SWC75
Bored Historian
- Joined
- Aug 26, 2011
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-Our 5th Final Four, 4th in the Boeheim Era and chance for another national title. Who cares who’s favored? Our defense will eat you alive!
-The numbers are amazing. In four games, our opposition has missed 73 of 120 shots inside the arc, and 77 of 91 three pointers. We have blocked 25 shots and stolen the ball 44 times. We have given up 183 points, 45.75 per game. Two teams haven’t even made it to 40 points. Our defensive efficiency during these games is 0.709.
-Michael Carter-Williams has suddenly matured into a great point guard, in fact a great all-around player. In this one he had 12 points, 8 rebounds, 6 assists, (only 1 turnover), 5 steals and even a block. For the four games he has 52 points, 23 rebounds, 19 assists, 14 steals and 2 blocks. Don’t spend it all in one place, Mike!
-CJ Fair didn’t have a big offensive game but he was all over the Warriors, (sorry, Golden Eagles, Golden Warriors?), for 40 minutes on defense. And he did make a couple of big buckets to get us going when it seemed to be slipping away. He wound up with 13 points, 6 rebounds, 3 blocks and 2 steals.
-Brandon Triche has Walter Brennan’s back but toughed it out to score 9 points, (a strong total vs. a team that scored 39), with 6 rebounds, three assists and only 1 turnover.
-Huge stat: 6 turnovers for Syracuse. That’s one every 10 possessions.
-James Southerland is just ridiculous. Hakim Warrick was Mr. “You can’t dunk from there”. James is “You can’t shoot from there.” But he can. I still remember his first game for us, an exhibition game vs. Cal State LA, he was 7 for 7 from the field, 5 of them three pointers and led the team with 19 points. (The game before the infamous LeMoyne game). He looked like an instant star. But he turned out, for much of his career, to be a guy who shot and played well against bad teams but lost his confidence against the good ones. By the end of the season, he was playing with the walk-ons. But last year he continued to contribute through the season and this year he is playing with, as Boeheim once said of Dion Waiters, “as much confidence as this room”. And his shots are daggers. His trey was the only field goal we made from 5:40 of the first half to 14:24 of the second half, a period of 11 minutes and 16 seconds. Then his three pointer over a defender who though he had him covered 25 feet out made it 50-36 with 2:24 left. Game over. Now James is a key player on a team with a shot at a national championship.
-Thank God for the defense. Good defense enables us to overcome all the long stretches of bad and ugly offense. And we sure have them.
-Thirty wins used to be what we read about. Duke, North Carolina, Kansas, Connecticut. We won 30 games in 1987, 1989 and 2003. That’s it. (even the 1996 team didn’t get there). We’ve now won 30 three times in four years.
-We’ve won 3 outright Big East regular season championships, 5 Big East Tournaments and now are going to our 5th Final Four. That’s 13 different teams. We never accomplish two of those things in one year. But that’s 13 “special” seasons.
-We are now 7-1 in the post season after going 5-7 after an 18-1 start. You can never arrange this and it’s a kind of “blade running” but if you can bottom out just before the post season, that’s the time to do it. Your opposition keeps getting better and you have to, as well. Teams that peak as the tournament begins run the risk of getting worse as the opposition get better. We are on schedule for a championship.
-And there’s no one we can’t beat.
30-9 is pretty fine.
LET’S GO ORANGE!
-The numbers are amazing. In four games, our opposition has missed 73 of 120 shots inside the arc, and 77 of 91 three pointers. We have blocked 25 shots and stolen the ball 44 times. We have given up 183 points, 45.75 per game. Two teams haven’t even made it to 40 points. Our defensive efficiency during these games is 0.709.
-Michael Carter-Williams has suddenly matured into a great point guard, in fact a great all-around player. In this one he had 12 points, 8 rebounds, 6 assists, (only 1 turnover), 5 steals and even a block. For the four games he has 52 points, 23 rebounds, 19 assists, 14 steals and 2 blocks. Don’t spend it all in one place, Mike!
-CJ Fair didn’t have a big offensive game but he was all over the Warriors, (sorry, Golden Eagles, Golden Warriors?), for 40 minutes on defense. And he did make a couple of big buckets to get us going when it seemed to be slipping away. He wound up with 13 points, 6 rebounds, 3 blocks and 2 steals.
-Brandon Triche has Walter Brennan’s back but toughed it out to score 9 points, (a strong total vs. a team that scored 39), with 6 rebounds, three assists and only 1 turnover.
-Huge stat: 6 turnovers for Syracuse. That’s one every 10 possessions.
-James Southerland is just ridiculous. Hakim Warrick was Mr. “You can’t dunk from there”. James is “You can’t shoot from there.” But he can. I still remember his first game for us, an exhibition game vs. Cal State LA, he was 7 for 7 from the field, 5 of them three pointers and led the team with 19 points. (The game before the infamous LeMoyne game). He looked like an instant star. But he turned out, for much of his career, to be a guy who shot and played well against bad teams but lost his confidence against the good ones. By the end of the season, he was playing with the walk-ons. But last year he continued to contribute through the season and this year he is playing with, as Boeheim once said of Dion Waiters, “as much confidence as this room”. And his shots are daggers. His trey was the only field goal we made from 5:40 of the first half to 14:24 of the second half, a period of 11 minutes and 16 seconds. Then his three pointer over a defender who though he had him covered 25 feet out made it 50-36 with 2:24 left. Game over. Now James is a key player on a team with a shot at a national championship.
-Thank God for the defense. Good defense enables us to overcome all the long stretches of bad and ugly offense. And we sure have them.
-Thirty wins used to be what we read about. Duke, North Carolina, Kansas, Connecticut. We won 30 games in 1987, 1989 and 2003. That’s it. (even the 1996 team didn’t get there). We’ve now won 30 three times in four years.
-We’ve won 3 outright Big East regular season championships, 5 Big East Tournaments and now are going to our 5th Final Four. That’s 13 different teams. We never accomplish two of those things in one year. But that’s 13 “special” seasons.
-We are now 7-1 in the post season after going 5-7 after an 18-1 start. You can never arrange this and it’s a kind of “blade running” but if you can bottom out just before the post season, that’s the time to do it. Your opposition keeps getting better and you have to, as well. Teams that peak as the tournament begins run the risk of getting worse as the opposition get better. We are on schedule for a championship.
-And there’s no one we can’t beat.
30-9 is pretty fine.
LET’S GO ORANGE!
