I live in China these days; Beijing to be specific. In order to prevent Josh from flying solo this year — because lord knows none of the other slacker contributors to this space are likely to step up — I will try to chime in from time to time when I can glean some wisdom or observations from the box scores. I will probably not be able to see many games on TV or the internet this year (possibly none at all), but I’m sure that won’t stop me from airing my anxieties and frustrations on CuseCountry.
For instance, was it really necessary for Brandon Triche to start his career shooting 1-4 from the free throw line? Is no one immune to the Syracuse FT disease? Even in the midst of a thoroughly dominating, fear-alleviating win like the team had against Albany this morning (ha!), why do I have to look at the box and see 15 for 31 in the free throw column?! Argh. In fact, it looks like anything other than a dunk or layup was cause for concern, what with the 2-17 result on three-pointers. I’m less worried about the long-range shooting though, because Rautins will come around and the new guys will settle down. But we’ve seen over the years that free throw shooting problems tend to emerge early in the year and then stick around for the duration.
But hey, they won by 32 points, so lets focus on the positive. What I liked the most, as you all can probably guess, was all that delicious defense and rebounding. Holding any team to 27.3% shooting is a great achievement, no matter who the opponent. The forced turnovers were amazing, and they bode well because an active, turnover-forcing defense can become a habit. If the team can develop a ball-hawking personality in the early stages of the season that has a chance to carry over. Lastly, it’s great to see a dominating performance on the boards (42-32), even against a smaller, weaker opponent. Too often in the past we’ve seen Syracuse’s superior athletes struggle to outrebound small schools, even in games that SU wins handily. Against Albany the big men took care of business, and it appears we had a lot of activity and hustle from the guards as well. Rautins and Triche had 5 boards each, which indicates a big change from the .0001 rebounds per game that Devo averaged and the only-slightly-higher results that Flynn could bring to the table. Because I can’t watch the games I don’t know if the guards were hustling to track down loose balls or if they were mixing it up down low Paul Harris style, but either way I’m happy. Having five guys that are interested in rebounding would be a change for this team.
Speaking of Paul Harris, Wes Johnson put up a pretty much perfect replacement stat line for Mr. Harris. Excellent start.
One Comment
Didn’t necessarily show up in the box score, but watching the game I thought Kris Joseph was the top player on the floor. He definitely brought the energy and made some things happen. Looks like he is ready to take on more of a leadership role on the court, which I expect we will need.