SWC75
Bored Historian
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- Not only did we again lose a long home winning streak to Georgetown…and the last game they will be here as a conference rival, but we got beat by a guy named Otto!
- On December 14, 1968, an 0-4 Syracuse team travelled to Kansas to take on the nationally ranked Jayhawks, led by Jo Jo White. To the shame of the program, Roy Danforth decided that the only thing to do was to try to stall to hold the margin of defeat down. We couldn’t even stall well. Kansas used defensive pressure to break up the stall and get their running game going. In the end we lost by 30, 41-71 and went on to what has proven to be our last losing season. On January 24, 2004 we turned in the ugliest performance of all of our ugly performances vs. Pittsburgh, losing 45-66 at home a year after winning the national championship. That’s the lowest scoring output since the 1968 Kansas game. Today was the second-lowest and we had to score several late baskets to get to 46.
- 46 points isn’t going to win any games but 57 shouldn’t either. The biggest thing was that Georgetown took our best player out of the game in the second half, double-and-triple teaming CJ Fair whenever he got the ball and we didn’t take their best player out of the game. Often times we’d be double-teaming the guy with the ball and leaving Otto Porter open to do his thing. Porter was the best basketball player in the Dome not wearing a suit but we never seemed to be where he was, until it was too late.
- Against a team with no big inside guys, our big inside guys, (Christmas, Keita and Grant) scored 3 points in 49 minutes of play.
- I normally look to stats for some objective facts to base opinions on. It’s hard to objectively believe that we had 13 offensive and 23 defensive rebounds in this game while Georgetown had 12 offensive and 22 defensive rebounds. The Hoyas got 9 second chance points to our 5. It seemed as if Georgetown owned the boards in this game and that they won it by scoring after offensive rebounds. The explanation has to be that when the game was being decided midway through the second half they had a succession of possessions where we made them miss and they got the ball back and scored. Per the play-by-play they got second chance baskets to make it 26-23, 29-27, 41-34. They also had two offensive rebounds on a possession when it was 39-31 that ended with a Rakeem Christmas defensive rebound that got a standing ovation.
- Brandon Triche’s stats were also deceiving to some extent as he reached double figures in points. I don’t seem to remember any of them. He was impatient and off-line with shot after shot, (1 for 7 from three point range), and added 4 fouls and 4 turnovers. I had hoped that Brandon, like CJ, would be the kind of player you could count on from game to game. He’s far from it.
- The place erupted when James Southerland hit a 30 footer to make it 12-4. It seemed as if the whole team decided that if we kept raining long threes, we’d blow them out. We were feelin’ it! We were feeling something else when we missed 12 of our next 13 shots, (eight of the misses from beyond the arc- most way beyond it), while being out-scored 3-17. Then we got back to running the offense and scored 8 in a row to end the half, ending with one of the sweetest possessions you will ever see, one that ended in a Southerland three pointer to give us a 23-21 halftime lead. I thought we’d play that way in the second half but descended into the land of one-on-one plays and jumps shots.
- You knew it was over when we went to the press. Georgetown had a strong backcourt and there was little chance we’d rattle them. The Hoyas had 12 turnovers for the game, four less than we had and we never got our running game going. With no inside game and going 4 for 20 from outside, (both the 4 and the 20 are bad), our goose was cooked.
- I’ve always said that if we have 1-2 guys playing well, we’ll likely lose. If we have 3-4 guys playing well, we’ll probably win. If we have more than that, we’ll blow somebody’s doors off. This team basically comes down to four guys: Carter-Williams, Triche, Fair and Southerland. That gives us little room for error. When all four play well as they did against Providence, we are in great shape. When they don’t, we are vulnerable. When all four struggle or are neutralized, we don’t look like a very good team.
- This could be the beginning of a bad streak with an immediate turn-around to play Marquette, who now has the nation’s longest home court winning streak and then Louisville. Baring a sudden turn-around the Big East regular season title seems a lost cause. Some don’t think that matters but I do and I think the players and coaches do, too.
- On December 14, 1968, an 0-4 Syracuse team travelled to Kansas to take on the nationally ranked Jayhawks, led by Jo Jo White. To the shame of the program, Roy Danforth decided that the only thing to do was to try to stall to hold the margin of defeat down. We couldn’t even stall well. Kansas used defensive pressure to break up the stall and get their running game going. In the end we lost by 30, 41-71 and went on to what has proven to be our last losing season. On January 24, 2004 we turned in the ugliest performance of all of our ugly performances vs. Pittsburgh, losing 45-66 at home a year after winning the national championship. That’s the lowest scoring output since the 1968 Kansas game. Today was the second-lowest and we had to score several late baskets to get to 46.
- 46 points isn’t going to win any games but 57 shouldn’t either. The biggest thing was that Georgetown took our best player out of the game in the second half, double-and-triple teaming CJ Fair whenever he got the ball and we didn’t take their best player out of the game. Often times we’d be double-teaming the guy with the ball and leaving Otto Porter open to do his thing. Porter was the best basketball player in the Dome not wearing a suit but we never seemed to be where he was, until it was too late.
- Against a team with no big inside guys, our big inside guys, (Christmas, Keita and Grant) scored 3 points in 49 minutes of play.
- I normally look to stats for some objective facts to base opinions on. It’s hard to objectively believe that we had 13 offensive and 23 defensive rebounds in this game while Georgetown had 12 offensive and 22 defensive rebounds. The Hoyas got 9 second chance points to our 5. It seemed as if Georgetown owned the boards in this game and that they won it by scoring after offensive rebounds. The explanation has to be that when the game was being decided midway through the second half they had a succession of possessions where we made them miss and they got the ball back and scored. Per the play-by-play they got second chance baskets to make it 26-23, 29-27, 41-34. They also had two offensive rebounds on a possession when it was 39-31 that ended with a Rakeem Christmas defensive rebound that got a standing ovation.
- Brandon Triche’s stats were also deceiving to some extent as he reached double figures in points. I don’t seem to remember any of them. He was impatient and off-line with shot after shot, (1 for 7 from three point range), and added 4 fouls and 4 turnovers. I had hoped that Brandon, like CJ, would be the kind of player you could count on from game to game. He’s far from it.
- The place erupted when James Southerland hit a 30 footer to make it 12-4. It seemed as if the whole team decided that if we kept raining long threes, we’d blow them out. We were feelin’ it! We were feeling something else when we missed 12 of our next 13 shots, (eight of the misses from beyond the arc- most way beyond it), while being out-scored 3-17. Then we got back to running the offense and scored 8 in a row to end the half, ending with one of the sweetest possessions you will ever see, one that ended in a Southerland three pointer to give us a 23-21 halftime lead. I thought we’d play that way in the second half but descended into the land of one-on-one plays and jumps shots.
- You knew it was over when we went to the press. Georgetown had a strong backcourt and there was little chance we’d rattle them. The Hoyas had 12 turnovers for the game, four less than we had and we never got our running game going. With no inside game and going 4 for 20 from outside, (both the 4 and the 20 are bad), our goose was cooked.
- I’ve always said that if we have 1-2 guys playing well, we’ll likely lose. If we have 3-4 guys playing well, we’ll probably win. If we have more than that, we’ll blow somebody’s doors off. This team basically comes down to four guys: Carter-Williams, Triche, Fair and Southerland. That gives us little room for error. When all four play well as they did against Providence, we are in great shape. When they don’t, we are vulnerable. When all four struggle or are neutralized, we don’t look like a very good team.
- This could be the beginning of a bad streak with an immediate turn-around to play Marquette, who now has the nation’s longest home court winning streak and then Louisville. Baring a sudden turn-around the Big East regular season title seems a lost cause. Some don’t think that matters but I do and I think the players and coaches do, too.
