With or without Noel

April 10, 2012 – 3:02 pm

I try not to get too hyped up about potential recruits. Once a guy has made his decision to play for Jim Boeheim, I’ll pore over the most minute of details about his game, style, personality, haircut, anything. But until then, I try to keep my distance. I’d rather not invest too much, getting all excited about how amazing next year’s team could be, only to have my dreams crumble to dust. And with Nerlens Noel about to announce his decision on tomorrow’s signing day, I’m here to tell you that you shouldn’t be too bothered if he decides to go elsewhere. Syracuse already has put together a great team for 2012-13, one that should contend for the Big East title (again) and an upper-echelon NCAA seed.

A couple weeks ago I watched the All-American game in New Orleans, featuring Noel, Dajuan Coleman and Jerami Grant. It was a weird game because the teams were loaded with big men. Grant was the only guy on his team’s roster listed as a forward; it was something like 5 centers, 4 guards, and Grant. And the other team was similarly constituted. So the style of play was unlike any normal game, and it was hard to tell how these guys would perform in a more standardized setting. But I liked a lot of what I saw, and it’s clear that Coleman and Grant both have plenty to offer the Orange.

If, for the sake of argument, we do not assume Noel will join the team, SU is nonetheless going to be plenty stacked. Losing three of your top four scorers, along with your leading rebounder/shot blocker/defensive presence, would be a huge blow for most programs. You’d expect a step back, a rebuilding year, that sort of thing. Not for this team. They’re going to be loaded with talent. We’ve been drooling over MCW and fully expect him to be ready to run the team alongside Triche. CJ Fair will have to adjust to getting more attention from defenses, but he’s made big strides in each of his first two seasons and that ought to continue. Southerland has also finally become a legit player and should have a solid senior season. And Rakeem Christmas looks poised to make the “sophomore jump” — a summer of workouts in the program should turn him into a force. Heck, that’s a pretty solid starting lineup right there, if necessary. I’d take that lineup against just about any starting five from the Big East this past year.

This is not to say that will be the lineup. There’s a serious chance that Coleman starts at center and Christmas remains the power forward. Dajuan almost has to play center for the Orange. He does not appear to have the mobility to play the wing on the zone. He’s just too big. Not that he is fat, oh no. He’s a solid block of muscle. But he about as far from the prototypical Boeheim forward as one can get. The best recent comparison would be Arinze Onuaku. He’s going to be a load to handle in the paint for any defender. He is going to get layups galore, just by using his shoulders to create space. Defensively, he is not going to be the shot-blocker that Fab was, but he’s a much better rebounder. SU’s struggles on the boards this past season should be mitigated by Coleman’s presence.

Grant, on the other hand, is the prototypical SU forward. Long and lanky. Kind of skinny as a freshman but with a frame that will fill out in a year or two and make him much more of a force. Can’t shoot free throws. He reminded me somewhat of freshman Hakim Warrick, though Grant did not display the freakish level of hops that Hak did. But that’s the career that he should be aiming for. He did appear to have a bit of a jump shot already, which Hak did not have until his junior year. He will definitely contribute this year as a raw, athletic backup forward.

Then there’s Cooney, who will surprise a lot of people. We all know he can shoot, but with a year of practice under his belt he is going to be ready to come in and contribute in all facets of the game. He knows the zone. He has a year of strength and conditioning training. And don’t forget — he’s 6′4″. Another guard with “length” to play the top of the key. While Triche and MCW will be the lead guards, there isn’t going to be a ton of drop-off when Cooney comes in. In fact, we might be looking at another season just like this past one, with a talented three-guard rotation in which any two of the three can play alongside each other at any time.

(And Mookie Jones will be back! I actually think he’ll make an impact in his senior season. Maybe I’m letting my optimism get the best of me. But he has clearly matured as a player and knows what is expected of him. I think he’s still got a part to play.)

Looking at that array of talent, there is ample reason to think that SU’s roster is in good shape for another excellent season.

But what if Noel does come upstate? Where would he fit into this scheme? (And yes, I am fully aware that I began this post by saying I don’t like to drool over guys who may not come here. But this is all just a hypothetical tossing of ideas. Just as a thought exercise. Not a full-blown Nerlens slobberfest.)

It’ll be an interesting decision by Boeheim as to how he would want to use his two freshmen bigs on defense. Noel would bring an element that the roster currently lacks, which is the shot-blocking, mistake-erasing center. Christmas has shown some talent in that area, but he’s really the only one who has. Keita is still too eager on his feet and easy to pump-fake into fouls. Coleman has blocked some shots but has mostly just used his superior size and wingspan to do so; he has not yet shown himself to be a natural defensive anchor. Noel on the other hand appears to be Conrad McRae. So you would expect Nerlens to patrol the paint on defense. Yet that would put Coleman out on the wing, which would be a challenge for him as he would often be called on to stay in front of quicker players, especially against a typical three-guard lineup. Noel, being the rangier of the two, would seem like a better fit for the wing spot. But then you might be wasting his shot-block talents. (Though he would have the opportunity to get a ton of those “weak-side help blocks”.)

Of course, JB could decide to just rotate the two of them at center. But a straight-up platoon will make neither guy happy, which could damage the team’s morale. And anyway, Boeheim’s philosophy has always been to get his best players on the floor as much as possible, regardless of what position they play. So if both are on the team, we’ll doubtless end up seeing them on the floor together for long stretches of game time. But also figure on something akin to the Arinze Onuaku/Rick Jackson combo of 2009-10. When both were in the game, Rick was the forward. But when Arinze went out, Rick immediately slid over to the center spot. He (Jackson) probably logged nearly an equal amount of time at center and at forward over the course of the year. You would expect a similar breakdown this season, if Noel comes to town.

But while we worry about who will play where on defense (heck, maybe they’ll just start playing some man-to-man again — it’s not impossible), what is undeniable is the offensive advantage such a pairing would give the Orange. Two big men who can both score. Once again, it harks back to the Arinze/Rick duo. Few opponents have the personnel to adequately defend two big guys when both of them can post up and score around the rim. SU exploited this advantage in 2009-10 all the way to a number one seed — and it vanished when Arinze got hurt. I think ever since that year, Boeheim has been hoping to recreate that scenario. He tried it last season with Fab replacing Arinze, but Fab was totally unready for NCAA play and Rick ended up playing a ton of center. He tried it again this year with an improved Fab alongside Rakeem Christmas, but even though each of them had flashes of offense, neither guy really had a developed, reliable post-up game. That’s why this year’s offense relied almost exclusively on pick-and-rolls and guard penetration.

But Coleman definitely has a post game already. Noel has one too, though it’s a little bit less polished at this stage than Coleman’s. If both of them are ready to play college ball (and there is no reason to think they aren’t), we could suddenly be back to the days of 2009-10 when SU led the nation in FG%.

But (back to reality here) even if Noel doesn’t come to Syracuse, pairing Coleman with an improved Rakeem Christmas could provide much of the same benefits. While Rak is not at Noel’s level, it’s not like he’s Dave Siock. Christmas is a talented F/C who made big strides in his freshman year and will continue to improve. I fully expect that he will develop his post game this summer, to the point where he will be a legitimate option on offense. Which is why, as I started out saying, SU is going to be just fine, even if Noel decides to go elsewhere.

By Josh | Posted in Arinze Onuaku, Baye Moussa Keita, Brandon Triche, C J Fair, James Southerland, Jim Boeheim, Michael Carter-Williams, Mookie Jones, Rakeem Christmas, Recruits, Rick Jackson, Trevor Cooney, Zone defense, syracuse | Comments (0)

Why I don’t hate Fab Melo

April 9, 2012 – 3:29 pm

So on Thursday Fab Melo declared for the NBA draft, officially ending his Syracuse career (which had, of course, unofficially ended several weeks ago). The rumors are wild and varied about what, precisely, he did — or didn’t do — to get suspended. We will never get an official statement from the university about it. Maybe one day Fab himself will spill the beans; until then, we’re stuck with speculation. The general consensus, though, is that the cause of the suspension was something that was under Fab’s control, and that the suspension could have been avoided if he had acted differently. The strongest public evidence for this (i.e. not just rumors) is that he apologized to his teammates when it all went down a few weeks ago, which indicates that he was ultimately at fault.

This perception that Fab allowed this to happen, thereby costing the team a chance at a championship, has led to a lot of vitriol being directed Fab’s way by a large portion of the SU fanbase. You see it on Twitter, on syracuse.com boards, and in blog comments. He’s been called selfish and lazy. People vow to boo him violently if he ever makes an appearance in the Dome again. I saw one person suggest that Fab is this generation’s DeShaun Williams. (And if you don’t know about DeShaun Williams, check out this D.O. story. It begins with a sex scene. Honest.)

But in my opinion, this hate directed at Fab is way overblown. I can understand some amount of anger, but not the intense hate that is out there in a lot of corners. I will grant that Fab’s actions were ultimately detrimental to the team’s chances in the NCAA Tournament. Maybe if he’d played, they’d have beaten Ohio State. (Or maybe they’d have lost to Wisconsin; who knows?) But to hate Fab is to ignore all that he helped the team achieve this season.

I am on record as saying that regular season accomplishments are very meaningful in college basketball, moreso than in most other sports, because of the unique nature of the NCAA Tournament. Cinderellas and so forth. And by any measure, this was the greatest regular season in SU basketball history. And Fab was an integral component thereof. He clearly put in a ton of work over the summer to get in shape and to mold himself into a better basketball player. By all accounts he was a great teammate and a good guy to have in the locker room. This team had excellent chemistry — they had to, in order to excel at their brand of “ten starters but no stars” basketball. And Fab was willing to play the role the coaches laid out for him, even if he was personally convinced he was capable of more (like shooting 18-footers). Hell, he was the Big East Defensive Player of the Year. You don’t get to that level by being lazy.

If you are one of the people who thinks the national championship (or making the Final Four) is the only thing that matters, then this argument may not sway you. And you probably hate Fab for blowing SU’s chances at this season’s title. In that case, your perspective is so far from mine that I don’t know what I could say to you to convince you to lay off Mr. de Melo. You’re entitled to believe that, of course, but that also means you’re going to go through your Syracuse fan life being bitterly disappointed just about every year. Good luck with that. For my part, I harbor no ill feelings towards Fab, beyond a subtle disappointment that his career didn’t turn out to be as spectacular as we’d hoped two years ago. I’ll look forward to watching him play in the pros, and I’ll be laughing mightily when he dunks on Roy Hibbert. And if by chance he returns to the Dome for a Legends game in 20 years I’ll certainly be cheering him, for his role in this special season.

By Josh | Posted in Fabricio de Melo, syracuse | Comments (0)

Not with a bang, but with a whimper

March 25, 2012 – 3:38 am

For all sad words of tongue and pen, the saddest are these: “Too many missed layups.”

I suppose it’s a tribute to how well the team came together without Fab that I am severely disappointed in tonight’s outcome. There is no shame to losing to Ohio State, of course, even had the team been at full strength. And this season will go down as one of the best ever for the Syracuse program. But right now I am just bitter. The game, and the trip to New Orleans, was there for the taking. And Syracuse — uncharacteristically — did not step up and grab it.

It would be one thing if SU had played at, or even near, near their best. But nobody watching this game could say that they had their ‘A’ game going. Sure, OSU is a good defensive team, but SU had a bunch of essentially unforced turnovers, including two in a row by Kris Joseph around the four-minute mark of the 2nd half. SU also missed far more than their share of layups and close-in shots. Some of it was the guys driving the lane trying (and failing) to draw fouls, but some of it was just lack of concentration or maybe just plain bad luck.

But to me what stands out the most is not the various misplays. Instead, it is the questionable decision-making on offense during the latter stages of the first half. With Sullinger out with foul trouble and OSU having to go deeper into their bench than they like, Syracuse had a golden opportunity to “get some separation” and build up a bit of a lead. The zone was highly effective while Sullinger was out. SU held OSU to just eight points over the final ten minutes of the half. But SU only managed 11 points over that same stretch of time, and the reason wasn’t so much OSU’s defense as a suddenly bad offense. SU stopped driving the ball into the lane, which they had been doing pretty successfully for the first ten minutes, and guys just started taking jump shots. Syracuse took (by my count) eight jump shots over the last ten minutes of the first half, and missed all eight. They only scored on dunks and free throws in that span. I think this failure to take full advantage of Sullinger’s absence was the most frustrating aspect of the game for me as a fan. Bad individual plays and missed shots will happen, but there is no reason to take eight jump shots when you have been successfully driving the lane all game and your opponent’s best interior player is on the bench.

Here’s the thing, though. Even with all the mistakes and the ill-timed offensive drought, there were so many plays that were an inch or two away from going Syracuse’s way, any one of which would have changed the complexion of the game. The terrible charge call on Triche that earned Boeheim a technical (on replays, the defender was clearly in the restricted circle and still moving when contact was made) took two points, and a potential third point on the free throw, off the board for SU, and gave OSU an extra point on the successful technical foul shot. The Triche three-point attempt with SU down by 1 midway through the second half that just rimmed out. Several near-steals and loose balls that SU just barely missed turning into breakaways. And of course the requisite “desperation contested three-pointer with the shot clock expiring” that all opponents somehow seem to make against SU at least once a game. Even playing less than their best, Syracuse still had a legitimate chance to pull this one out late in the game.

But here credit goes to Ohio State. The Buckeyes made a bunch of key plays down the stretch. They didn’t make a ton of baskets (though Lenzelle Smith did have a soul-crushing jumper with the shot clock running down) but they powered their way to the foul line over and over and over. And made their damn free throws. Ohio State shot 16-18 from the line in the last five minutes of the game. Unreal.

So this is how the 2011-12 season ends. A season chock full of off-court drama kind of just fizzled out on the court with a good, but not great, performance from the team. It’s remarkable that they nearly made the Final Four despite the “Fabsence”. At the same time it’s disappointing because if they’d played a little bit better they probably would have won, even without Fab. But at the same time it was a historically successful season. It’s weird, I’m bouncing between disgust that they lost and amazement that they made it as far as they did.

You know what it is? I can’t decide if they overachieved or underachieved. I mean, obviously they overachieved in the regular season — nobody goes 30-1, no matter how good you are. But I’m talking about their performance in the NCAAs. On the one hand, they got within a few points of the Final Four, without their starting center and defensive anchor. (And don’t forget, OSU was favored by the oddsmakers in this game too.) On the other hand, they clearly did not play at the top of their game Saturday, which suggests that their talent level, even without Fab, was such that they ought to have advanced to New Orleans.

I don’t know what to think. I guess there will be plenty of time to ponder this and other existential questions while rooting fervently for Ohio State to get utterly demolished by UNC or Kansas. Because, fuck those guys. Seriously.

By Josh | Posted in Losses, NCAA Tournament, Ohio State | Comments (3)

Are you ready to rumble??!?

March 24, 2012 – 3:43 pm

So here we are. Approximately four hours from tip-off against Ohio State for a chance to go to the Final Four. If you don’t already have those familiar pre-game nervous giddy shakes then I don’t know what to tell you. (This applies to fans only, not any players who may be doing a little light pre-game reading. I know you guys are totally confident. Let us fans freak out in your stead.) There are dozens of breakdowns of this game all over the place, as befits a contest of its significance. And 100% of them focus on Jared Sullinger vs. SU’s non-Fab centers. And appropriately so, because Sullinger is quite a talented gentleman. But this game has factors that go way beyond that single matchup.

For instance, nobody is talking about how SU’s offense will fare against OSU’s defense. It’s like the entire game will be decided on one end of the court. While I do have something to say about that, let’s first look at whether SU will be able to score on these guys.

One’s first inclination is to say “Sure, they can score on anyone.” But it’s not that simple. SU has struggled at times this year with physical, aggressive defenses. (See: Cincinnati, Louisville, Georgetown.) Now, supposedly Wisconsin plays a physical, aggressive defense, but SU torched them to the tune of 55% shooting (and it would have been even better if they hadn’t had a couple of layups roll off the rim). Between CJ Fair slashing and the three guards driving the lane, SU was getting plenty of shots close to the basket. It helped that Wisconsin did not have a shot-blocker. They had big, beefy forwards who take up a lot of space, but SU’s guys were generally quick enough to go around them.

Ohio State also doesn’t have a shot blocker. Sullinger swats one per game, tops on the team (35 total). They do have a freshman 6′11″ center named Amir Williams on their bench. He’s second on the team in blocks (21) despite playing extremely limited minutes. But the rest of his game is seriously limited and I doubt he’ll be a major factor. So that’s good news for the Orange.

However, SU’s difficulty won’t be scoring at the rim, but rather getting there in the first place. It will be much harder to drive against OSU’s guards than it was against Wisconsin’s or K-State’s for that matter. OSU boasts the Big Ten Defensive Player of the Year in guard Aaron Craft. The dude is a ball-hawk extraordinaire. He has 94 steals on the year (2.5 per game). I watched him in OSU’s game against Cincinnati and he was a terror. It was nearly impossible for Cashmere Wright et. al. to drive past him into the lane. He’s got great defensive footwork and quick hands. He had six steals and many more turnover-inducing possessions. He was a major reason that Cincy turned the ball over 18 times in that game (they had been averaging just 11 a game on the year). I’ll say it right now: Craft will give Scoop Jardine fits.

That is, if he is guarding Scoop. One of SU’s big advantages this season is that they have no “shooting guard” in the traditional sense. They have three “scoring point guards”, all of whom can handle the ball and all of whom are excellent at driving the lane and finishing. and Craft can only shut down one of them at a time. Whoever he is not guarding on any given possession should be the guy who initiates the offense and looks for his drive. SU took this approach down the stretch against Kansas State last week. K-State’s shooting guard (Spradling) did not have the athleticism to defend any of SU’s guards, so whoever he was defending was the guy who took the ball at the rim. So whoever Craft is defending, that guy is going to have to be extra careful with the ball, and also extra willing to defer on offense to the rest of the team. Now, OSU’s other perimeter guys are good defenders too, not on Craft’s level but they are not a bunch of Spradlings. Buford and Smith have the size to match up with, say, Waiters and Joseph. I don’t know whether SU will have a quickness advantage against those guys or not. But the Orange will definitely have a better chance to get the ball in close if they focus their attack on those two.

I am going to assume that Sullinger’s job on defense will be nominally to guard SU’s center, but really to help out whenever an SU player penetrates towards the basket. Here is one place missing Fab is going to really hurt, because he was a reliable option to receive passes and finish at the rim if his man left to help. Christmas has shown some ability to do this; Keita has struggled in this area all season (he had one great pick-and-roll to the rim against Wisconsin, but he also had a potential dunk just stripped clean out of his hands after catching it two feet from the rim).

All in all, I don’t think Ohio State’s defense presents any new wrinkles that SU hasn’t seen. It’s just going to be a better, more talented version of what they’ve faced all year. They’ll have to raise their offensive game accordingly.

As for Ohio State’s ability to score on SU, I expect Sullinger to have his standard good game. Whether their entire team has a good game comes down, I think, to two things:

Ohio State’s jump shooting

To be fair, this is usually the second-most mentioned factor behind Sullinger. After seeing what Wisconsin did on Thursday night, everyone suddenly seemed to realize that if you hit 14 three-pointers against SU you have a great chance to beat them. (Well, no shit. Isn’t that true of any team anywhere?) But that approach is the opposite of Ohio State’s usual game plan. Three-pointers account for barely a quarter of their field goal attempts on the year, and they score just 20% of their points on threes. They really are an interior-focused offense.

What this means is that you can expect a very different zone approach from Syracuse than what you saw on Thursday. Against Wisconsin, who put five pretty good shooters on the floor, the zone was spread super-thin and extended way out around the perimeter. (This is why Keita played so much more than Christmas: SU needed its center to cover more ground than usual, and Keita is the more mobile and quicker center.) When the Badgers passed the ball to the foul line, the Syracuse center came up to guard him. Tonight, I expect that the center will try to stay low, and it will be the two guards at the top of the defense who drop back to protect the foul line area when the ball goes in there. This will leave some openings for Ohio State to get shots from outside if they can pass the ball effectively. Not just threes, but medium-range twos will be available. Can OSU hit enough jumpers to stretch the SU defense?

Here’s the thing: even though OSU takes very few threes, they actually shoot them at a decent clip. The four OSU starters not named Sullinger each shoot around 35% from deep, and Sullinger actually is hitting threes at over 40% on the year (though he only takes around one per game). If OSU does start making a bunch of threes like they did against Cincinnati, SU will be forced to extend the defense out further, and that is what would give Sullinger the room he needs to dominate against SU’s backup centers. On the other hand, if OSU has just their normal night from deep (5-15 is their average three-point performance per game this season) SU should be able to hang with them

The short turnaround

Think back to the last time Syracuse played an Elite Eight game. They faced #1 seed Oklahoma in 2003 and their defense held the Sooners to 47 points. OU had absolutely no clue what they were doing against the zone. They’d only had one day to prepare for it and were completely stymied. The Sooners had 18 field goals made and 19 turnovers that day. That is the power of facing the Syracuse zone defense on short notice. You have all these plays you’ve been running all year and suddenly they don’t work anymore. You have to do things that you might not be comfortable doing. Now, Ohio State does have the talent to adapt, but whether they actually succeed or not is the big question. Here again the key guy may be Aaron Craft. OSU has a good low turnover rate of 17.6% — not quite as good as Wisconsin’s, but still among the top 50 in the nation. Craft is their leading assist guy with a better than 2-1 assist/TO ratio. Their offensive success (or not) will hinge in no small part on how well he facilitates their ball movement against the zone.

What I’m not expecting to matter in regards to the short turnaround is OSU’s lack of depth. They play their five starters a ton. No one on their bench scores more than 3.5ppg, and in a game of this magnitude I would be surprised if any of the starters played less than 30 minutes. But don’t rely on the Buckeye starters getting tired. It’s not like they’re playing three games in three days. Nor are they the aging Boston Celtics. Major college athletes can run all day for days on end if they have to. Think back to the 2009 Big East Tournament, with the six-overtime game. The Syracuse players didn’t really start to show any fatigue until the 2nd half of the championship game against Lousiville, two days later. The only way the lack of depth becomes an issue is if OSU gets some guys in foul trouble. Which is a legitimate possibility, but you never know how that will go until it actually happens.

OK, that’s enough from me. I’m not bold enough to make a prediction, even one with no consequences attached if I’m wrong. I can’t worry about that. I’m just going to enjoy the game. And by “enjoy” I mean sweat bullets for a couple of hours and scream bloody hell at my TV.

By Josh | Posted in NCAA Tournament, Ohio State | Comments (0)

Rolling in the deep

March 23, 2012 – 3:49 am

In so many ways, the word of the night is “deep”.

1. Wisconsin’s shooters were amazing from deep.

I solemnly swear I will never make fun of Wisconsin’s deliberate offense again. Bo Ryan had them coached up. They had a well-designed plan of attack against the zone and it frequently resulted in wide-open threes. (Too frequently.) And they drained just about every one of the wide-open shots. But that wasn’t all. They made three or four other three-pointers that were vigorously contested by Orange defenders, with the shot clock running down. Boeheim said it best in the post-game press conference, calling it “the best game anybody has ever played against us and didn’t beat us.” They were 14-27 on deep shots. Amazing.

But on the other hand, the Badgers were only 7-22 on two-point shots. They had a few early off of some nifty interior passing, but SU’s defense soon closed down the lane. CJ Fair ended up with four steals and I think they were all from him stepping into the paint and intercepting the same passes that Wisconsin had gotten away with early in the game. With SU effectively taking that aspect of their offense away, they had no choice but to bomb away from deep. And it almost worked.

2. Syracuse’s deep bench came up big again.

I almost don’t count Dion Waiters in this category anymore. At least, I don’t perceive him as a bench player. He’s the third starting guard who just happens to not start. So his great game is not what I’m referring to here. No, I’m talking about the formerly left-for-dead Baye Moussa Keita, who was so HUGE in this game that it made Billy Fucillo jealous. The stat sheet doesn’t show a ton of numbers. But his presence in the paint on defense was a major part of SU shutting down the lane. Wisconsin tested the limits of the zone and Baye’s understanding of positioning and movement on the back line was crucial. And he grabbed five rebounds, more than any individual Badger and second to CJ for game-high honors. One of these boards in particular stood out. It came with 5 minutes left and SU clinging to a one-point lead (60-59). Wisconsin missed a three and Baye went way up to snatch the board in traffic. Keita also had a couple of baskets on a night when every point and every possession mattered. It was his best performance since last year.

And it was sorely needed. Rakeem Christmas did not have a particularly good game on defense, after his outstanding showing against Kansas State last weekend. But it wasn’t so much that Rakeem regressed per se. It was more the fact that Baye’s defensive skill set was a better fit for the kind of defense SU had to play. Wisconsin really spread the zone thin and made it move with lots of perimeter passing. Baye is quicker than Christmas and covers more ground, and is a better defender when he has to step up to the foul line. Christmas is more of a physical defender, and stronger. But Wisconsin did not feature a bunch of brawny guys trying to post up, so Rakeem’s strength was not needed as much as Baye’s quickness.

3. Syracuse has not advanced this deep into the tournament often.

In the Jim Boeheim era, SU has made just five Elite Eights, including this one. (In 1989 they lost to Illinois — by three measly points — but the other three times they advanced all the way to the title game.) That’s out of 30 or so NCAA tournament appearances. In fact, they’ve been to the Sweet Sixteen fifteen times but only advanced past it five times. Obviously we all would love to notch another Final Four but just making it this far has already put this Syracuse team a step above most of the squads in program history. (That is, if the record-setting regular season wasn’t enough for you.)

I was watching part of tonight’s Marquette game — good riddance, by the way, serves you right for beating us last year — and the announcers at one point were talking about “college basketball royalty” and how a program like Marquette stacked up. And, as you might expect, the guy rattled off the Big Four programs: Duke, UNC, Kansas, Kentucky. And rightfully so. The next school that he thought of was… Indiana. Why not Syracuse? SU has the fifth-most wins in NCAA history (behind the Big Four), and the sixth-best winning percentage (behind those four plus UCLA). Indiana is twelfth in all-time wins and around 20th in win percentage. I think the biggest factor in why SU doesn’t automatically come to mind is that they have so rarely made it beyond the round of 16, let alone to the Final Four. Indiana has been to eight Final Fours. Ohio State has been to ten. Hell, Oklahoma State has been to more Final Fours (six) than Syracuse (four). I spent a lot of time defending the premise that making it to the Sweet Sixteen marks a “successful season”, and I still believe that. But I won’t deny that taking that next step is a whole lot sweeter.

4. Some final deep thoughts

  • Let’s not overlook the contributions of Brandon Triche tonight. While CJ Fair’s slump-busting will make most of the headlines, along with Scoop’s and Dion’s late clutch shots, it was Brandon who got SU going early and played a pivotal role in the first-half lead they built. He was aggressive all game and really played well.
  • SU shot well over 50% against Wisconsin’s supposedly amazing defense. But then UW shot great against SU’s supposedly amazing defense too. It’s weird to say a game in the 60s was a “shootout” but I think this one qualifies. Even so, I doubt it makes the cut for the “Orange Glory II” DVD. I don’t think I want to ever watch this game again.
  • Not too surprising since the final score was so tight, but the numbers were amazingly even across the board. SU led on rebounds by one. Each team had six turnovers. Each team had 49 shot attempts. SU’s FG% was better (55-43), but if you calculate Effective FG% (where three-pointers are weighted more heavily) they were almost even: SU 60% eFG, UW 57% eFG.
  • Ten days ago when the Fab Melo suspension news broke, I said that SU was still “very good” but could no longer be considered “elite”. Well, someone get me rewrite because the Syracuse Orange have advanced to the Elite Eight.

    (Barely. But who’s counting?)

Bring on the Buckeyes! Whatever else happens, I can say this much for certain about Saturday’s game: it will be a matchup of two of the goofiest-looking mascots in college sports.

By Josh | Posted in Baye Moussa Keita, Brandon Triche, C J Fair, Dion Waiters, NCAA Tournament, Rakeem Christmas, Scoop Jardine, Wins, Wisconsin, syracuse | Comments (0)

What I think of when I think of the University of Wisconsin

March 22, 2012 – 2:00 am

This is all I can think of when faced with the existence of the Wisconsin Badgers. It’s a flash animation. To preserve the sanity of our regular visitors, I’m going to make you click “more” to see it — otherwise it will auto-run every time someone loads our home page, and may drive that someone nuts.

Read More »

By Josh | Posted in NCAA Tournament, Wisconsin, syracuse | Comments (0)

Thrive and advance

March 18, 2012 – 2:24 am

On Friday, describing (after the fact) the expectations I’d had for the UNC-Asheville game, I said this:

SU would probably have trouble early (like they usually do) and I’d be aggravated for no reason, until they turned on the gas at some point and pulled away to win by 15-20 points.

Turns out I was off by approximately 45 hours.

Welcome back, dynamic Syracuse offense! You’ve been missed for the majority of the past two months. Yet everything fell back into rhythm in Saturday’s second half. Three-pointers were falling like rain. Open shots were as plentiful as laptops in a UConn player’s backpack. And it all happened when Scoop rediscovered his mojo. He had a rough first half, with just 2 points and 4 turnovers, including two terrible plays on consecutive late possessions that earned him a seat on the bench. But in the second half he was brilliant. 14 points on 4-5 shooting, 5 assists against only 2 turnovers, playing all 20 minutes. To borrow a cliche, the senior stepped up and led the team. It was really his first extended good minutes since the South Florida game a month ago. And not a moment too soon.

Boeheim said in the postgame press conference that KSU’s defense was oriented in a way that denied a lot of passes to the wings, and instead encouraged you to drive the lane. Not a bad strategy, when you have Jordan Henriquez back there blocking 2.5 shots a game. But it failed against an Orange attack that is at its best when the guards are penetrating the lane and making things happen. When SU’s offense bogs down, it’s because the team is taking too many stand-still threes or forcing jumpers. But when Scoop, Dion, and Brandon are bulling their way into the paint and hitting floaters (Scoop) or leaners (Brandon) or ridiculous and-one layups (Dion), that’s when the offense really gets going. This penetration is what led to the continuous parade of wide-open three-point looks that SU got, and hit. The weak link in KSU’s defense was Spradling. During the key stretch of the 2nd half when SU finally extended their lead, Scoop and Dion just kept attacking him. Whichever of those two players he was guarding, that was the guy who would take the ball and drive it at the rim. And KSU’s supposed shot-blocking prowess was nowhere to be found. They literally blocked zero shots all game, despite averaging 5 per game as a team. SU’s guards were just too good with the ball.

On the other end, the zone defense once again worked its magic. At the very start of the game KSU looked like they had an effective plan in place for attacking the SU defense, but I guess that was just Boeheim’s “feeling-out period” for what Frank Martin had decided to do. Once SU figured out what K-State was planning, they effectively shut the plan down. The play that got Henriquez a wide-open dunk early on never worked again, as the Orange wings (particularly Southerland) began pinching down into the paint more often. JB quickly fine-tuned the zone to counter KSU’s attack, and the Wildcat offense immediately went comatose. How many K-State possessions featured their guards somewhat listlessly passing the ball around the perimeter, vainly looking for an opening? MacGruder got his quota of floaters in the lane, but KSU was rarely able to get the ball to its big men in any sort of reasonable scoring position. And when they did get the ball down low, the interior defense of Southerland, Christmas, and even Keita while he was in there, was excellent. They blocked 8 shots between the three of them, and altered numerous others. Henriquez shot 7-17, despite coming into the game with a 56% field goal percentage. A similar fate befell Gipson (2-9 Saturday, 51% on the year), their other big man. Of course they were missing their top scoring forward, but nobody in orange has any sympathy for that! All in all a fine defensive effort from the front line. SU’s rebounding was suspect, but everyone expected that coming in. (And in truth, it was really just a first-half problem. SU outboarded KSU in the second half 16-13.)

I tell you what, other than the continuing struggles of CJ Fair, everyone on SU contributed mightily to this win. We’ve already mentioned Scoop’s stellar 2nd half. Dion made his mark early, pulling SU out of the funk that surrounded the first five minutes or so. Kris Joseph played a steady game all the way through. K-State was keying on him for much of the contest, but he picked his spots well and repeatedly drove the lane instead of falling in love with his step-back jumper. He shot just 2-7 from the floor, but most of those misses were plays where he was purposefully drawing contact, just not enough to get a foul call. He did end up at the line four times, going 7-8 from the stripe. Southerland’s contribution on defense was huge all game, and then he had his own offensive explosion midway through the 2nd half that really opened up some breathing room for SU. Christmas played a man’s game in the middle on defense to make up for the Fabsence, but also had six points in a 90-second span early in the 2nd half as part of an 11-3 mini-run that pushed SU’s lead up to 10. Granted, all of those points came on wide-open layups and dunks where the guards drew the defense and then found him, but still. He made K-State pay for leaving him open to double other guys. Triche did not fill up the stat sheet the way his two backcourt mates did, but he played 24 smart minutes.

My optimism — which had been reasonably potent Wednesday but plummeted Thursday — is back on the upswing. But before taking the next step, I’m going to savor SU’s return to the Sweet Sixteen for a little while. I’ve said all along — with Fab or without him — that the Sweet Sixteen is the benchmark for a successful season. And here they are, again. There will be plenty of time to put this in context and to break down the matchup with Wisconsin. But I’m enjoying this win too much to start worrying about the team from Madison just yet. However, I will say this:

By Josh | Posted in Baye Moussa Keita, Brandon Triche, C J Fair, Dion Waiters, James Southerland, Kansas State, Kris Joseph, NCAA Tournament, Rakeem Christmas, Scoop Jardine, Wins, Zone defense, syracuse | Comments (0)

Assville

March 16, 2012 – 11:16 am

I didn’t watch it.

Let’s get that out of the way first. I didn’t see one moment of the Syracuse-UNCA game. A close friend had a crisis that began at roughly 2:30pm Thursday and I forewent watching the game to lend a supportive hand. I figured of all games to miss, this one would be OK. SU would probably have trouble early (like they usually do) and I’d be aggravated for no reason, until they turned on the gas at some point and pulled away to win by 15-20 points.

How wrong was that.

So I’m going to have to reserve my individual critiques until I watch the tape later today. But they must have played like serious ass. I know UNCA was good for a 16 seed — the truly dreadful teams that used to be all four 16s are now in the play-in games — and I know SU was trying to readjust to Fab’s absence (”Fabsence”) but even with those factors there is no way this game should have been that close. I’m stunned. I really thought JB would have the kids ready to play. All the pregame reports suggested that their mindset was correct. But clearly it wasn’t.

I’ll have more later, after I actually watch the tape, and then read all the game stories, and then maybe take a nap. I need answers to my questions, such as “How did SU only score 70 against this team?” And I am fully aware that playing poorly and winning is loads better than the alternative. But suffice it to say that my optimism level has fallen off a cliff.

By Josh | Posted in NCAA Tournament, UNC-Asheville, Wins, syracuse | Comments (1)

Fabulous no more

March 14, 2012 – 1:42 pm

With Melo, SU is a #1 seed and a threat to win it all. Without him, they are still very good — I’d say still a top-20 caliber team — but no longer elite. I look at them now as basically a 4-seed. Assuming the unthinkable fails to happen tomorrow afternoon, they should still be favored in their second third round game, but folks would not be surprised if they lost it. If they do make it through to the Sweet Sixteen, everything beyond that is completely up in the air. They still will have a decent chance to win a game but it will be much less probable than it seemed 48 hours ago. Matchups will be part of the equation, and with some luck — maybe cashing in some karma chips; lord knows the team deserves a couple positive breaks after all that’s gone on this season — they still have a shot at making the Final Four. I really do believe that it’s possible.

What makes it highly unlikely, though, is that all this is predicated on the rest of the team bringing their “A” games. Everyone not named Dion (or Fab) had a pretty dreadful Big East Tournament. Can they get it turned back on this weekend? I don’t buy the excuse that guys played badly in NYC because the games ‘didn’t matter’ and so they weren’t as focused. Word is that some sort of fever was going around the team which sapped some of their energy. OK, fine. Drink some Airborne and pop some Zithromax because we need everyone in top shape. Think back to 2010. Even without Onuaku, SU plowed through the first two rounds relatively smoothly. But then they turned the ball over 18 times against Butler. (And even so, were just a couple clutch plays from winning that game anyway.) This team has not been as consistent as the 2010 team — strange to say, given the gaudy record, but it’s true. None of the players of the 2012 edition shows up every night. They’ve all gone through stretches of poor play. That must end starting tomorrow. They certainly won’t be able to win too many games if they continue to get subpar performances from key guys. The defense won’t be as sturdy without Fab, so they won’t be able to count on shutting teams down for long stretches. The offense will have to carry more of the burden than it has been.

Bizarrely, I’ve been saying all along — contrary to what many others have proclaimed — that if this team lost in the Sweet Sixteen it would not be a ‘bust’ of a season. Because when you get to that point, your opponents are very good teams, and a very good team is capable of beating a great team once in a while when things go their way. My view is that you can’t disregard everything the team has accomplished should they happen to be upset on “one of those nights”. And now, even with Fab gone, I’m sitting here saying “They should make the Sweet Sixteen, but you can’t be confident of advancing beyond that” which is basically the exact same thing I said before. But now they are just one of several “very good teams” instead of a great team, and they may have to beat a great team in order to move on. They may have to be the one for whom everything goes right.

All this said, let me boil it down to the one most salient fact: I am NOT GIVING UP HOPE. As long as you’re in it, you have a chance to win it. Let’s go Orange.


PS. To all those who are ripping Fab as “selfish” for getting into whatever trouble has caused this suspension, shut your foodholes. (A) You don’t know what happened, and (B) you don’t think he wants to be out there playing? He’s getting a lot of vitriol and it’s all undeserved. Even if it comes out that he did something illegal or academically unethical, that’s his burden to bear. It’d be his poor choice. You may feel like he’s deprived you of the chance to root for a potential champion. Well you wouldn’t even have been within pissing distance of that chance in the first place if Fab wasn’t around, or if he hadn’t put in a ton of work over the summer to suddenly turn himself into a stud big man and probable NBA pick. Fab doesn’t owe you anything. Heck, nobody on the team owes you anything. Let it go and enjoy whatever ride the rest of the guys can come up with.

By Josh | Posted in Fabricio de Melo, NCAA Tournament | Comments (1)

Oh good.

March 13, 2012 – 3:29 pm

Just what I needed to ruin the rest of my month.

By Josh | Posted in Fabricio de Melo | Comments (0)