What is our ceiling?

[SoBeCuse]

I think the ceiling is about a 7 seed going into the tourney. I'm expecting yet another double digit loss season going into the NCAAs...

The tourney is a total crap shoot of course, based on matchups and such, and Boeheim's recent relative post season success with his teams that underachieve in the regular season suggests that we could make another SW16. At least Battle has been playing better since he switched back to 2 guard.

Yeah I tend to agree. I posted in another thread about an 8/9 range. I think we’ll lose one more non-conf game so that is 3. Say 11-7 in ACC would be pretty good all things considered so that means 10 losses heading into the ACCT. It’s still a bunch of offensive misfits without a lot of collective speed and skill. Length, sure. But, yes, matchups in the Tourney is all that matters. The Zone could flummox a team or two while we do just enough on offense to get by god willing. 7-10 seed range seems reasonable.

 

[SoBeCuse]

Take Buffalo and the points. I think we'll win but we won't cover. Massinburg and Perkins will kills us.

I'm 5-1 on Cuse games ATS this year and 19-7 combined over the last two seasons.

I took Cornell to cover.

 

[Sherman20]

I was piggybacking off of what I’ve been generally hearing/seeing here. Louisville is playing really sound under Mack. Georgia Tech pissed away a late lead to St. John’s but they have a C transfer who is gonna crush our frontline. James Banks. 6’10/240. Transfer from Texas who practiced against Bamba and Jarrett Allen. He transfered and was eligible immediately. He had 16/12 today.

How did they get him eligible immediately? Why is that suddenly happening so much this season? Btw, we recruited Banks before he signed with Texas. Did we pursue him after he announced his plans to transfer?

 

[SoBeCuse]

How did they get him eligible immediately? Why is that suddenly happening so much this season? Btw, we recruited Banks before he signed with Texas. Did we pursue him after he announced his plans to transfer?

I don’t know. Good question. Had no idea we recruited him. He is a BEAST though. He is really good on the boards, position defense, etc. Hard to move. He’s going to be a problem.

 

[Sherman20]

I have no idea what the ceiling is for this team. They are baffling right now. They should be playing much better than this.

 

[OrangeDW]

It’s early but it this point it seems like our ceiling is the same it’s been for about 6 years...a mediocre to pretty good regular season team(probably 7-9 conferences losses) that is capable of making a deep tourney run if things come together.

Doesn’t appear we’ll be that all year long regular season power that challenges for a league title and spends much of the year in the top 5 and gets a top 3 seed, that we were hoping for.

We’ll see though. We might look much better in another month. Hopefully we can win the rest of our non conference games regardless of how pretty it looks, improve, and go on a roll and be a top ACC team.

 

[Cusefan0307]

It’s early but it this point it seems like our ceiling is the same it’s been for about 6 years...a mediocre to pretty good regular season team(probably 7-9 conferences losses) that is capable of making a deep tourney run if things come together.

Doesn’t appear we’ll be that all year long regular season power that challenges for a league title and spends much of the year in the top 5 and gets a top 3 seed, that we were hoping for.

We’ll see though. We might look much better in another month. Hopefully we can win the rest of our non conference games regardless of how pretty it looks, improve, and go on a roll and be a top ACC team.

I think winning at Ohio State was big. Last night not so much.

I’d rather get better as the year goes on than start out fast and falter down the stretch.

 

[GooseMutt]

Don’t even start with F4 and make insults. Just don’t see it. We were probably the worst offense in the P5 last year. Cornell is not a good defensive team. Just look at some of their scores and numbers.

- Offensively we’re playing 3 on 5 with Frank and Chukwu in there together. I get it Frank is 80/90% or whatever but you can’t stand behind the 3pt line all game. Huge 3 he made at the end of the game though.

- Tyus hero ball saved us. Against Cornell?

- Offense should not be this much of a struggle right now with how positionless the game has become on offense. The PGs excuse will not cut it in my book.

- Are we done pushing the pace? Like fundamentally done? Easy baskets I would think is a top priority since they are tough to come by for this bunch, regardless. Attack!

- Centers seem to be regressing game by game.

- We’re long but certainly not that quick or skilled across the board. How can we improve the offense? Is it going to be simply hero ball and hope for the best? I suppose we’ll know more after Buffalo but, man, was this ugly.

Boeheim demands long lanky tall players but we only take advantage of it on defense. We rarely take advantage of it on offense. An occasional alley oop and rarely successful. Why are we isolating mis-matches all day. We at times are stronger, taller, quicker and still just run around passing along the perimeter.

 

[SoBeCuse]

Boeheim demands long lanky tall players but we only take advantage of it on defense. We rarely take advantage of it on offense. An occasional alley oop and rarely successful. Why are we isolating mis-matches all day. We at times are stronger, taller, quicker and still just run around passing along the perimeter.

Right. I’m not convinced often about the quickness or strength part but I hear ya. Lenght and height, sure.

 

[tbonezone]

i'll be happy if we finish above .500 in the acc.

 

[br801]

Our ceiling is the final four. The advantage of being around for as long as I have, I have seen us have runs. This team has talent. Whether it was '75, or '96. No one thought we were going to final fours those years. Or after we were destroyed by G-town at the end of the '13 season. Or being behind by as much as we were against Virginia. a team we never beat at the time. The one thing I know for certain, 100% certain, is that no one here knows what this team will do this year.

Good points all. But even those posters who seemingly want to prematurely bury the team every year are aware of that history. They just choose to disregard it for some reason.

 

[kcsu]

Our ceiling is JB announcing his retirement the Wild announcing Hop is the next head coach of SU and Gmac accepting the head coaching job at Buffalo after their coach accepts the Kentucky job after Cali goes to the Knicks.

Ok ill settle for the sweet sixteen.

 

[Cusefan0307]

Sorry OP it’s the final four. Anytime we make the tournament we have a chance. Have you forgot our history?

 

[Cusefan0307]

If you guys think Frank, Carey and Hughes will play as bad as they did yesterday we are in trouble.

If you realize that’s as bad as they can play and will highly likely play better we can still be pretty good.

It’s math.

 

[Briancuse]

UB? Hell, Northeastern and Old Dominion scare me

Its going to be a long season if we lose those two games.

 

[tbonezone]

if paschal and sidibe give us nothing. i ask who's coaching the big men ?

 

[Zelda Zonk]

if paschal and sidibe give us nothing. i ask who's coaching the big men ?

Did anyone mention the bit from one of the announcers during the last game, telling us about how Chukwu reached out to Baye to help him with his defense? Baye showed up at a practice (in nyc?) and advised him on zone ethos and anticipation or some such. Which is lovely, and speaks to the ‘cuse Family’ thing—generous move by Baye. But leaves me with the same question, about why we don’t have a Bigs Coach who actually played the position. It’s like having a NASCAR driver teaching F1. A catcher teaching outfielders. Me teaching anything. Not ideal. It doesn’t give me confidence to know that our kid feels like he can’t get what he needs from the people who are there every day. And yeah, sure, some will say this is a nothingburger, and it’s just an innocuous thing, but it just reinforces the eyeball test. We, too often, just don’t look competent in the post.

As to our ceiling—I think we can beat anyone in our conference except Duke. But we will probably also lose to the someone at the bottom of the conference. Ceiling is always F4 when we get in, because shizzle happens. But, that’s not the measure of how good we actually are.

 

[rocklloyd]

Everyone needs to get healthy, physically and mentally. Seems like frank and sidibe are tentative even though cleared to play. There is no reason for us to look worse than last year

 

[Eric15]

It's non-sensical to use NCAA tourney results as a ceiling since the tournament is such a crap shoot. Crappy SU teams have went to the Final Four (2016) and great SU teams have lost in the first/second round (1986, 1988 and 1991).

It makes more sense to say our ceiling is X conference wins and X seed in the tourney.

 

[SoBristol]

It's non-sensical to use NCAA tourney results as a ceiling since the tournament is such a crap shoot. Crappy SU teams have went to the Final Four (2016) and great SU teams have lost in the first/second round (1986, 1988 and 1991).

It makes more sense to say our ceiling is X conference wins and X seed in the tourney.

It is a matter of perspective. Do you measure success by NCAA tourney runs, or overall W/L? Maybe we absorb some conference losses in January, but get better and finish strong.

We have to hope that this team plays better in March than what we have been seeing (other than at OSU). We have some young players (Carey, Sidibe, Dolezaj) who might make a lot of progress over the course of the season. Frank Howard isn't yet driving & finishing -- how much difference can that make when he gets back to 100%?

 

[FRANKIEFAN]

Actually OP I think the ceiling is Final Four and I thnk we are a much better team as an underdog going head to head vs Duke/Gonzaga than we are at taking care of the rank and file in the ACC as a favorite. Last year we lost to ND without Farrell and Colson can't help but feel like theres going to be a couple of those this year. Can we go 2 years in a row without dropping a game to Pitt? Can we play well vs a bad Gtown team finally. Those are my concerns.

 

[PASyrFan]

Don’t even start with F4 and make insults. Just don’t see it. We were probably the worst offense in the P5 last year. Cornell is not a good defensive team. Just look at some of their scores and numbers.

- Offensively we’re playing 3 on 5 with Frank and Chukwu in there together. I get it Frank is 80/90% or whatever but you can’t stand behind the 3pt line all game. Huge 3 he made at the end of the game though.

- Tyus hero ball saved us. Against Cornell?

- Offense should not be this much of a struggle right now with how positionless the game has become on offense. The PGs excuse will not cut it in my book.

- Are we done pushing the pace? Like fundamentally done? Easy baskets I would think is a top priority since they are tough to come by for this bunch, regardless. Attack!

- Centers seem to be regressing game by game.

- We’re long but certainly not that quick or skilled across the board. How can we improve the offense? Is it going to be simply hero ball and hope for the best? I suppose we’ll know more after Buffalo but, man, was this ugly.

I agree wholeheartedly. As a Cuse fan since the 60's, I long for the days when we played up tempo & would score 100 points a few times every year. We are so damn boring to watch. I can't always watch games live, so I do tape every SU game. It's sometimes unwatchable. It's early, and I've been around long enough to never doubt Boeheim, so I'm still optimistic that we can have a great season. This team just doesn't shoot well enough to play a half court O the whole game. We NEED more transition baskets plain & simple.

 

[Sgt Cuse]

Touche. I have less faith now. But, well played!

Why would you have less faith now? SU beat a top 16 OSU team on the road, and while it wasn't pretty dispatched Cornell. The odds/point spread for UB should be trending in SU's favor, not against it.

As for the OP, you can't write of the F4. SU just beat a top 16 team on the road. That would normally qualify a team into the Elite 8 right there.

I fully get that you don't like the style of play. But please don't confuse that with SU's ceiling.

 

[Brooky03]

I'm too worried about our floor to think about the ceiling.

 

[br801]

I'm too worried about our floor to think about the ceiling.

What we really need is a "what is our floor" thread so the more angst-ridden among us can just let it all out.