Why you never start a land war in Russia...

[A Clockwork Orange]

AND why you never, ever get into an up-tempo game with Syracuse. SU thrives on chaos and up-tempo play. Ever since I've watched SU they love getting out and running. Typically because SU always has long athletic forwards who can run for days and NYC style ballers up top. The great thing about playing Duke is they don't think anyone can beat them at their style of basketball. Which is also up-tempo. So you end up with entertaining, high scoring basketball the way the game was meant to be played. When SU can play in space, there aren't many teams more dangerous.

We always struggle against teams who play active defense and strive to slow the game down (UVA, GA Tech last game). If SU HAS to rely on outside shooting, they're going to lose 7 times out of 10. If we're playing a team where we can get to the hoop in the half court, we're okay. GA Tech clogged driving lanes, and SU shot for . Loss.

Duke pushes the ball, allows for transition play, we win. It's really as simple as that. If teams don't pack in a zone to start every game against us to dare us to shoot from outside, the coach should be fired. If SU happens to be making threes, all the better for us. Fact is if I'm a coach from another team my game plan is always slow the game down, and let them shoot threes. If I can do that, I know I have a pretty good plan against Syracuse.