The Downside- Virginia | Syracusefan.com

The Downside- Virginia

SWC75

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- I suspected that we were the kind of team that could look good against some teams but that Virginia wasn’t one of them and I was, unfortunately, right.

- People complain about JB always talking about the importance of making shots. It is, after all, what the game is all about. We knew we would need to make a lost of threes against Virginia’s defense. One team went 14 for 31. The other went 5 for 24. We were the wrong team.

- A huge factor in that was with Virginia, the ball went inside, then out for the shot. With us, it was ring-around-the-rosie. I suggested to JB on his show a couple years ago that the shooting percentage on threes when the ball goes inside then back out was perhaps twice what it is if the pass comes in sideway on the perimeter. He didn’t think it was nearly that. He may be right but it seems to me that when a shooter doesn’t have to turn to get a pass, square himself up and refocus on the basket, he’s much more likely to make the shot. When a shooter gets the ball from inside, he’s already squared up and can catch the pass and go right up without ever losing his concentration on the basket.

- They got so many of those shots because Kihei Clark wound dribble into the lane, then look back out for the pass. Jimmy Satalin pointed out that he’s not a scoring threat from the paint so we didn’t need to guard him there but we would collapse in toward the ball, thus setting up the pass. We finally learned to leave him alone and guard his passing options but by then we were so far down that we had to go to the press. The frustrating irony was that tech had a guy on Saturday doing the same thing and we were smart enough not to guard him and we shut down their shooters and their inside game. Not tonight.

- Sam Hauser is 6-8. There’s no excuse for not knowing where he is but he always seemed to be wide open.

- Another thing that we did against tech that we didn’t do tonight is to get their big man in foul trouble. Marek was very aggressive Saturday and Aluma kept fouling him. He didn’t do that in this game, perhaps because Huff isn’t 6-9: he’s 7-1. Huff had his way on both ends against our centerless team.

- It might not have mattered what Marek did as the refs seemed more interested in calling travels than fouls. They called only 4 fouls in the first half, one against us and 3 against them. Nobody was going to get in foul trouble. In the second half they called fouls- against us. Some of that was desperation and frustration on our part but they didn’t seem to call anything on our offensive end.

- Which was a big reason Quincy Guerrier missed 10 of 16 shots. Q’s a 58% shooter. Some of it was Huff being 7-1, (which may be an indicator that Q’s game isn’t quite ready for the NBA), but he only got to the line 3 times and the team 10 times and we were driving toward the basket the whole second half.

- Buddy Boeheim had 9 points at the half and 9 at the end of the game. He was missing open shot in the first half and didn’t get them in the second as they realized we had no inside game. He wound up 1 for 7 from three with 5 turnovers.

- I thought Kadary Richmond might struggle in this game with his lack of a jump shot. He had 2 points, 1 assist and 3 turnovers.

- It was another game where we got crushed on the boards, 28-41. Offensive rebounds were 4-7 but it seemed worse. There were so many possessions where we jacked up a three that missed badly and all five SU players were moving back downcourt against a team that, unlike North Carolina, doesn’t fast break, (except off our press). We could have sent five guys to the ball and not gotten burned but we seemed to emphasize getting our defense set up as soon as the shot went up.

- Four centers on he roster and none on the court…OK so we couldn’t get a Luka Garza. Can’t we at least get a Jay Huff? A big guy who can eat and grew up playing the game so he knows how to do it?
 
In the second half of the Pitt game, SU was playing very poorly with individual players making mistake after mistake and the team broke down as a whole.

The Virginia game was much different. That was a systemic mauling of the team and the coaching strategy. I am sure our players made mistakes but I wouldn't bother to focus on those - that is not the main reason for what happened on Monday. Sam Hauser made lots of 3pters and he made them from all 5 positions on the 3pt arc, and the rest of their outside shooters hit on 39% of their shots - that was not on Buddy or Joe (or the center, as JB might say). And that was while they were slicing up our internal defense for what had to be a record number of alley-oops against us (ouch!) - I'm sure a healthy Sid would have helped but I doubt he would have changed much as he can only be in one place at a time.

The good news is that, unless we play Gonzaga, we probably won't be outclassed like that again this season.
 

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