General20
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I wanted to take the time to write something about this game, because I thought there were some really interesting in-game adjustments happening. Anyone saying Boeheim is stubborn for always playing zone needs to watch this game carefully. Just because Syracuse always plays 2-3 zone, does not mean their defense is always the same. In fact, I'd say we change defenses more than any team in the country. The changes are subtle, but as we've seen, incredibly effective.
The game started as you might imagine, both these teams have strong identities that they execute year after year. Virginia with their half court, high pressure man D, and hedging off screens with the kind of extreme precision that never seems to yield any open passing lanes, and Syracuse in our 2-3 zone.
While both D's are well practiced, neither performed especially well. In the first half, Syracuse got a lot of good shots that they missed, and Virginia got a lot of shots that they made (which leads me to believe they were not tough enough shots).
It was tied 19-19 with about 9 minutes left in the first half, and in the next 9 minutes Syracuse only scored 3 points. Their biggest flaw during this stretch was not attacking Virginia's D enough. Because they do such an exceptional job of shutting down passing and driving lanes, if you don't have a clear plan of attack you will find the shot clock running down against them pretty quickly, and that's bad news. SU also had a few bad turnovers in this stretch.
Thus, Syracuse went into half time down 12. At half time they made 2 key adjustments.
On D, they extended the zone really far out. Leaving Lydon down low against at least 2 Virginia players on every play. Something he is phenomenal at covering, by the way. One of the best we've ever had in that respect.
On O, we stopped setting screens, spread the floor, and told Battle and White to beat their man one on one.
Both these tactics worked about as well as could possibly be expected. Battle, as a freshman, can be up and down, luckily for us, he was "up" in this game, and we got a vision of what the future holds for him. Not many defenders can stop a 6'7 guard of his athleticism in space. We have the shooters to space the floor. If Battle can continue to play like that I don't see why we can't see more games just like this one. Did you notice how every time the shot clock started getting low we threw it to Battle, and he always made a play?
Defensively is where the real interesting developments happened. Virginia was killing us from 3, shooting 60% or so until the very end when they had to throw up a few desperation shots, but when we extended our zone out to get to them, they fell apart. Turning the ball over regularly on simple things like not being able to catch a pass or throw a pass to their own player. We were in their face, but so is every defender in every basketball game, so I don't really have an explanation for why it bothered them SO much.
Virginia went about 8 minutes without scoring so Bennett chose a nuclear option. He took out all his big guys and played 4 guards and one forward. He did this for offensive reasons. Just to get guys on the floor who could dribble, catch, pass, etc. and was willing to give up rim protection/rebounding. A crazy move you don't see often.
At this point I would have immediately given the ball to Lydon or Thompson against a guard/forward down low, but Boeheim interestingly didn't. In fact, we never looked once for Lydon down low, instead staying with the plan of spreading the floor and having Battle or White operate one on one. Maybe because it was working? Maybe for other reasons I'm not aware of.
Whatever the reason, it was the right call, we scored on practically ever trip down the floor.
Virginia kept scoring too, mostly on really long 3's as they didn't really have any other options. Their freshman point guard Jerome (or whatever his name is) was playing at the free throw area and looked really uncomfortable there, so any kind of inside/outside game was not happening. Given the limited nature of Virginia's offense (basically Perrantes or Guy chucking up a long shot), I thought we did a pretty bad job of covering them.
This was a big picture type game, so I want to make a couple big picture thoughts.
For those who thought our D was bad against NC State who scored 93 points and good against Virginia who scored 62 points, go back and look at the team's shooting percentages. The point disparity is because of tempo (and overtime). Both teams were similarly efficient against us, with Virginia shooting slightly worse, but hitting more 3's to make up for it. The only real difference in these two games was that Syracuse's D generated more turnovers against Virginia (however, as I mentioned, a lot of those were unforced).
Similarly, we scored just as efficiently against Virginia's "great" defense as we did against NC State's "terrible"defense. And we did it without one of our players having an all time great shooting night.
This game is rightfully considered an upset now, but I'm not so sure we will look back on it as an upset at the end of the season. Virginia looks like a back part of the top 25 type team, and I have a feeling that's where they end up. I wouldn't be surprised at all if we end up above them in the ACC standings, and with only a slightly worse NCAA seed. The big difference between this year's Virginia team and last year's Virginia team is their ability to protect the rim (even when they aren't playing 4 guards). I think they are going to have a hard time stopping North Carolina who they still have to play twice, and Louisville down low.
Yes, I said NCAA seed. There is still obviously work to do, but I think this win puts us on the right side of the bubble.
I've always thought the single biggest factor for NCAA tournament success is the ability to score efficiently in half court sets. This team has the ability to do that. They are, probably, the best shooting team Syracuse has ever had.
They are also, unfortunately, maybe the worst defensive team Syracuse has ever had. We need to do a better job of getting to shooters. Pay close attention to that. If you start seeing Syracuse's defense trending in a positive direction then you can start having big dreams for March. I haven't seen any signs of it yet, but the year is far from over.
The game started as you might imagine, both these teams have strong identities that they execute year after year. Virginia with their half court, high pressure man D, and hedging off screens with the kind of extreme precision that never seems to yield any open passing lanes, and Syracuse in our 2-3 zone.
While both D's are well practiced, neither performed especially well. In the first half, Syracuse got a lot of good shots that they missed, and Virginia got a lot of shots that they made (which leads me to believe they were not tough enough shots).
It was tied 19-19 with about 9 minutes left in the first half, and in the next 9 minutes Syracuse only scored 3 points. Their biggest flaw during this stretch was not attacking Virginia's D enough. Because they do such an exceptional job of shutting down passing and driving lanes, if you don't have a clear plan of attack you will find the shot clock running down against them pretty quickly, and that's bad news. SU also had a few bad turnovers in this stretch.
Thus, Syracuse went into half time down 12. At half time they made 2 key adjustments.
On D, they extended the zone really far out. Leaving Lydon down low against at least 2 Virginia players on every play. Something he is phenomenal at covering, by the way. One of the best we've ever had in that respect.
On O, we stopped setting screens, spread the floor, and told Battle and White to beat their man one on one.
Both these tactics worked about as well as could possibly be expected. Battle, as a freshman, can be up and down, luckily for us, he was "up" in this game, and we got a vision of what the future holds for him. Not many defenders can stop a 6'7 guard of his athleticism in space. We have the shooters to space the floor. If Battle can continue to play like that I don't see why we can't see more games just like this one. Did you notice how every time the shot clock started getting low we threw it to Battle, and he always made a play?
Defensively is where the real interesting developments happened. Virginia was killing us from 3, shooting 60% or so until the very end when they had to throw up a few desperation shots, but when we extended our zone out to get to them, they fell apart. Turning the ball over regularly on simple things like not being able to catch a pass or throw a pass to their own player. We were in their face, but so is every defender in every basketball game, so I don't really have an explanation for why it bothered them SO much.
Virginia went about 8 minutes without scoring so Bennett chose a nuclear option. He took out all his big guys and played 4 guards and one forward. He did this for offensive reasons. Just to get guys on the floor who could dribble, catch, pass, etc. and was willing to give up rim protection/rebounding. A crazy move you don't see often.
At this point I would have immediately given the ball to Lydon or Thompson against a guard/forward down low, but Boeheim interestingly didn't. In fact, we never looked once for Lydon down low, instead staying with the plan of spreading the floor and having Battle or White operate one on one. Maybe because it was working? Maybe for other reasons I'm not aware of.
Whatever the reason, it was the right call, we scored on practically ever trip down the floor.
Virginia kept scoring too, mostly on really long 3's as they didn't really have any other options. Their freshman point guard Jerome (or whatever his name is) was playing at the free throw area and looked really uncomfortable there, so any kind of inside/outside game was not happening. Given the limited nature of Virginia's offense (basically Perrantes or Guy chucking up a long shot), I thought we did a pretty bad job of covering them.
This was a big picture type game, so I want to make a couple big picture thoughts.
For those who thought our D was bad against NC State who scored 93 points and good against Virginia who scored 62 points, go back and look at the team's shooting percentages. The point disparity is because of tempo (and overtime). Both teams were similarly efficient against us, with Virginia shooting slightly worse, but hitting more 3's to make up for it. The only real difference in these two games was that Syracuse's D generated more turnovers against Virginia (however, as I mentioned, a lot of those were unforced).
Similarly, we scored just as efficiently against Virginia's "great" defense as we did against NC State's "terrible"defense. And we did it without one of our players having an all time great shooting night.
This game is rightfully considered an upset now, but I'm not so sure we will look back on it as an upset at the end of the season. Virginia looks like a back part of the top 25 type team, and I have a feeling that's where they end up. I wouldn't be surprised at all if we end up above them in the ACC standings, and with only a slightly worse NCAA seed. The big difference between this year's Virginia team and last year's Virginia team is their ability to protect the rim (even when they aren't playing 4 guards). I think they are going to have a hard time stopping North Carolina who they still have to play twice, and Louisville down low.
Yes, I said NCAA seed. There is still obviously work to do, but I think this win puts us on the right side of the bubble.
I've always thought the single biggest factor for NCAA tournament success is the ability to score efficiently in half court sets. This team has the ability to do that. They are, probably, the best shooting team Syracuse has ever had.
They are also, unfortunately, maybe the worst defensive team Syracuse has ever had. We need to do a better job of getting to shooters. Pay close attention to that. If you start seeing Syracuse's defense trending in a positive direction then you can start having big dreams for March. I haven't seen any signs of it yet, but the year is far from over.
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