The Miami/Duke game and Syracuse's flaw

[SoBeCuse]

I wouldnt say Duke played down to their competition last night. Miami is a ranked team and is in first place in the ACC. They just couldnt make a shot to save their lives and it snowballed into a clinic for Miami. Miami is a damn good team. Very athletic and they play good defense and rebound well. With their big guy Johnson back that team will stay in the top 2-3 of the ACC all season. He's a beast.

True. I think Durand Scott is a NBA player as well.

 

[OttoMets]

That Miami-Duke game highlighted a particular gripe I've had with this team and many of JB's recent squads; the dreaded "playing down to the competition" syndrome.

On Monday Cincinnati went ice cold for a really long stretch of the first half, and rather than pounding them down low with high% shots and demoralizing ball movement (yes, demoralizing, nothing worse than missing shots then having to chase the ball around the court) ... we started playing Cincinnati's game & settled with chucking up 3s. If you had told me before the game that Cincinnati would have only a mere 18 first half points I'd already have begun celebrating another win ... if you then told me the game would be tied less than a minute into the 2nd half I'd spit out my PBR in disbelief.

There's a small margin of error in college basketball when literally any team can get hot for 5-10 minutes and hand you a loss. When the other team is slumping, letting up, and demoralized... you have to step on their throats. If you want to win an NCAA title this is an essential mentality. Sure these wins coming in the final minutes are awesome, and UL/UC are very good teams you can't expect to blow out ... but as Duke proved, even very good teams can leave the door wide open. It's important to recognize those moments and capitalize, but I'm afraid this team hasn't learned that lesson yet.

Bump.

A loss should help more posters recognize the danger of playing down to the level of the competition.

Can't let Nova sit on 25 points for five minutes and not erase the deficit. Can't fiddle around with a late lead like that and let Villanova operate on offense.

 

[Charlie]

Bump.

A loss should help more posters recognize the danger of playing down to the level of the competition.

Can't let Nova sit on 25 points for five minutes and not erase the deficit. Can't fiddle around with a late lead like that and let Villanova operate on offense.

I don't think it's fiddling around or playing down to our competition. I think we have major difficulties scoring in the half court vs decent defenses. I think we are talented team that just struggles to score consistently. Villanova beat us today. It's not because we played down to the competition.

 

[OttoMets]

I don't think it's fiddling around or playing down to our competition. I think we have major difficulties scoring in the half court vs decent defenses. I think we are talented team that just struggles to score consistently. Villanova beat us today. It's not because we played down to the competition.

No doubt we're struggling in the half-court. But we played well against Louisville for most of the game. We didn't play at that level at any point today. Looks like playing down to the level of the competition.