General20
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My first thought is that going 2-1 against Notre Dame, Cincinnati and West Virginia (3 teams with pretty good scoring centers) without Melo is a pretty good accomplishment. I was expecting us to go 2-1 with everybody healthy.
Shooting is the next big thing I took away from this game. West Virginia played a lot of help D, none of their guys seemed to be able to stay in front of ours 1 on 1, and we got a lot of open 3's. I mean a lot. Probably as many wide open 3's as I have ever seen Syracuse get in a game. And we made almost none of them. West Virginia only continued to play that kind of D because we couldn't hit a shot. They were practically daring us to take open 3's, and we were unable to make them pay. Had we hit even a few shots they would have had to play zone. The inability to hit a 3 is a disturbing trend of late. I'm hoping it is the product of a mid-season lull, and I am glad the wins keep piling up despite the poor shooting, but if we want to win the really tough games late in the season we are going to have to shoot better.
In the first half, Syracuse shut down West Virginia about as completely as you could have wanted or expected (considering Syracuse couldn't score at all themselves). In the second half, West Virginia dumped their offensive game plan (its amazing how many teams our zone has forced into doing that) and decided to force the ball down low every single possession. Melo would have helped a lot here. Not only because there is no way they could have gone down low with positive results (they didn't get a ton of positive results anyway), but because Melo wouldn't have needed as much help covering West Virginia's big man, so there would have been more guys available to hit the boards. A lot of West Virgina's rebounds came from the fact that Keita/Christmas got pushed way under the basket, and one of the other forwards was down there trying to help, and thus out of positoin.
West Virginia's center, Kilicli, had a bad game, he missed several shots he normally makes, but you have to give Keita a lot of credit. He fought hard and held Kilicli (who should have dominated him) to 2-10 shooting from the floor.
West Virginia is probably the best rebounding team we will play all year (its either them or UConn) and they beat us on the boards about as badly as any team can beat another on the boards. Add to that the fact that we had an embarrassing game shooting the ball from deep. And Syracuse still won. That goes a long way to proving my theory that poor rebounding will not cost Syracuse a single loss all year.
Shooting is the next big thing I took away from this game. West Virginia played a lot of help D, none of their guys seemed to be able to stay in front of ours 1 on 1, and we got a lot of open 3's. I mean a lot. Probably as many wide open 3's as I have ever seen Syracuse get in a game. And we made almost none of them. West Virginia only continued to play that kind of D because we couldn't hit a shot. They were practically daring us to take open 3's, and we were unable to make them pay. Had we hit even a few shots they would have had to play zone. The inability to hit a 3 is a disturbing trend of late. I'm hoping it is the product of a mid-season lull, and I am glad the wins keep piling up despite the poor shooting, but if we want to win the really tough games late in the season we are going to have to shoot better.
In the first half, Syracuse shut down West Virginia about as completely as you could have wanted or expected (considering Syracuse couldn't score at all themselves). In the second half, West Virginia dumped their offensive game plan (its amazing how many teams our zone has forced into doing that) and decided to force the ball down low every single possession. Melo would have helped a lot here. Not only because there is no way they could have gone down low with positive results (they didn't get a ton of positive results anyway), but because Melo wouldn't have needed as much help covering West Virginia's big man, so there would have been more guys available to hit the boards. A lot of West Virgina's rebounds came from the fact that Keita/Christmas got pushed way under the basket, and one of the other forwards was down there trying to help, and thus out of positoin.
West Virginia's center, Kilicli, had a bad game, he missed several shots he normally makes, but you have to give Keita a lot of credit. He fought hard and held Kilicli (who should have dominated him) to 2-10 shooting from the floor.
West Virginia is probably the best rebounding team we will play all year (its either them or UConn) and they beat us on the boards about as badly as any team can beat another on the boards. Add to that the fact that we had an embarrassing game shooting the ball from deep. And Syracuse still won. That goes a long way to proving my theory that poor rebounding will not cost Syracuse a single loss all year.