We can all agree that SU's performance against UConn was one of the worst of all time (off the top of my head I can't think of a worse SU performance) but can we agree on why it was so bad? Reactionary comments that yield zero insight just piss me off, and that's most of what you hear after losses. You know the type . . . UConn just wanted it more . . . this loss is all Boeheim's fault . . . etc.
I'm going to try, if I can, to dive a little deeper into this game and this team.
Unfortunately I was not able to watch the South Carolina or Wisconsin games. I was having Thanksgiving dinner with my in-laws during the South Carolina game, and I was in NYC watching the World Chess Championship during the Wisconsin game.
I can't say the result of the Wisconsin game surprised me much. They are probably the single worst match up in the country for us, and I was always of the opinion that we'd have to play at an elite level to beat them. Think about it. They have one of the best low post players in the country (Happ) one of the best high post players in the country (Hayes) and they surround them with three excellent 3 point shooters (who all happened to be hot against us). On top of that, they never turn the ball over, and they are a veteran team who played us last year and knows how to attack us. On paper, you really couldn't draw up a worse match up for us without just combining all the best players in the country onto one team. To beat them, we needed them to be cold from 3 and us to be hot. That didn't happen, so that was that.
The South Carolina game, on the other hand, surprised me a lot. Yes, they are a good defensive team, but they are also a bad offensive team . . . and not just a bad offensive team, but a bad offensive team who relies on one player for an inordinate amount of their production. Boeheim is great at making life hell for teams who rely on one player to do most of their scoring, and Syracuse's zone usually shuts teams like that down. I wasn't expecting Syracuse to look great offensively against South Carolina, but I didn't think it would matter. I figured our D would shut them down enough for us to win comfortably anyway. Judging by the box score, the opposite happened. South Carolina didn't play great offensively, but their D shut us down enough for it not to matter. I didn't see the game, but I know how Frank Martin coached teams play. They hang their hat on tough pressure D . . . and the fact that Syracuse didn't perform against that kind of D is a huge clue for what is happening to us this year.
As is the fact that Syracuse looked pretty darn good in their first four games of the season.
Monmouth is a pretty good team, they had South Carolina (who killed us) beat before losing on a buzzer beater, and they would beat UConn by 15+ points if they played them. Yet we easily blew out Monmoth. Why? My answer . . . . because they zoned us, and dared us to shoot from the outside. In fact, all of the first four teams we played zoned us and dared us to shoot from outside. It makes sense, we are a very tall team, and without any film on us, the smart move when you are smaller and less athletic is to zone SU and make them beat you from away from the basket.
Then we played Wisconsin and South Carolina who both play man to man defense, and we struggled to score both times. Its a small sample size, both are top 25 teams, both teams are good defensively, maybe it was their good D, or maybe it was our bad O? Maybe it was just a coincidence or a blip on the radar?
Fast forward to the UConn game. They started off in a zone. I have no idea why. Syracuse didn't shoot well against UConn, but they moved the ball well and got good shots. An inordinate amount of shots were half way down before swirling around and popping out. If even half of those shots that looked in but popped out dropped the game would have been over at half time. Here's the important part . . . even with poor shooting and a lot of bad luck Syraucse was up by 11 or so points when UConn switched to man to man D.
That is when everything fell apart.
Syracuse no longer got good looks at the basket. Syracuse started turning the ball over. Syracuse's motion and timing ground to a halt. Syracuse's offense ground to a halt. It was arguably the worst stretch of basketball I've ever seen.
To me, we now have some pretty strong evidence staring us in the face. Syracuse looked terrible offensively for 2 and a quarter games against man to man D, and great for four and three-quarter games against zone.
Lets now try to figure out why Syracuse looks so bad against man to man D.
First, as we've heard over and over this year, Syracuse has a lot of new pieces and its going to take some time for everything to come together. Now, I think that makes for a pretty lousy excuse (its college, the best teams always have lots of new parts but they make it work anyway), but think of it from Boeheim's perspective. The 2-3 zone takes time to learn - college teams really don't get that much time to practice together - so Syracuse is spending a lot of time perfecting that 2-3 zone, and the rest of the time working on offensive skills and scrimmaging. Nowhere in there is Syracuse getting good practice against man to man D, and even though most teams play man to man D, just by luck of the draw ALL of the first four teams SU played happened to zone them. We simply haven't learned how to play against man to man yet. Now, most kids come into college already knowing how to do this, so its not so noticeable, but this team might just be different, which brings me to our second problem . . .
Second, our guards. Battle is a freshman, he's suppose to be confused this early in the year. Gillon unfortunately looks like a mid-major trying to play against high major opposition, he's good enough to be a back up, but not good enough to lead this team. That leaves Howard. Howard is a fascinating case. He's a wonderful passer but he's terrible at reading the defense and getting us into our offensive sets. Normally those two traits go together, but not with Howard. His passing reminds me of an idiot savant piano player who can hear any song on the radio and then repeat it on the piano, but can't actually read music - a wonderful talent to have unless you happen to be in a band where people have to play in time with you. How is it possible to play along with improvising? Unless you're a savant yourself you won't be able to keep up. Howard is confused out there, and he's improvising, and Syracuse's problem is they don't have any savants when it comes to finishing around the basket, so the rest of the team is not in time with him. Which brings me to our third problem . . .
Third, finishing around the basket. I've heard a lot of people worrying about Lydon's shooting this year, but that's not something that I worry about. He's a good shooter, and his numbers from 3 will be fine. I am, however, worried about his ability to finish around the basket. Somehow this aspect of his game has regressed since last year. As a skinny freshman playing out of position, I found his ability to finish around the basket slightly above average. This year, as a sophomore with 20 extra pounds of muscle I find his ability to finish around the basket slightly below average. This is worrying because I was expecting it to improve from slightly above average to well above average as he grew and matured. Finishing is one of those things that you can't really teach. Players either have it or they don't. Roberson doesn't have it, Lydon might not have it, and Coleman has it but can't jump (thanks to several surgeries) so he needs time to set his shots up.
When you combine all three of these problems, you have a team where Howard is confusedly free wheeling passes against a D he doesn't understand to players who are not suited to finish those passes. Does that adequately describe our performance against UConn? I think it does.
In the UConn game we witnessed a confluence of several problems all coming together at once. In 2003 a freshman McNamara looked a little like Howard does now, not really understanding the defenses we were up against, and having to free wheel a lot . . . but that team had Anthony and Warrick (two of the most naturally gifted finishers around the basket we have ever had) so they were able to compensate. In 2014 Syracuse didn't have a lot of finishers around the basket, but we had Tyler Ennis who understood everything on the court, and was able to methodically set up our offense in a way that would work, so we were able to compensate. This year's team has no way to compensate, yet.
The good news is, we will improve a lot against man to man D. I am pretty confident Howard will learn how to cope, and I at least hope Lydon will improve his finishing around the basket. The bad news is SU dug a hole for itself that's going to be tough to climb out of. Our schedule is backloaded, and most of those teams are currently in the top 10. As we learned in the old Big East, nobody plays a stretch of games against top 10 teams and comes out of it unscathed. We know there are more losses coming, and that leaves us with precious little room for error. Perhaps most scary is how much this team still has to learn. Will the season be over before our guys finally "get it" all? That is a very real possibility.
If you enjoy watching young players mature (which you really should if you're a college basketball fan) then this year still has a lot to offer you. If you were dead set on watching an elite team, you're in for a bumpy ride. This team might have elite potential, but the reality of that potential is so far away that we might be looking at next season before its realized.
