratios of two point shots to three point shots, (21-21 for SU, 19-24 for Cornell), but they had 18 assists to our 9. It’s not unusual for us to lose the assist battle but we usually lose it because we are driving to the basket and taking a lot more two more shots. Not tonight. Cornell just passed the ball a lot better than we did to set up their shots.

- I’ve read opinions that we got the better Boeheim. Jimmy looked pretty good tonight, clearly Cornell’s second best player and the most versatile. Matt Morgan is just a shooter. Jimmy had 9 points, 6 rebounds, 4 assists and a block.

 

[Lucid]

Cornell shot 46.5% from the floor, 37.5% from 3-point range. I'd add that to the downside.

 

[SWC75]

Also why can't Chukwu be ready to play when these games start. He gets pulled after a possession or two for a stiff lecture. He plays pretty well at the end of games. Why wait until then?

 

[bballbeadle]

Jimmy is a sophomore and has improved his game. Last year I believe he scored 5 points, and they were in the first few minutes.

Yes, this game was a scary, puzzling disappointment. I know tension was high in the Boeheim household. Maybe that had something to do with this game?

 

[Madbiker]

Playing zone against mid major teams helps THEM, it always has. It negates our advantage in having superior athleticism and lets less athletic players play at their comfort level instead of being harassed by faster athletes. The zone works much better against other high talent, high athleticism teams because it slows them down and frustrates them.

 

[Todoubled23]

Playing zone against mid major teams helps THEM, it always has. It negates our advantage in having superior athleticism and lets less athletic players play at their comfort level instead of being harassed by faster athletes. The zone works much better against other high talent, high athleticism teams because it slows them down and frustrates them.

Agreed, I'm honestly not too worried about the team this far. Let it happen first.

 

[OrangeFoo]

No mention of our zone offense? Can’t believe a team with Hughes, Brissett, Battle resorts to jacking 3s agaisnt a zone instead of getting one of those dudes at the ft line to initiate the offense.

 

[NineOneSeven]

Playing zone against mid major teams helps THEM, it always has. It negates our advantage in having superior athleticism and lets less athletic players play at their comfort level instead of being harassed by faster athletes. The zone works much better against other high talent, high athleticism teams because it slows them down and frustrates them.

This. No idea what the numbers or statistics show because we obviously still win a large portion of our games against lower level competition, but I have been saying this for years.

To put it another way- if I am playing basketball against a team that is noticeably bigger, quicker, and overall better than me and my teammates, I would absolutely prefer they play zone. Does that mean my team wins? Certainly not. But I prefer my chances given the talent differential. And yes, I am speaking from personal experience.