It’s almost here everyone! In just a few days a few hours (this took me longer than I thought to finish!), the Most Wonderful Time of the Year shall officially begin. The Orangemen will take on the Albany Mediocre Danes; Jim Boeheim will be questing for his 800th career win (now trailing Jim Calhoun by 6, though it should be noted Calhoun has been a head coach for four more seasons than Boeheim has, and has about 50 more losses to go with those 6 more wins). Incredibly bizarre results vs. LeMoyne notwithstanding, everyone expects the Orange to roll tonight and take care of that piece of business before getting on with the rest of the season.
The Orange go into the season full of question marks after losing three starters — their top three scorers, which were also their top rebounder, top outside shooter, and their leader/floor general/only NBA-caliber player — and their best “hustle guy”. This sort of attrition means nobody knows what the hell is coming this season. (Still, we love to speculate.) This is a team that has lost its identity, and whether they find a new one quickly, slowly, or not at all will go a long way to determining what kind of season they will have.
The frontcourt is the consensus strength of this team. Arinze Onuaku emerged as one of the best low-post scorers in the conference, if not the country, last season. Knee issues limited his effectiveness during the second half of the season but he had offseason surgery, dropped some weight, and has come back ready to go. He is going to have to prepare to handle more frequent double-teams — since the outside shooting on this year’s squad looks potentially suspect, expect opposing defenses to pack it in the paint a bit more. And to foul the crap out of him whenever possible. A lot is riding on Arinze’s broad shoulders. They will need him to score. There were times last season when he would disappear if they didn’t get him the ball early in the game. The offense should look to establish Arinze on the blocks nearly every possession. He has good hands and is a solid passer for a big man; if he is quick enough to pass out of the double teams he’ll create a lot of open shots for the wings or for Rick Jackson on the other post.
Speaking of Jackson (the other returning starter), his game improved leaps and bounds last season. He is still at the moment more of a complementary player on offense, but he’s got his share of post moves and can put some points on the board when he has to. It is unclear whether he or Onuaku has developed the ability to shoot a 10-foot jumper, but I’m not holding my breath on that. The Orange should be able to take advantage of some mismatches in the post; most opponents are not going to have two players strong enough to match up against these two guys.
And then there is Wesley Johnson, the enigma. Other than a few highlight dunks (and we knew he was athletic) he looked pedestrian in the first exhibition. But then he exploded against LeMoyne for 34 points on 12-23 shooting. Last season, the players and coaches raved about Johnson’s abilities, even going so far as to suggest he might be a candidate for the NBA draft after this season. He is the main reason that Syracuse fans did not completely panic when the three underclassmen left after last season. I honestly don’t know what to expect from Johnson. There is a part of me that can’t believe he is actually as good as all the hype, except that much of the hype came from the lips of Jimmy Arthur Boeheim, who is not exactly known for overenthusiastic hyperbole. I think at best we might be looking at a season similar to Demetris Nichols’ last year, where he is the focus of the offense and has games in which he seemingly scores at will both outside and in. At worst we’ll get an array of thunderous dunks in the early part of the season.
One thing I am very excited about is the defensive potential of the team. I don’t care so much that LeMoyne torched the man-to-man because, frankly, this team is going to be a monster in the zone. The length at each position is ridiculous. Replacing 6-4 Paul Harris with 6-7 Wes Johnson (and he has a remarkable wingspan too) will lock down that weak side corner that was frequently exposed by opposing sharpshooters. Meanwhile, the height in the backcourt is improved too, with Triche replacing Flynn. You will have a hard time replacing Jonny’s on-the-ball tenacity, but I guarantee Triche will get his arms in some passing lanes.
The backcourt play is going to take a hit this season, no doubt about it. Jonny Flynn was the best point guard we’ve seen since Sherman Douglas. (With apologies to Z Sims, Jason Hart, Adrian Autry, Allen Griffin, and of course Gerry.) His raw talent, exuberance, and determination will be sorely missed. And this team will also miss Devendorf in a lot of ways. Sure we picked on Unforced Eric for a number of bad decisions with the ball and some less-than-stellar defense, but when he got on a roll offensively he was nigh-unstoppable. The patented drive and lefty layup, and the dagger threes, and also his confidence to take the shot. He always felt that he’d make the next one (even when the rest of us did not share that certainty) and, while his attitude regularly crossed over into obnoxiousness, it also had the potential to fire up the team. Jonny had that fire too. It’s unclear who the emotional engine of this team will be.
Now to the more tangible stuff. Andy Rautins faces much the same challenge as Onuaku — he goes from a role player who would lead on occasion to a leader who has to step up nightly. He’ll have the green light from Coach to shoot whenever he feels it, and his outside game is going to be crucial if the post players have any hope of doing their work down in the paint. Andy also displayed much-improved ball-handling ability last season; ideally he’s gotten even better at driving the lane and finishing over the summer, because in order to be effective he’s going to have to present multiple threats on offense. Whoever ends up starting at point guard, you can be sure both Triche and Jardine will see a lot of court time. Triche is big, which is good. Whether he can finish drives down among the trees in the Big East remains to be seen. We all know Scoop had a rough freshman year, when he was forced to play a lot more than he probably ought to have due to Rautins’ and Devendorf’s injuries. Hopefully his redshirt year gave him time to mature both as a player and a person. He played very well in both exhibition games in terms of controlling and distributing the ball (17 assists to 1 turnover in the two games combined). He won’t have to shoulder a ton of the scoring load, but if all he does is drive-and-dish opposing defenses will eat him up in the long run. He will have to develop some effective offensive presence. He was a stud scorer in high school, so the potential is there.
The bench is not very thin in terms of bodies but it is woefully lacking in experience. The only player who made any real contributions last year is Kris Joseph, who started strong but faded by the time the meat of the Big East season rolled around. He’ll be the primary, possibly the only, frontcourt sub in the rotation. We salivated last fall over his ability to hit mid-range jump shots, and he displayed a bit of three-point range in the exhibition games. His biggest contribution will probably be as a defender and passer though. He needs to make sure he is ready to play his role. In addition to Jardine (assuming Triche starts), expect to see spurts of Mookie Jones subbing in the backcourt for a few minutes a game. Nobody right now is really sure whether Mookie is ready for prime time. He came in last season with plenty of scoring pedigree out of high school, but his development got truncated by an injury. It’s best to still consider him a freshman with maybe a little bit of a head start. James Southerland opened a ton of eyes in the first exhibition with his remarkable shooting performance: 7-7 from the floor including five three-pointers. He came out of nowhere with that explosion. If he can be a consistent outside shooting threat, it changes the whole complexion of this team. He is 6-8 so he’s plenty long enough to defend the wings of the zone (assuming he learns how). He’s skinny still, so he might have trouble rebounding on the back side. But I’m hereby anointing him the X-factor. If he becomes a real contributor, this team will be a whole lot more balanced offensively and a whole lot more likely to make serious noise in the spring. The chances of Jones and Southerland both making big contributions are slim, because as we all know JB is going to play his 7 or 8 best guys and the rest will get butt splinters. For instance, don’t expect anything from Dashonte Riley beyond a few minutes per game against small colleges from New York State in December. Not that he isn’t talented. But he’s got Onuaku and Jackson in front of him at center, and unless they are both in foul trouble early, he’s not going to get much burn.
We’ve already broken down some of the major games on the schedule, both in terms of their importance to the team’s season and their proximity to members of the Cuse Country staff. They’ll have a couple good chances to make noise early in the year but it’ll be tough with this squad — they are going to need time to really figure out their identity. Boeheim will have to discover how much he can expect to get from each guy and which combination gives them the best chance to win. For instance, we may end up seeing a lot of Rautins at the small forward position early in the year, with a Triche/Jardine backcourt, when they play smaller, quicker teams. (Watching Onuaku chase 6-6 centers out by the three-point arc is always a little painful.)
Personally I think this team is going to have to win its games with defense. Agonizing as it can be to sit through 55-52 games, they don’t appear to have the offensive firepower to win if they get into a shootout — although I will say that they should have a killer fast break with Johnson filling the lane and Rautins spotting up. The zone should be smothering, though, and rebounding should be a major strength with the bodies they will have on the front line. I’m not saying they need to go all the way into Wisconsin Badger territory, but they will be well-suited for the physical style of the Big East. Their best bet will be to play safe on offense, work the ball into the paint as much as possible for high-percentage possessions, and then to make sure the opponent has to shoot over a long outstretched arm, and that they only get one shot.
Though it’s far too early to make any predictions, I’m going to do it anyway! You can laugh at me later when I am totally wrong. My guess is that the team goes 2-2 in their major OOC matchups (though which two I have no real idea), drops one early-season home game to a mid-major-type team (possibly Cornell), and puts up a 10-8 Big East regular season record, putting them squarely in the middle of the conference pack and in line for a medium NCAA seed in the 7-9 range.
OK, that’s the end of the dispassionate analysis. Time for some good old-fashioned pregame excitement! It’s basketball season everyone!
BASKETBALL SEASON!!
Go crazy, folks.
One other note: Cuse Country is now Tweeting. You can follow us @cusecountry. We are mainly active only during games, though you will often find us on the #BeatOpponent tag the Fridays before football games. I’ll be on tonight while watching ESPNU. We’re working on getting it integrated into the blog, but for now it’s Twit-based only. So check that out for in-game conversation and observation, and we’ll be back here on the blog later tonight with a wrapup.