Any win against Georgetown is a great win; let’s get that straight right off the bat. Especially when it’s in overtime, on national television, and Georgetown is ranked near the top ten. I’ll take a victory against the Hoyas — no matter how pretty or ugly — any chance I can get, and I will savor every drop of it. Any win against G-town garners an automatic “A” grade for the team, regardless of circumstances.
Thus, my only observation concerning the ever-so-slim margin of victory and the numerous flaws and vulnerabilities exposed tonight in the Dome will take this form:
- Yesterday evening the Kentucky Wildcats played the Florida Gators in Kentucky. Florida is the #7 team in the country and the 2nd best team in Kentucky’s conference — and the Wildcats obliterated the Gators by 20. Tonight we played the #11 team in the country and the 2nd best team in our conference, also at home. We won by three points in overtime.
In other words, I’m at peace that we’re ranked #2 and not #1. Clearly that’s appropriate at this stage, because Kentucky is on a level by themselves right now. The good news is, we don’t have to worry about the excessive pressure of going into the NCAAs as the prohibitive favorite to win it all. The bad news is…
Nope, no bad news. There’s never bad news when we beat Georgetown.
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Reason #880 why I love Jim Boeheim: he RIPPED the team’s play after the game. Presumably the players were soaking in the atmosphere and feeling pretty good about themselves. And he goes out and calls it “a disaster game” in the press conference. And he probably gave them a few turns on the rack in the postgame locker room too. He knows they are the best team in the Big East but they are not playing like a national title contender. So he completely busts whatever joy bubbles the players are riding on after a nail-biting overtime rivalry win, and gets them back on track and focused on the work ahead. Genius psychology.
By the way, SU probably wins by like 10 points in regulation if CJ Fair hits a few of those midrange jumpers. Don’t know why he couldn’t make them tonight. Feeding him at the foul line is one of the main ways SU beats zones (JB learned this from watching Dante Cunningham) but for some reason he just kept missing tonight, and all of a sudden Georgetown’s zone is “amazing”.
Every single element of our jumpshooting is unreliable, with the exception of Brandon Triche. Joseph hit a bunch last night thankfully, but it’s no surprise to see him miss open shots, and I’d say the same about Waiters, Fair, etc. SU hitting lots of jumpers is a great bonus when it happens, but it can’t be the key to victory or we’ll be skirting disaster every night. We blow people out of the water when we play lock-up defense to get out in transition, when we drive relentlessly, when we hit the offensive boards, and when smooth offensive sets create legitimately wide-wide-wide open threes. But passing it around the outside to take a semi-guarded three off a ball screen is not going to get it done. Rautins and Devo could hit those, but these guys won’t hit them.
I also want to point out that our weakness in jumpshooting doesn’t have to matter. We can win a national championship with the shooting that we have, as long as the rebounding gets sorted. If we can just break even on rebounding we’ll win every game, because we’re so dominant in other facets. You don’t have to hit long range jumpers when you have a crushing defense, blazing speed in transition, an army of finishers, a bench that goes ten deep, veterans that don’t turn the ball over, and 7 or 8 dangerous options on offense — unless you get destroyed on the boards; then all your advantages are washed away.