General20
Basketball Maven
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I haven't gotten a chance to post since before the St. John's game so I want to make a quick point about Carter-Williams. Dont think of the St. John's game as a sign Carter-Williams has turned the corner and now deserves to play instead of upperclassmen. Think of the St. John's game as a time machine. Since St. John's only plays freshmen, Carter-Williams was going up against his peers for the first time all year. He dominated them. That is what every game will be like in the future when Carter-Williams as an upperclassman point guard, and that future is as close as the first game of next year. I for one am very excited, but we are going to win or lose this year on the shoulders of Jardine, Triche and Waiters, and that is the way it should be.
I saw a lot of negative posts here after the Georgetown game, which surprised me. For the last 30 years just about every Syracuse-Georgeotwn game has been an intense, defensive, close fought, dogfight. Yet people on this board seemed surprised when it inevitably happened again. That proves as much as anything how down the Big East is. We have come to expect easy victories, which is never how it has been in the Big East, even for the very best teams. I dont care how good Syracuse is, there should never be an expectation that we will rout a Georgetown team which is ranked. Intensity was the story of that game. If you watched SU-Georgetown and Duke-UNC back to back, it was striking how much more intense the SU-Georgetown game was. The intensity, combined with the fact that the games always seem to be close makes SU-Georgetown the best rivalry in basketball, to me. They may not be the biggest rivals (they certainly are not if you go by national perception) but they are the best when it comes to on the court performances. I loved watching that game. It was everything I will miss about the Big East - most of which has gone away - and I promise you that even if Syracuse had shot better or rebounded more, Georgetown would have found a way to keep that game close. They were in it to win, and they played extremely hard. I thought it was a great victory.
On to UConn. Tempo was the story of this game. All year teams have slowed the game down against Syracuse because they are afraid of our explosiveness. And what has that gotten those teams? Well, Syracuse leads the nation in turnovers forced. What does that tell you? Finally, we ran into a team that was not afraid to push the ball up the floor against our zone, and guess what? It worked pretty well. Give UConn some credit, they executed about as well as they possibly could have. I've watched them play several times this year, and that is as good of a collective performance as I have seen from them. But this wasn't all about their good execution, it was also about smart coaching. UConn knows that Syracuse can only run off turnovers (and certain rebounds, but those happen when they happen, they key against Syracuse is limiting turnovers). They then decided that the best way to limit turnovers was to push the ball up the floor as fast as possible and get a decent shot before the Syracuse zone was set. UConn knew that they had little to no chance of executing for a full 35 seconds without making a mistake (and the times Syracuse forced them to, usually did result in a turnover) so UConn tried to score as fast as they could, as often as they could, and they had good success doing it.
Keep this secret under your hat, but running is the smart way to attack Syracuse's zone. Taking the shot clock down does not stop Syracuse from getting out in transition. Think about football. One team can run the ball constantly and have more time of possession, but that will not stop the other team from playing no-huddle and passing the ball deep when they get possession. Basketball is no different. To run in basketball you need to generate turnovers. We are far more likely to generate a turnover against a team that his passing the ball around for 35 seconds than we are a team that runs down court, makes one pass and shoots it. It may sound contradictory, but we usually run more against teams that try to slow the game down.
On the other side of things, you cant force a team to shoot quicker by increasing your pressure on D. You can only hope to generate more turnovers. We pressed Georgetown a lot, in fact about a minute and a half into the game we were pressing them. It generated a few turnovers early, but in the second half they broke the press easily every time. Our normal defense causes more turnovers than any other team in the country does. The press is a good idea sometimes as a change of pace, but consider me happy to let teams pass the ball for a full 35 seconds against us. It ups the chances of them eventually making a mistake.
On the other side of the ball, UConn was not nearly so successful. They have been bad at guarding the perimeter all year but other teams have found it really hard to go inside against them. Syracuse pretty much did whatever they wanted. I was curious to see how Syracuse would play against an elite shot blocking team (UConn is the first we have played all year) since they had not been shooting the ball well, but UConn's ability to block shots never manifested itself in the game. I wonder if it will be the same with Louisville? The only other elite shot blocking team we play this year.
UConn has played poor perimeter D all year, and let up high shooting percentages from 3 all year, but that was irrelevant against Syracuse. Most teams are so worried about us getting to the basket that they willingly give us open 3's, which we have been missing. UConn has always pressured the ball, and not played any help D, instead, preferring to funnel the offense into their shot blockers. So even though UConn gives up a lot of 3's, the fact that they were willing to pressure our ball handlers and not sit back and dare us to shoot meant that they actually guarded us tighter around the 3 point line than most teams have. We still shot lights out, which was very nice to see.
As for funneling the offense into UConn's shot blockers? I will say that I dont think Fab hitting a couple shots from outside happened by accident. Once he hit a few, he then had to be guarded out there, which pulled Uconn's shot blockers away from the basket, and allowed our bigger guards and forwards to have their way down low. Kudos to Melo for that, and shame on UConn for not adjusting when Melo was in foul trouble and Keita was playing extended minutes.
As for the crowd, and the two special recruits in the crowd. I have no idea if they will come to Syracuse or not, but I am very proud of our fans for coming out in droves and putting their best foot forward.
I saw a lot of negative posts here after the Georgetown game, which surprised me. For the last 30 years just about every Syracuse-Georgeotwn game has been an intense, defensive, close fought, dogfight. Yet people on this board seemed surprised when it inevitably happened again. That proves as much as anything how down the Big East is. We have come to expect easy victories, which is never how it has been in the Big East, even for the very best teams. I dont care how good Syracuse is, there should never be an expectation that we will rout a Georgetown team which is ranked. Intensity was the story of that game. If you watched SU-Georgetown and Duke-UNC back to back, it was striking how much more intense the SU-Georgetown game was. The intensity, combined with the fact that the games always seem to be close makes SU-Georgetown the best rivalry in basketball, to me. They may not be the biggest rivals (they certainly are not if you go by national perception) but they are the best when it comes to on the court performances. I loved watching that game. It was everything I will miss about the Big East - most of which has gone away - and I promise you that even if Syracuse had shot better or rebounded more, Georgetown would have found a way to keep that game close. They were in it to win, and they played extremely hard. I thought it was a great victory.
On to UConn. Tempo was the story of this game. All year teams have slowed the game down against Syracuse because they are afraid of our explosiveness. And what has that gotten those teams? Well, Syracuse leads the nation in turnovers forced. What does that tell you? Finally, we ran into a team that was not afraid to push the ball up the floor against our zone, and guess what? It worked pretty well. Give UConn some credit, they executed about as well as they possibly could have. I've watched them play several times this year, and that is as good of a collective performance as I have seen from them. But this wasn't all about their good execution, it was also about smart coaching. UConn knows that Syracuse can only run off turnovers (and certain rebounds, but those happen when they happen, they key against Syracuse is limiting turnovers). They then decided that the best way to limit turnovers was to push the ball up the floor as fast as possible and get a decent shot before the Syracuse zone was set. UConn knew that they had little to no chance of executing for a full 35 seconds without making a mistake (and the times Syracuse forced them to, usually did result in a turnover) so UConn tried to score as fast as they could, as often as they could, and they had good success doing it.
Keep this secret under your hat, but running is the smart way to attack Syracuse's zone. Taking the shot clock down does not stop Syracuse from getting out in transition. Think about football. One team can run the ball constantly and have more time of possession, but that will not stop the other team from playing no-huddle and passing the ball deep when they get possession. Basketball is no different. To run in basketball you need to generate turnovers. We are far more likely to generate a turnover against a team that his passing the ball around for 35 seconds than we are a team that runs down court, makes one pass and shoots it. It may sound contradictory, but we usually run more against teams that try to slow the game down.
On the other side of things, you cant force a team to shoot quicker by increasing your pressure on D. You can only hope to generate more turnovers. We pressed Georgetown a lot, in fact about a minute and a half into the game we were pressing them. It generated a few turnovers early, but in the second half they broke the press easily every time. Our normal defense causes more turnovers than any other team in the country does. The press is a good idea sometimes as a change of pace, but consider me happy to let teams pass the ball for a full 35 seconds against us. It ups the chances of them eventually making a mistake.
On the other side of the ball, UConn was not nearly so successful. They have been bad at guarding the perimeter all year but other teams have found it really hard to go inside against them. Syracuse pretty much did whatever they wanted. I was curious to see how Syracuse would play against an elite shot blocking team (UConn is the first we have played all year) since they had not been shooting the ball well, but UConn's ability to block shots never manifested itself in the game. I wonder if it will be the same with Louisville? The only other elite shot blocking team we play this year.
UConn has played poor perimeter D all year, and let up high shooting percentages from 3 all year, but that was irrelevant against Syracuse. Most teams are so worried about us getting to the basket that they willingly give us open 3's, which we have been missing. UConn has always pressured the ball, and not played any help D, instead, preferring to funnel the offense into their shot blockers. So even though UConn gives up a lot of 3's, the fact that they were willing to pressure our ball handlers and not sit back and dare us to shoot meant that they actually guarded us tighter around the 3 point line than most teams have. We still shot lights out, which was very nice to see.
As for funneling the offense into UConn's shot blockers? I will say that I dont think Fab hitting a couple shots from outside happened by accident. Once he hit a few, he then had to be guarded out there, which pulled Uconn's shot blockers away from the basket, and allowed our bigger guards and forwards to have their way down low. Kudos to Melo for that, and shame on UConn for not adjusting when Melo was in foul trouble and Keita was playing extended minutes.
As for the crowd, and the two special recruits in the crowd. I have no idea if they will come to Syracuse or not, but I am very proud of our fans for coming out in droves and putting their best foot forward.
