OT With the Cuse is back for another season. We’re going with a new pic of Jimmy B this year, and I think you’d be hard pressed to find an image that better captures Jimmy on the sidelines than this one.
The only better Boeheim mannerism that comes close is when his arms are fully stretched out. Of course, the facial expression never changes.
Ever.
And that’s why we love him. He’s our coach.
Anyway, after 2 straight years of NIT trips, the Orangemen are looking forward to getting healthy and back into The Big Dance. Tonight’s 89-83 win over #18 Florida was a good start.
So here’s the good, the bad and the ugly from tonight’s performance:
THE GOOD
THE OFFENSE - Onuaku is a beast, a man amongst school children
PAUL HARRIS - Sure, his 18 points on 7-for-11 shooting and 11 rebounds were impressive, but what stood out was that he didn’t have a classic Paul Harris WTF moment.
You know, the one play a game where you’re left shaking your head wondering what the hell he was thinking. Non-existent tonight.
KRIS JOSEPH - not as highly touted as fellow frosh Mookie Jones, but Joseph impressed with 10 points, 3 reb and 3 assists in some quality minutes
JONNY FLYNN - played under control the whole game. Didn’t force shots and let the game come to him. Scored 18 points on just 7 shots and hit big free throws down the stretch.
BALL MOVEMENT - 6 guys finished with more than 8 shots, and no one took more than 11. In the second half especially, they moved the ball around patiently and waited for the right shot.
RESERVES - This team has a number of role players that can contribute on a nightly basis. Tonight it was Kris Joseph and Andy Rautins, but Kristof “The Belgian Minister” Ongenaet and even Rick Jackson are also capable of contributing as well.
ANDY RAUTINS 1ST HALF - 5-for-7 from 3-point land, 15 points and one killer faux hawk
THE BAD
ANDY RAUTINS 2ND HALF - Where’s Waldo?
DEFENSIVE REBOUNDING - Especially in the first half. Florida got way too many garbage buckets off of rebounds they shouldn’t have gotten. A big reason was poor defensive positioning, but we’ll get to that later.
ZONE OFFENSE - Way too much standing around. The ball moved well, but the players didn’t. The result was a lot of 3 point attempts. Luckily for us, Andy Rautins was on fire.
RICK JACKSON - he was largely ineffective tonight. He looks like he gets too anxious once he gets the ball, and it’s not obvious to me that his game has progressed a lot since last year. Reminds me a young Terrence Roberts.
THE UGLY
PAUL HARRIS’ BRAIDS - Someone needs to take him to Melo’s barber.
THE 2-3 ZONE - Wow. Never could I have imagined that a Jim Boeheim coached team could play the zone any worse than they did tonight.
Calling it porous would be a severe understatement.
Unlike last year though, it’s not for a lack of effort. This team just isn’t built to play it. We don’t have any forwards that are long and lanky that can cover a lot of space on the floor - the hallmark of any great 2-3 zone. We are athletic enough to play man-to-man well, and my guess is you’ll see more of it this year.
The rotations were awful; there wasn’t a possession where at least one player wasn’t horribly out of position, compromising the entire team and leading to a ton of easy buckets.
We let no-name forward Alex Tyus (whose previous career high for points was 13) score 24 while hitting 11 of his 14 shots.
I could go on, but reading my notes just made me nauseous.
FREE THROW SHOOTING - Poor free throw shooting is almost as much a part of Syracuse basketball as the 2-3 matchup zone. Just abominable tonight (19-32, 59%), and it could have ended up costing us the game.
The worst part about is that we only have 2 players that we can count on at all to make any down the stretch - Rautins and Flynn. Devendorf is next on the list, but even he was under 75% last season.
Overall, I’m extremely happy with the performance. I think as the year goes on and we move into Big East play, we’ll fix the defense (probably by playing a lot of man-to-man) and continue to get better.
It’s nice to be 4-0.