State of the Orange

In regards to my beloved Orangemen

I’m sorry I just don’t see it this year. I know that Monday nights win was a welcome sight here in upstate New York, it just still doesn’t ease my mind. This team has serious weaknesses. The fact that at any given month this season you could pick a different player, and be able to say that he’s the leader of the team, is a bad thing, not a good thing. You need a guy or at worst two guys, that you can point to and say were going to ride him(them) in this tough conference road game. If your being honest, right now it’s a four way argument between Rick, Scoop, Brandon, and Kris as to who is our go to guy. The real answer is that none of them are. They are all gifted and talented players, but none of them are the man.

Ricky is an outstanding rebounder, and has done as good a job carrying a frontline with literally no depth/talent as I’ve ever seen at SU. Rick has gotten exponentially better as his career has gone along, and for that we can all praise the hard work that he put in…Does anybody think that he’s a go to player though? Let’s be honest, he’s a ten point a game scorer in Big East play. In some of Cuse’s defeats his offense has been nonexistent. You also can’t throw him the ball at the end of a close game because a)his low post game still isn’t that good and b)if he gets fouled you are going to have to pray that he even makes one. There’s a saying out there that “you don’t want to make Ricky mad,” but sorry bud-you’re not a go to player.

Scoop actually doesn’t get nearly the credit he deserves either. Here in Syracuse, Scoop is kind of the whipping boy for this edition of the Orange. He has also improved his game every year that he’s been here, to the point that when he hoists one of his hideous looking jump shots that you have some thought in the back of your mind that it may find a way in. He is one of the best guards at running a break in the country, usually making the right decision. The problem is that a majority of your possessions are played in the half court. This is where Scoop is still suspect at best. Way too many times Scoop surveys the defense and lazily hoists up his slightly above average jumper instead of attacking the bucket. Other times he over-dribbles twenty five feet away and can’t get the team into the set that they are running. The result are those awful possessions where a fade away is jacked up by someone that has zero chance at going in. In end of the game situations he has been turnover prone, as well as prone to missing free throws (shooting in the low 70%’s all season). Surely this can’t be your go to guy.

Pappy used to hype Triche up at the J.C.C, so I was expecting large things. Triche has certainly been on the last two games, and is playing with confidence he’s never played with here. Triche like Scoop is an excellent finisher in transition, using his Will Renaud-like strength to finish in traffic. We have seen glimpses in the past of Triche and what he can do when he’s being aggressive, with perhaps the best example being his best game of his career came at West Virginia last season, where he carried the team for stretches of that game. Again though, for the most part that has been the exception to the rule, and Triche sometimes comes off like Chris Richards or James Teetermen on the late bus, with just an ‘angry/sulking for no reason’ demeanor. Triche will continue to get better and I think by next year he will be a leader and a great player, I’m just not sold on him for this season.

I scored some sweet seats to Monday night’s game against WVU, and having seats up close really put into perspective the build that a lot of these guys have. Of everyone on the floor that night, only one person looked like they were built for the NBA, and that’s Kris Joseph. Blessed with a body that’s perfect to play small forward at the next level, as well as NBA hops, not to mention the perfect form on his jump shot and explosive first step, Joseph should be completely unstoppable. Something is just missing though. He shows games where it looks like he’ll take over and be the player that he has the tools to be, but he just can’t put it all together. I’m not sure why, but clearly he is not the “man” on this team.
As Boeheim said, this year’s Orange lost three great college basketball players. Rick, Scoop, Triche, and Kris all fit perfectly with that team as role players. With a healthy Arinze last year’s team would have won the title, and I would make the argument (for a different column) that they were a better team than the 03’ title squad. Losing all of that talent as and filling it with role players surely takes a long time to adjust. I hope I’m wrong, but that’s when I think the Orange will be relevant again. I see this year’s team bowing out in the second round of the NCAA’s, for that reason. Hopefully a star emerges and proves me wrong.