whole bunch of numbers about 3p% against our zone

[malpearl31]

See Post #11

I misspoke - but Duke was above 30.2% in the other 2 matchups.

Which is not what you originally said... Admitting you're wrong is not always a sign of weakness, you know. You're really not doing yourself any favors by moving the goalposts in this argument, you actually look quite silly to most people.

 

[kingtidge]

Agreed on point 1, which is why people are frustrated.

On point 2, yes, there are advantages to both defenses in particular situations and matchups. I don't think there is anything inherently better about man-to-man, I just want a surging team that is picking the zone apart to have to make different decisions when they bring the ball up the court. If it works, great, stay in man-to-man. If it doesn't, try full court press or switch back to zone. Ideally try these things before desperation time.

I think it was Kenny that made a comment in halftime of our game...

Paraphrasing, but...When the zone is exposed by 3pt shooters consistently, either through good ball movement to the baseline shot or into the foul line and out quickly to an open shooter, forcing the late slide... The late slide is a part of rythym... This guy is going to be say 4 steps away when I start my shooting motion... Then he's 4 steps away when I start my next shot and drain it...

When those late slides are consistent in how late, it helps the opposing team shooters get in rhythm and when the shots start raining, it's part of that rhythm.

 

[samspann1]

Which is not what you originally said... Admitting you're wrong is not always a sign of weakness, you know. You're really not doing yourself any favors by moving the goalposts in this argument, you actually look quite silly to most people.

What about "I misspoke" did you not understand?

 

[samspann1]

On the season, 15 of our 34 opponents shot higher from 3-pt range against us than their season average: UConn, Oregon, Cornell, ODU, ND, GT, Duke 2x (at home, and ACCT), VT, @ BC, FSU, UVa, Baylor, Pitt (ACCT) and WF.

One opponent - Arkansas State - shot at the same rate.

Disclaimer: I didn't take into account the context of the shots (i.e. garbage time makes/misses), rebounds allowed, or any other criteria.

 

[malpearl31]

What about "I misspoke" did you not understand?

"Misspoke" implied to me that you may have used a wrong word, but that the gist of your argument (that Duke shot well against us from 3-pt range this year when Zion played) was accurate. It is not. The entire premise of your original post was wrong.

And then when you continued to essentially make the same argument by moving the goalposts (replacing one game when Zion did play with another game when he did not play), and by using one source (ESPN) that conflicts with two other sources (KenPom and sports-reference both show 30.5%), I admit that I got a little salty, and for that, I apologize.

 

[samspann1]

No worries - my bigger point was that Duke shot over their season avg from 3 pt range in 2 of 3 games against us. I got the games mixed up, and admittedly, I did not check any sources other than ESPN for the stats.

 

[Millhouse]

This is a great post and huge step in the right direction from quoting season stats. It still doesn't tell the whole story though. The bolded part, in my opinion, isn't quite the argument the most of us malcontents want to make. I don't claim that man-to-man teams get torched less or more than zone teams over the course of a season. What frustrates me is when the zone, with in-game adjustments, is just not working in a particular game, and we stay in it. I'd hazard to guess that other than a few outliers, most people on this board don't want us to completely abandon the zone, or even play man-to-man a set % of the time. I just want to see it for a few series when a team is going on a run and you can just see the game slipping away. To make matters worse, our offense makes an 8 point deficit seem insurmountable the past few seasons.

I do appreciate these posts, though, the data is interesting.

My beef with the zone is that it makes our offense suck. I hope girard can handle the point soon

 

[Ghost]

My beef with the zone is that it makes our offense suck. I hope girard can handle the point soon

I think this is more or less (with a bit of "maybe a little M2M in case of emergency" thrown in) everyone's belief...

Some just haven't made it all the way there yet.

 

[OrangePA]

we can all see the average three point % against is fine this year but people seem to think that the zone might work a lot of the time but get torched from time to time more than man.

we gave up 46% shooting 6 times this year. 150 other teams gave up 46% that much or more
47% happened 5 times - 117 teams were that bad
50% 4 times. 109 teams were that bad or worse (a lot more teams were better of course)
57% happened twice. Only 49 teams were that bad.

i only looked at this year but i think it's fair to say the zone works overall but when it goes bad it goes real bad. we're tied for 43rd in most games holding teams to 32% or less

the thing about the zone that's interesting is there are a lot of games where teams keep chucking up lots of 3s with a bad percentage

we lead the country in games since 2011 where a team shoots 33% or worse on 33 or more shots

Team Game Finder | College Basketball at Sports-Reference.com


i would've never guessed this next stat. what is our record when we give up 40% from three in the tournament since 2011?

8 wins 1 loss. The one loss is to Baylor.

when the other team shoots 33% or worse our record is 6-5.

Interesting but our problem is not defense.

We don’t create good shots and don’t shoot well.

We can’t score.

 

[Capt. Tuttle]

These are all interesting stats but we are including early season scrub games, bad conf opponents, and crummy non P5 teams amongst the numbers. I’d be much more interested in seeing how the zone worked against ranked teams or teams that made the tourney.

The tourney stat is interesting though.

And Duke

 

[Millhouse]

Interesting but our problem is not defense.

We don’t create good shots and don’t shoot well.

We can’t score.

i'm a broken record but we sacrifice offensive skill at the guard position to be good in the zone - JB wants length in the zone knowing that those guards might not be great ball handlers and shooters and he hopes that skinny forwards with offensive talen can save energy and fouls in the zone and save us on offense

 

[Melancer46]

i'm a broken record but we sacrifice offensive skill at the guard position to be good in the zone - JB wants length in the zone knowing that those guards might not be great ball handlers and shooters and he hopes that skinny forwards with offensive talen can save energy and fouls in the zone and save us on offense

I think this is mostly a myth. Syracuse has had a lot of guys that were not brought in for their defense. Even some of the guys that ultimately turn out to be defensive specialists that are relatively unskilled offensively were not recruited with that in mind. Saying in retrospect that they were brought in for defense and played that role well is probably better optically than saying that their scouting reports were wrong or the player simply didn’t transition to college the way they expected.

Examples: MCW was considered a great scoring prospect when he was brought in. Turned out he actually wasn’t a good scorer at all but was one of the best defenders we’ve ever had.

Goodine and Girard are both being brought in for their offensive abilities.

Ennis and Flynn were both relatively small players that were brought in more for their offensive abilities as well.

I also don’t think bringing in athletic players = recruiting for the zone. Oftentimes, both in college and the NBA, teams will bring in the athletic guys (that are seemingly better fits for the zone) because they are perceived to have more potential, thinking if they can hone their physical tools, they’ll be better players in the long run than a relatively unathletic but skilled player like Ennis.

 

[Millhouse]

I think this is mostly a myth. Syracuse has had a lot of guys that were not brought in for their defense. Even some of the guys that ultimately turn out to be defensive specialists that are relatively unskilled offensively were not recruited with that in mind. Saying in retrospect that they were brought in for defense and played that role well is probably better optically than saying that their scouting reports were wrong or the player simply didn’t transition to college the way they expected.

Examples: MCW was considered a great scoring prospect when he was brought in. Turned out he actually wasn’t a good scorer at all but was one of the best defenders we’ve ever had.

Goodine and Girard are both being brought in for their offensive abilities.

Ennis and Flynn were both relatively small players that were brought in more for their offensive abilities as well.

I also don’t think bringing in athletic players = recruiting for the zone. Oftentimes, both in college and the NBA, teams will bring in the athletic guys (that are seemingly better fits for the zone) because they are perceived to have more potential, thinking if they can hone their physical tools, they’ll be better players in the long run than a relatively unathletic but skilled player like Ennis.

MCW didn't all of a sudden become a terrible shooter - i know you said "scoring" but he has always been a terrible shooter. It's part of the tradeoff. Sometimes JB picks the other side of the tradeoff - i imagine the gillon year was "I know he's short but dammit we need someone who can shoot, i'm sick of this"

Flynn and Gillon are great offensive players but the defense stunk all three years. The defense was great in 2012-13 with MCW but he couldn't shoot

i agree that we don't always sacrifice offense for defense, what i should've said is we always end up sacrificing one or the other because of the zone and more often then not, we optimize for defense over offense in somewhat recent years (post 96 maybe?)

 

[malpearl31]

we always end up sacrificing one or the other because of the zone and more often then not, we optimize for defense over offense in somewhat recent years (post 96 maybe?)

My counter to this would be guys like Rautins and Cooney (and maybe Buddy will join this group, it's obviously too soon to tell). I don't think anyone was saying that either of those guys were recruited for anything but offense/shooting... but both Rautins and Cooney turned out to be very solid defenders at the top of the zone.

 

[Millhouse]

My counter to this would be guys like Rautins and Cooney (and maybe Buddy will join this group, it's obviously too soon to tell). I don't think anyone was saying that either of those guys were recruited for anything but offense/shooting... but both Rautins and Cooney turned out to be very solid defenders at the top of the zone.

I agree that cooney was fine on defense but I don't think that proves me wrong about the tradeoff because i think he stunk on offense

rautins, yes, he was good. wasn't expected to handle the ball really. scoop too - he developed into a PG that was ok on defense and good on offense

 

[Melancer46]

MCW didn't all of a sudden become a terrible shooter - i know you said "scoring" but he has always been a terrible shooters. It's part of the tradeoff. Sometimes JB picks the other side of the tradeoff - i imagine the gillon year was "I know he's short but dammit we need someone who can shoot, i'm sick of this"

Flynn and Gillon are great offensive players but the defense stunk all three years. The defense was great in 2012-13 with MCW

i agree that we don't always sacrifice offense for defense, what i should've said is we always end up sacrificing one or the other because of the zone and more often then not, we optimize for defense over offense in somewhat recent years (post 96 maybe?)

I think sacrificing offense or defense is something that impacts all teams. A better offensive scheme could cover up some of those short comings when we prioritize defense but basically every prospect requires you to sacrifice one or the other to some degree. Virginia for example in past years (not the case anymore) had very few skilled offensive guys. They just locked in defensively and Bennett’s schemes got people open enough offensively for them to win. Unfortunately Boeheim’s offensive schemes are far more reliant on talent and in the past 5 years, we haven’t really had the goods.

I think a lot of it boils down to going after guys that we view as high ceiling guys that haven’t been developing the way we had hoped (I.e. Brissett and Battle flat-lining) as well as some flat out scouting misses and recruiting misses (Kaleb and Carey in year 1, missing on Quade (who would have fallen into that category with Ennis).

Our failure specifically with the PG position has been particularly damaging IMO. If you can get the right PG (or really, a primary creator regardless of position) in place, everything else becomes so much easier. Those athletic guys we’ve brought in can get out in transition, our shooters can get the ball in rhythm, Dolezaj would be an excellent compliment to a good creator IMO. Unfortunately we’ve really struggled to bring in the right PG in recent years.

Hopefully Goodine or Girard will end up being that guy but as much as I like them (and particularly love what I’ve seen of Goodine), I fear that both of them are better off as secondary creators rather than the initiator.

Edit: Also, as far as MCW goes, the guys from DraftExpress for example touted his shooting range in high school. They did say he wasn’t a consistent shooter at the time but I think I’m retrospect everyone involved was relatively disappointed that he never became a decent shooter.

 

[Millhouse]

I think sacrificing offense or defense is something that impacts all teams. A better offensive scheme could cover up some of those short comings when we prioritize defense but basically every prospect requires you to sacrifice one or the other to some degree. Virginia for example in past years (not the case anymore) has very few skilled offensive guys. They just locked in defensively and Bennett’s schemes got people open enough offensively for them to win. Unfortunately Boeheim’s offensive schemes are far more reliant on talent and in the past 5 years, we haven’t really had the goods.

I think a lot of it boils down to going after guys that we view as high ceiling guys that haven’t been developing the way we had hoped (I.e. Brissett and Battle flat-lining) as well as some flat out scouting misses and recruiting misses (Kaleb and Carey in year 1, missing on Quade (who would have fallen into that category with Ennis).

Our failure specifically with the PG position has been particularly damaging IMO. If you can get the right PG in place, everything else becomes so much easier. Those athletic guys we’ve brought in can get out in transition, our shooters can get the ball in rhythm, Dolezaj would be an excellent compliment to a good creator IMO. Unfortunately we’ve really struggled to bring in the right PG in recent years.

Hopefully Goodine or Girard will end up being that guy but as much as I like them (and particularly love what I’ve seen of Goodine), I fear that both of them are better off as secondary creators rather than the initiator.

i agree, it's about PG, i don't think the tradeoff is so bad at SG - you can find tall guys who can put their hands out that can shoot. i wish we could live with a short ball handling good shooting PG but it just kills us on defense.

Griffin, mcnamara, flynn, gillon - none of those teams were very good on defense (a few were ok but most were not strong)

 

[Cusefan0307]

I think JB thought he was so good at converting MCW from combo to PG that he thought he could do the same thing with other players. If you recall there were a few posters early on who thought Frank Howard could be the next MCW. Not every tall guard is one in the same.

 

[Melancer46]

i agree, it's about PG, i don't think the tradeoff is so bad at SG - you can find tall guys who can put their hands out that can shoot. i wish we could live with a short ball handling good shooting PG but it just kills us on defense.

Griffin, mcnamara, flynn, gillon - none of those teams were very good on defense (a few were ok but most were not strong)

With our current offensive system, we really need a PG that’s capable of breaking the defense down and making smart reads when he does it.

One of the other disappointments to me is that it seems most basketball teams, both in college and the pros, are gravitating more towards ball movement style offenses that wouldn’t require a short and quick guy to dominate the ball and create for everyone but rather have a collection of 3 or 4 guys that can all play off each other (and then maybe a C that’s strictly a finisher). Transitioning to this style would make things a lot easier for recruiting purposes, though I also think our players currently lack the mentality to run it (with the exception of Dolezaj and maybe the incoming recruits)

 

[STEVEHOLT]

the more Ive watched this tournament, the more I realize that the offense is the bigger problem. So many teams with these offensive schemes with tons of motion, cutting, back screens, dribble drives and kicks, its just so foreign to me watching mostly Syracuse games. very rarely did I see teams taking the shot clock down out of necessity, we seem to take a large percentage of our non transition possessions down down to under 5 on the shot clock because we just cant get anything going.

 

[CardiacCuse]

the more Ive watched this tournament, the more I realize that the offense is the bigger problem. So many teams with these offensive schemes with tons of motion, cutting, back screens, dribble drives and kicks, its just so foreign to me watching mostly Syracuse games. very rarely did I see teams taking the shot clock down out of necessity, we seem to take a large percentage of our non transition possessions down down to under 5 on the shot clock because we just cant get anything going.

yes...and i agree about prioritizing the zone defense in roster construction...has lead to these players not being good enough offensively. the tradeoff isn;t worth it - especially when they aren't even good enough in the zone to play lock down d.

one other point: all SU zones are not created equally.

THIS YEAR's zone was garbage, imo. they couldn't stop ANYONE...even when they beat duke - duke scored like 90 points in that game.

2018's was good - weirdly with the same players basically - even though they still got roughed up in a bunch of games...but 2019's was garbaggio...

I hope the recruiting philosophy has indeed changed and offense is now the priority...seems it has...smart move.

 

[malpearl31]

THIS YEAR's zone was garbage, imo. they couldn't stop ANYONE...even when they beat duke - duke scored like 90 points in that game.

This year's defense was definitely worse than last year's, all of the statistics definitively say that.

But don't fall into the trap of thinking that any given team's defensive performance is either good or bad based on the total number of points allowed in a game. When we beat Duke by the score of 95-91 on January 14th, that was a 91 possession game. So we allowed only 1.0 points-per-possession (PPP). On Feb 23rd at the Dome, we lost 75-65 in a 66 possession game. We allowed fewer total points, but a higher PPP of 1.14 for that game. And then finally, on March 14th in the ACC Tourney we allowed Duke to score 84 points in a 71 possession game, for a defensive PPP of 1.18.

The 95-91 game was probably our best defensive performance of the 3 games against Duke this year.

 

[SWC75]

we can all see the average three point % against is fine this year but people seem to think that the zone might work a lot of the time but get torched from time to time more than man.

we gave up 46% shooting 6 times this year. 150 other teams gave up 46% that much or more
47% happened 5 times - 117 teams were that bad
50% 4 times. 109 teams were that bad or worse (a lot more teams were better of course)
57% happened twice. Only 49 teams were that bad.

i only looked at this year but i think it's fair to say the zone works overall but when it goes bad it goes real bad. we're tied for 43rd in most games holding teams to 32% or less

the thing about the zone that's interesting is there are a lot of games where teams keep chucking up lots of 3s with a bad percentage

we lead the country in games since 2011 where a team shoots 33% or worse on 33 or more shots

Team Game Finder | College Basketball at Sports-Reference.com


i would've never guessed this next stat. what is our record when we give up 40% from three in the tournament since 2011?

8 wins 1 loss. The one loss is to Baylor.

when the other team shoots 33% or worse our record is 6-5.

That last stat is especially fascinating. Could it be that three point shooting is over-rated?

 

[Millhouse]

That last stat is especially fascinating. Could it be that three point shooting is over-rated?

I'm really sorry everyone - i think I messed that up and I'm not sure how - I think I selected when *we* go 40%

Opponents shooting >=40% in the tournament, we're 2-2

Team Game Finder | College Basketball at Sports-Reference.com

Opponents shooting 33% or worse from 3, we're 9-3

Team Game Finder | College Basketball at Sports-Reference.com

i'm glad I went back and checked but i feel bad for getting it so wrong

 

[OrangePA]

i'm a broken record but we sacrifice offensive skill at the guard position to be good in the zone - JB wants length in the zone knowing that those guards might not be great ball handlers and shooters and he hopes that skinny forwards with offensive talen can save energy and fouls in the zone and save us on offense

I just don't see how hard it should be to not dribble, but to simply pass the ball quickly on the perimeter, at the foul line and to the baseline.

The ball does not get tired.

Ball movement - no matter how simple or subtle - requires the defense to react and to move.

That is how good shots are created.

I don't think it takes a lot of talent to do that.

And, as I have said, in the first half against Baylor TB did it - he moved the ball from the point and helped create shots.

In the second half we reverted to the BS - the constant dribbling around the perimeter looking for a one-on-one move to the basket.

I will agree that we are not talented enough to win with that approach.