"Virginia lost by 15 points at Boston College. Nobody asked Tony Bennett to play zone, because that's their defense." - JB, today | Page 3 | Syracusefan.com

"Virginia lost by 15 points at Boston College. Nobody asked Tony Bennett to play zone, because that's their defense." - JB, today

The problem with the "switch to man" and "zone needs to go" crowd is that it's not the zone itself that is the problem it's the personnel. Last year the combination of JGIII, Buddy, Jimmy, and Cole Swider sucked defensively and would have sucked just as much playing man to man.

This year the issue is inexperience. The zone is at it's best when it's being played by players with lots of experience in it. Tough to have a good zone with 4 freshmen playing major minutes. The more you play the zone the better you get at it.

Syracuse zone used to be great because we recruited long athletic wing players who stuck around for the 3-4 years it takes to master it. If this same team returns intact next year the zone will be good.

Also the whole "the game has changed the zone is obsolete" argument is B.S. The zone was great two years ago in the tourney and was great during the Tyus Battle years. All of the major changes to basketball (more emphasis on the long ball) had already happened by then.

We shot 29-58 from 3 over those 2 games in 2021.

The SDSU game was over before halftime, and WVU shot 42% from 3. Offense was the reason for those wins, not the zone.

No need to discuss Houston.
 
This ESPN radio group of Infanti and Paulie doesn’t help the cause. I understand that they need to be careful due to their weekly segments, and the agreement their station has. But come on.

During the interview, Boeheim says that “everyone knew this was a young team. Everyone knew that it would struggle.” Then went on to say everyone predicted 17 wins… then asked how many they had (16).

WAIT WAIT WAIT Jim. You said this team was “an NCAA Tournament team” in this article:


That was FOUR MONTHS AGO! Where is the accountability? Where are the proper questions? This team as early as the second week of the season was CLEARLY not an NCAA team.

Infuriating.
His gaslighting of the fan base is shameful. Truly shameful.
 
My goodness. He is insane! The narcissism is off the charts.

We are ranked 227 out of 363 in defense giving up 71ppg. We were ranked 314 last season so I guess we should be happy.

As far as 3pt defense whoa….

We are ranked 362 in 3pt attempts allowed and 361 in 3pt FG allowed. Almost dead last. We give them up at a .341 clip which ranks 201 in the nation.

While we are ranking I seen offensive rebounds given up. We give up 12.6 a game which ranks us at 356. Almost dead last again.

Jim just stop! Nobody believes you!
I do know about insane...certainly delusional,
 
This ESPN radio group of Infanti and Paulie doesn’t help the cause. I understand that they need to be careful due to their weekly segments, and the agreement their station has. But come on.

During the interview, Boeheim says that “everyone knew this was a young team. Everyone knew that it would struggle.” Then went on to say everyone predicted 17 wins… then asked how many they had (16).

WAIT WAIT WAIT Jim. You said this team was “an NCAA Tournament team” in this article:


That was FOUR MONTHS AGO! Where is the accountability? Where are the proper questions? This team as early as the second week of the season was CLEARLY not an NCAA team.

Infuriating.
Yeah they are total hacks, pom pom cheerleaders afraid to challenge him.
 
This ESPN radio group of Infanti and Paulie doesn’t help the cause. I understand that they need to be careful due to their weekly segments, and the agreement their station has. But come on.

During the interview, Boeheim says that “everyone knew this was a young team. Everyone knew that it would struggle.” Then went on to say everyone predicted 17 wins… then asked how many they had (16).

WAIT WAIT WAIT Jim. You said this team was “an NCAA Tournament team” in this article:


That was FOUR MONTHS AGO! Where is the accountability? Where are the proper questions? This team as early as the second week of the season was CLEARLY not an NCAA team.

Infuriating.
His comments here are such inane bullsp!t.

Our starting 5 to begin the season was 2 seniors and a sophomore who got loads of minutes last year. And a senior as the first guy off the bench.

We were “young” solely because JB decided to be. *Everyone* wanted him to add an experienced forward via the portal. He belligerently refused.

Then he has the gall to suggest that the prognosticators who he regularly berates were *correct* that we wouldn’t even be an NIT team?!

What a friggin’ tool.

Go away.
 
The problem with the "switch to man" and "zone needs to go" crowd is that it's not the zone itself that is the problem it's the personnel. Last year the combination of JGIII, Buddy, Jimmy, and Cole Swider sucked defensively and would have sucked just as much playing man to man.

This year the issue is inexperience. The zone is at it's best when it's being played by players with lots of experience in it. Tough to have a good zone with 4 freshmen playing major minutes. The more you play the zone the better you get at it.

Syracuse zone used to be great because we recruited long athletic wing players who stuck around for the 3-4 years it takes to master it. If this same team returns intact next year the zone will be good.

Also the whole "the game has changed the zone is obsolete" argument is B.S. The zone was great two years ago in the tourney and was great during the Tyus Battle years. All of the major changes to basketball (more emphasis on the long ball) had already happened by then.
I'm in agreement with you that if we had more guys like Mintz on the court, we could make the zone work better than it's looking right now. However, that's the thing - like you say in your post - "it takes time to master it". We no longer have that kind of time with players. We might, just might, be able to get 2 years out of good talent now, but even that's being optimistic.

Therefore, the premise of your argument is flawed. We can't expect guys to spend 3-4 years learning a defense. At this point, Jim won't switch his D because he doesn't want to take a chance that others might have been right. While I believe he's a good person, he often lets his emotions and thin skin rule his actions.
 
This ESPN radio group of Infanti and Paulie doesn’t help the cause. I understand that they need to be careful due to their weekly segments, and the agreement their station has. But come on.

During the interview, Boeheim says that “everyone knew this was a young team. Everyone knew that it would struggle.” Then went on to say everyone predicted 17 wins… then asked how many they had (16).

WAIT WAIT WAIT Jim. You said this team was “an NCAA Tournament team” in this article:


That was FOUR MONTHS AGO! Where is the accountability? Where are the proper questions? This team as early as the second week of the season was CLEARLY not an NCAA team.

Infuriating.
Everyone predicted 17 wins…..exactly. That’s the problem. We all knew the team wasnt going to do squat because of where the program has sunk to.

He’s talking like someone picks the team for him and his duties solely run from October-March.
 
He’s actually highly intelligent. I think he thinks the rest of us are idiots. In fact, I know he does.
I agree with the second part.
But, he's not. He might have great facility for certain things like 'recall' and such, but "highly intelligent," not so much. An electrician knows a hell of a lot of stuff i don't know. That alone doesn't represent intelligence. I'm talking about processing and reasoning. And basketball coaching is not something, even at the highest level, that demonstrates high levels of intelligent. As i said, he's 'accomplished,' though.

I've also said that him winning a national championship was probably the worst thing for his character and our post-championship prospects. Him thinking the rest of us are idiots—that brand of narcissism—that was the injection of "who are you to question me?"
 
Everyone predicted 17 wins…..exactly. That’s the problem. We all knew the team wasnt going to do squat because of where the program has sunk to.

He’s talking like someone picks the team for him and his duties solely run from October-March.
That’s what annoys and frustrates me more than anything is he CHOSE not to pursue a portal forward even when everyone was basically begging him to do so. That’s on you coach, so I don’t want to hear the experience excuses (even though we predicted we would get them).
 
This is self-delusion. No one else is paying attention anymore.
Exactly. I use to treat the word of JB like gospel. I now treat it like the National Inquirer and it has nothing to do with losing lots of baseball games the last 5 years.
 
Worst KP Defensive Efficiency Ranking Last 2 years - P6 Teams
Calculated as average of the 21/22 ranking and the 22/23 ranking

Out of 76 teams
#76. Georgetown
#75. Georgia
#74. Oregon St
#73. Louisville
#72. Syracuse
D00574F0-0BA8-42FD-AC38-65A3770F2EF9.gif
 
This ESPN radio group of Infanti and Paulie doesn’t help the cause. I understand that they need to be careful due to their weekly segments, and the agreement their station has. But come on.

During the interview, Boeheim says that “everyone knew this was a young team. Everyone knew that it would struggle.” Then went on to say everyone predicted 17 wins… then asked how many they had (16).

WAIT WAIT WAIT Jim. You said this team was “an NCAA Tournament team” in this article:


That was FOUR MONTHS AGO! Where is the accountability? Where are the proper questions? This team as early as the second week of the season was CLEARLY not an NCAA team.

Infuriating.
He also said it was his best Freshmen class and he opted not to bring in a transfer forward when everyone knew we needed one.
 
He also went on to say that there are 7-8 players who have already inquired about transferring to SU via the portal lol yeah okay.
Niiice. So more buried bench players from Duquesne or maybe even Sienna or Drexel's bench that can't find decent playing time that we're going to elevate to the high P5 level?
 
My god, i feel so stupid for believing/trusting we had an intelligent man at the head coaching position. Even in the face of him saying/doing a lot of illogical things over the years, still, i though... 'quirks.' But, no. He's just not bright. Even as desperate rationalization, these are idiotic things he continues to say and double down on. And now, over the years, the sum of all these dumb things just cements for me the assessment—'successful' basketball coach, not an intelligent human. Not mutually exclusive.

I've been disappointed by our program at times. Now i'm sick of it.
He is Capt. Queeg in "The Caine Mutiny," completely delusional.
 

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