The Downside-Louisiana Tech

[SWC75]

- I’ve never seen Jim Boeheim so down on a team.:
He’s obviously a very frustrated guy. I don’t think he’s very optimistic about this season. Should we be?

- Kaleb Joseph seems totally over-matched by the defenses he is facing at this level of competition. With Michael Gbinije sidelined, Trevor Cooney became our point guard by the end of the game. This may seem irrelevant but Joseph’s very unsuccessful moves reminded me of DaJuan Coleman when he was healthy enough to be on the court so he could make mistakes. Coleman was trying all the moves that got him past high school defenders and found they didn’t get him past college defenders. His problem is that he got hurt- twice- and never got a chance to learn how to play at this level. Joseph is a 175 pound guard rather than a 275 pound center but his problem is the same one. He just doesn’t know what he’s doing out there. He winds up trying to put on a dribbling exhibition and gets surrounded by defenders and either loses control of the ball or makes a desperate and thus bad, pass. At least he’s got a chance to learn to play on this level, which Coleman has never gotten.

- Turnovers are not always about the passer. I think our players do a poor job of positioning themselves as good targets for the passer. Sometimes they jasut seem to leave him alone as if he's supposed to figure out how to get the ball to them. Also, they don't view passing as a a team sport: one guy makes the pass and the other guy goes and gets it. Our guys wait for the pass to get to them, rather than going after the ball.

- Jim seemed dubious about Gbinije’s injury. It sounded almost as if he was begging out of playing in the game. I hope I’m reading too much into it.

- Chris McCullough 1 for 6. You’re 6-10 Chris. 6-10 guys don’t go 1 for 6.

- At least it’s better than 0 for 7, which is what BJ Johnson went.

- Rakeem Christmas is great but he only played 25 minutes due to his usual foul trouble. 25/40 = 62.5% of great. We need more than that.

- Up two, 2.8 seconds left. They have to go the length of the court. You can't really play defense so you don't want to foul. FRONT THE IN-BOUNDS MAN! Make him throw it sideways or up for grabs. If you don't, they'll got a makeable 35-40 footer. Remember Elmer Bennett? Heck, remember Tyler Ennis? We let their best shooter, Raheem Appleby, (see the next point), get an open look and it was dead on. It just didn't quite get there. If you front the inbounds guy, there's no need to sweat it out.

- The guy they worked on defending for a week had 15 points and halftime and the alley-op play they’d worked on defending all week worked three times in a row. Cool. No wonder the man’s frustrated.

- We already have three losses and are taking a trip the Villanova who has their best team in years and is much better than anyone we’ve played.

 

[AccuRater]

I think I'll go eat worms.

Pitchers and catchers report in 67 days, 10 hours, 10 minutes and 23 seconds.

This year marks the beginning of the Cubs dynasty.

 

[SWC75]

I think I'll go eat worms.

Pitchers and catchers report in 67 days, 10 hours, 10 minutes and 23 seconds.

This year marks the beginning of the Cubs dynasty.

Tim Lester will make all the difference. Or John?

 

[Shark58]

Rotation: Buss & Chino's burn

 

[Melancer46]

One of the most alarming things to me was that our offense got to the point that Joseph couldn't be trusted to dribble the ball up court even without any pressure, and yet we still tried to rely on just dribbling the clock out and letting a guard create. This team is so blatantly desperate for Christmas to get the ball when we need a bucket at the ends of games. I was so pissed off at this team not getting him the ball that I couldn't even bring myself to cheer when he finally got it on the last possession and won the game for us. It's one thing to be careless with the ball, and it's one thing to be young and inexperienced...but it's another to be completely unprepared for common game situations. Everyone on the team should know that when we need a bucket, Cooney should have the ball and he should dump it into Christmas so that they can't double down on him without giving up a wide open shot to Cooney. We're like 5 games into the year, and there's already been at least 2 or 3 games where we've looked completely clueless at the ends of games.

 

[bballbeadle]

Scathing analysis, SWC. Almost as scathing as Boeheim's. It is scary that Coach is venting how the players can't even catch the ball and that he's never had a team like this. (I believe that is what he implied.) He said we should not have to be practicing how to catch the ball, but my question is, why not? That's one of our biggest problems!

 

[KevMonstah]

That game was tough to watch, but I wonder how much the coaches are teaching offense and not just zone defense. There is more to an offensive gameplan
than ...

- run screens on the baseline for Cooney to come around
- when Cooney inbounds the ball, he throws into a corner, steps towards that corner, and hopefully receives the ball for a 3PA
- try to get the ball into Rakeem
- when BJ/Patterson touch it, they shoot (which, as long as it's a good shot, I don't mind), but they both need to realize that
there are more shots to be had than a 3. BJ made some strong moves to the hoop, and received only bad bounces. Some of
his other shots ... meh.

You watch some other teams work against SU, and you can see they clearly have worked on plays to free players. You don't see enough of
that out of Syracuse. Occasionally you do: I think SU ran a pick and roll earlier with Joseph/McCullough, which got a good shot, and the announcers
were surprised: "was that a pick and roll by SU?" I think the fans, the team, and the opponents get the zone and how it works. I'd like to see more
of an effort to come up with creative plays on offense. You'd think backscreens by Rakeem to free CM for alley-oops would be tried a few times each
game.

Kev

 

[Shenexon]

We're sure challenged this year. Hope the kids grow fast and become a team. A good effort against Villanova wouldn't hurt. Jimmy et al have their work cut out for them. We have two of our greatest guards on the bench as coaches and hope they can help, especially with shooting & FT's. The "May you live in interesting times" curse applies to many things. Sure going to be interesting...

 

[AlaskaSU]

McC is 6'8.5" in sneakers but he has a wingspan over 7'. These measurements come from 2 different summer camps last summer.

 

[doc05]

This is going to be the type of year we are simply not accostomed to. We have been spoiled and I think we get knocked back down to earth a bit this year. We'll be back tough.

 

[tbonezone]

right now the minutes math alone spells disaster. JB is right to be worried. secondly while rax only played 25 min their best big kersey (mr. oops) only played 26. and speedy smith spent some time hobbled on the bench. when they came back into the game the lead evaporated quick.

 

[Madbiker]

We've debated whether to front the inbounds man or not for years. Just about every big name coach does in that situation. The best defense is to make the inbounder throw a bad off target lob pass over the defender outstretched arms. Giving him a clear vision field makes completing a line drive pass to half court easy. JB just won't do it, never has. Don't get it.