The Current State of Cuse Basketball

From the desk of Steve D:

Inspired by what’s become a hot button topic in the CNY why area, I got that itch this morning to dust off my Manual Buzzer keyboard, to address coach Boehiem’s post game remarks, and general state of the SU team. The moderators on Syracuse.com have been kept busy the last twenty four hours, as a whopping 370 comments (many of which were deleted, and is now down around 330)have come in less than a day following an article regarding Jim’s comments following Syracuse’s 74-71 loss to Marquette Monday in Milwaukee. For any who may have missed it, Jim issued the following responses to questions from reporters about the issue of team leadership, and if he considered playing Dejuan Coleman:

            “"We're the same team we've been all year. I don't even understand that. ... You think because you come to Marquette and lose a two- or three-point game you need a new guy? I don't."

            “Our two best defensive players were in the game…You should try coaching, maybe, because that's what you think you are. Maybe you should try that."

Of course Jim would go on to vent about his frustration with the Big East, among other things, before finishing up the presser with this gem:

"any more coaches here? Want to ask another coaching question? I'd be happy to take it. I've only been doing this 37 years, I'm sure you've got more ideas of who we should play or we shouldn't play or who should lead? What do I know…go get your Pulitzer someplace else.”

I have to admit, I did not realize that this topic would become such a polarizing topic locally. The message board of syracuse.com-while usually being full of ignorant trolls-does give a decent snap shot as to how the community at large feels, especially when you get so many comments. Typically it has been a place where the fans have blindly defended Boeheim, regardless of whether his actions warranted questioning. That’s why what I’ve seen on the message boards, and social media have been so surprising. I’d say that the majority are bashing Jim for the above comments. Was Jim way off base with his comments? Were the questions raised by the reporters valid? I’ll start with the validity of the questions.

Michael Cohen of the Daily Orange-a university newspaper-asked Jim if he thought the 6-10, 250+ lb freshman center Dejuan Coleman, could have helped to offset the second half defensive rebounding problems that Syracuse had with Marquette big Davante Gardner, who torched the Orange. On the surface that seems like a valid question. Look deeper though, what is Cohen really doing here? That’s not a question, as much as it is a statement that Cohen himself thought Jim should have played DC. It would have to be, because otherwise it would be the dumbest question in the history of reporting. Taking that question at face value, is essentially either

a)implying that Jim thought Coleman could help the team, and decided not to play him anyways, or

b)Jim forgot that he had Coleman on the bench, and didn’t play him for that reason

Coleman’s question was worded poorly, and put Jim on the defense, a place that any reporter who’s been in a press conference with Jim before, like Cohen has, should know is not the place to put Jim. As far as the basketball side to Cohen’s question, contrary to what a lot of people think, Jim was right in not playing Coleman. Coleman was the team’s most suspect defender BEFORE knee surgery. A likely somewhat out of shape Coleman would have been inserted into a game in the second half, and had a very tall order ahead of him.

Those watching the game would notice that during Marquette’s key second half run, they placed Gardner out near the top of the circle, a good 18 feet from the basket. Being not only a skilled passer, but also excellent shooter, whoever was playing center of the zone has to respect his jumper. Is an out of shape Coleman really the guy you want defending that? Keita actually did a great job defending that initial shot. Gardner was able to crash hard on his shots, or whoever he made a quick pass to from the top of the key. The rebounds that SU missed were, in theory missed by the forwards-CJ and James-as Keita was hardly in position to box out Gardner on the move from the top of the key. Assuming that Coleman would have been a disaster defending Gardner out that far from the basket, would you have Coleman over James or CJ, far and away the two best offensive players on SU right now? No way.

To add to that, Jim sees Coleman every day in practice. He knows how he’s moving. How bad must Coleman look in practice to not get time over Rakheem and Baye? Think hard, do you really think throwing Coleman into that game helps SU’s chances at stopping Marquette’s run? If you think so, watch a game tape of the last time Coleman was thrust into a similar situation-overtime of the game at Villanova-and tell me if you still feel that way, because he was an absolute train wreck that day.

As to the question of leadership? It may be a valid question. It’s clear to everyone that Brandon Triche is not a leader, neither vocally or on the court. I’ve written him off. He WILL have a disappointing game in whatever round SU gets eliminated in the first two weekends of the tourney. Has Brandon ever put three consistent games together in his career against cupcakes, let alone four to six in a row that a run would require in the tournament. I posted this to my facebook, but here are the raw numbers the last nine games-the biggest games of the year-for a player in his FOURTH year of starting.

@Villanova-7-18 from the field…3/8 from 3

@Pitt-   4-14 from the field…0/5 from 3

Home ND- 2/9 from the field…0/5 from 3

Home St. Johns- 5/10 from the field…2/6 from 3

@ UCONN- 3/15 from the field…0/7 from 3

@SHU- 10/18 from the field…4/7 from 3

Home PC- 5/11 from the field…1/3 from 3

Home GU- 4/13 from the field…1/7 from 3

@Marquette- 4/10 from the field…0/3 from 3

Take out a blistering game against the laughably inept Seton Hall Pirates, and you have a player shooting 34% from the field, and 16% from 3 in the biggest stretch of your season. Almost hard to believe that those numbers are real. Beyond the raw numbers that speak for themselves, his lack of emotion and intensity set the tone for a team of guys who are mostly in new roles. Yes MCW has been equally dreadful, but the guy is still in his first year running a team, and has been handed a very limited, inconsistent group to work with. Beyond that,  I think most of the guys are fairly vocal on this team, but who wouldn’t have their mood dragged down just by looking and Brandon’s melancholy face all game.  Honestly he can’t graduate fast enough in my eyes.

Goodman’s question about leadership is a valid one to ask in regards to this team. How is Jim supposed to answer that question though? Jim did exactly what he needed to do, and don’t believe for a second that it wasn’t calculated. He took a potentially flammable question, that could have easily been a distraction to the players, and deflected the attention to himself. Instead of everyone in the media, and in town talking about how poorly the guys on the team are playing, the focus is on Jim, who couldn’t care less about what you, me, or people on Twitter are saying about him.

For everyone crying about Jim’s conduct in these press conferences, give it up. Have you watched a Gregg Popovich press conference, or in game interview lately? How about a vintage Phil Jackson press conference? When you are at the top of your profession, and have been doing something for 37 years, to me at least, you’re allowed to get cranky when some kid from a school newspaper starts questioning personnel decisions you made after a tough loss, or some fat slob in a Hawaiian shirt who hasn’t touched a basketball in ten years (if ever) asks a question that could splinter or divide your team. Jim’s cranky, but to me his honesty and candor are refreshing when compared to the majority of the candy coated, politically correct answers you see from 99% of College Basketball coaches.

Most important, despite the whining of local hack beat reporters Mike Waters and Bud Poloquin, Jim did what was right by the players. Should any of us really care what Jim said to a reporter who would trash Jim in a second if given the opportunity to sell a story? To me a fan, great job protecting your players Jim. Michael Cohen can go get a hug from Coach K if he needs one.

Bracket: Busted

Syracuse just lost one terribly to bow out in the Round of 32. A podcast is on the way reacting to the first three rounds, focusing on the Syracuse performance, and issues with the selection committee.

The Orange Roller Coaster

Right now, every game is a toss-up for Syracuse basketball, but these past two games have been quite encouraging despite the fact that they were split with their opponents.

For the Louisville game, it was good to see some fight in an arena where 'Cuse has been prone to lose any sort of fight. Down 20 in the second half, they fought back and played damn well. If it had not been for some terrible officiating. Of course, that is what you get anytime Ed Hightower referees a Big East game. Look, if you get put in a photoshop that looks like this:

you're probably not making the calls that well.

I will be boycotting all Yum! products for the forseeable future, and I encourage you to as well, as they put their name on that arena that took full advantage of some terrible homerist calls to avoid an epic collapse. And the boycott must be by all Syracuse fans. That means no Taco Bell, Pizza Hut, Wing Street, Long John Silver's, A&W Restaurants (nor the root beer itself), and the Skynet of it all, KFC. Eat Kennedy Fried Chicken, Crown Fried Chicken, any other Fried Chicken, but none of these restaurants. Let's make the Louisville economy collapse. That was a rant that I do not apologize for. THE MANUAL BUZZER WILL NOT GO ON LATE NIGHT BELL RUNS FOR THE FORESEEABLE FUTURE.

The West Virginia game showed that fight to be real, and a 4-point halftime deficit turned into an 11 point win. But still, Casey Mitchell dropped 23 in 26 minutes. Boeheim put some of the blame on Waiters being a little lackadaisical in his spot at the top of the zone, and that is reasonable, but open 3's are still coming a bit too often. West Virginia hit on 11 of 22, most of which came in the first half. Still, that will put SU in a hole.

Luckily, there is Brandon Triche to overcome this deficit. Triche is turning into an absolute star this season. As Kris Joseph has faded as of late, maybe still feeling some after-effects from the concussion, Triche has gone on a tear in the past 2, dropping 21 on Louisville and 20 last night on West Virginia. The different role from last year (moving to the 2 from the 1) has given him the chance to show he has one of the best jumpers on the team. He should continue to showcase it without issues if he keeps getting screens and kickouts. If Kris can get his game going, maybe with more of a post-up on smaller guards, and Scoop moves back to the slash and kick-out game, this team will be dangerous.

And finally, my favorite player on this team, CJ Fair. CJ is the new Josh Pace, or as Steve puts it, Josh Pace 2.0. He is amazing at getting those floaters in the lane, but he is also picking up the garbage for the team. Broken zones are saved when he swats away open lay-ups, as we saw against Georgetown last week. Having him in with Rick gives great rebounding, even as Baye's length is not there. CJ is already developing into a fan favorite, and if he develops his jumper, add NBA prospect to that list.

So what is the outlook the rest of the way? Rutgers in the Dome should be a win if they play them as tough as they've played their past two opponents. Then, the two game road trip of Catholicism will be quite a challenge. Villanova, sick of not having played a true home game against Syracuse in the past few years, as the Wells Fargo Center usually ends up half and half Nova and 'Cuse, has a Big Monday shot at the 'Cuse in the Pavilion. Georgetown has them coming to visit the Verizon Center, and despite the fact that they restricted ticket sales to Syracuse fans, Syracuse fans have found a loophole that doesn't require them to donate $25 to Georgetown. Expect Syracuse to hang around in both of these games, and I think they take at least one. Finally, DePaul for Rick Jackson's senior day? Rick Jackson isn't going to let them lose. 'Cuse will have one bye for the Big East Tournament if they do finish 11-7, and it should put them in prime position for a tourney run this year.

Addressing the Syracuse basketball rumors...

When I was a sophomore in high school, I went onto then-fledgling News 10 Now's website—now YNN, of course—on a night much like this. We hadn't had a snow day since the seventh grade, and the STORM OF THE CENTURY was rolling in on a Sunday night/Monday morning. I was up doing homework around 11:30 and checking all the local news sites relentlessly, hoping to see my school join the ever-growing group of schools closing for the day.

The hours passed and our school hadn't so much as announced a delay, so I took matters into my own hands. There was a "post an announcement" button at the bottom of the school closings page and I decided to press it. I filled in a whole bunch of VERY OBVIOUSLY FAKE information, listing the Superintendent's name, number and email as the reference, and said "[REDACTED] SCHOOLS - NO SCHOOL MONDAY." I honestly thought that they would call the Superintendent to confirm this posting, and he'd get woken up at 1:00 AM to have to say that we DO have school, and har har, funny prank.

Well, that didn't happen. Their system just straight-up posted my announcement. I could have posted that we were at war with Mars and it would have gone up. It stayed up for a good few hours, too, and even apparently popped up on a few other sites before someone at the school must have finally caught wind and debunked the rumor and the posts disappeared.

And we had school the next day, of course. Some people stopped doing homework and a bunch of seniors slept in and missed a test and I never really got in trouble but the Superintendent made some crack about snow days to my mom years later and winked at me so I think word got out somehow.

But whatever. The point of that story was my personal recollection that PEOPLE WILL BELIEVE ANY BIT OF BULLSHIT POSTED ANYWHERE ON THE INTERNET. PERIOD. There is no fact-checking and no verification anymore. That's dead. The YNN "reporter" was probably just eager to try to have his name attached to a huge story, so he decided to take ownership of it going on a post made on an online poker site's message board as a source. He's since taken the offending post down, but obviously the damage has been done.

(Also, kind of ironic that this irresponsible jackass works for YNN, and it was News 10 Now that I messed with back in the day.)

Wake Up with a 'Cuse Win

The Garden was popping last night, and it wasn't for St. John's despite the fact that their campus is about 12 miles away compared to Syracuse being 193 (source: Google Maps, and I'm not checking MapQuest.). Syracuse got off to a slow start on offense, putting in only 2 points in the first 6 1/2 minutes. This is not behavior coming of a national title contender, but boy did they reverse course, going 0n a 10-0 run to end the first half to take 35-24 lead into the locker room. The zone employed by the Red Storm was effective in keeping the ball away from Rick in the first half, but it also freed up the guards and wings, who combined to shoot 9-20 from 3. Everytime St. John's thought that they had that opposite side cutter, the zone collapsed perfectly and the Orange were fastbreaking the other way on the regular.

Now, last night I pondered whether we were seeing a return to prominence from St. John's basketball. While some may give the definitive answer "no," I still think we have to wait a little bit to make this judgement. Judge Lavin by what he does with his recruiting class next year, and appreciate what he has been able to get out of these players that he didn't choose for this year. But Lavin made a huge strategic blunder last night going into the 2nd half. Lavin kept the press going that had slowed down SU getting its offense set, but instead of keeping his matchup zone going, he switched to a pressing man. This allowed for three things that let the Orange offense get into its groove. First: Scoop could operate as his normal self, bullying weaker guards and using exquisite crosses to easily get into the lane to make opportunities for others or get in lay-ups. Second, it freed up Rick to operate down low against the weaker St. John's bigs, and when there was a collapse, he got the ball to the open man (he finished with 3 assists). Third, his team wasn't ready to play man defense. While the man on the ball was generally focused on his job (albeit with quite a bit of handchecking), off-ball defenders were looking right at the ball the whole time. This freed up Scoop for a wide open lay-up underneath on an assist from Jackson inside the free-throw semicircle. It also helped Kris get 2 wide open backdoor dunks, an unacceptable outcome for any defense. While this was a good win, it was partially the product of some crappy strategy on St. John's part.

Highlights from the Garden
-One St. John's fan impressed us with his combination of a lack of height, a surplus of scarf length, and maybe a few too many beers. He tried to insult Boeheim, to which many kindly asked him to "kiss the ring." For some reason, he also decided to see this one out, and with 3 minutes left started calling for Boeheim to bring in subs. In the words of Omar Little, "Come at the king, you best not miss." Overall, the St. John's cheering section was a joke. I'm fairly certain Syracuse fans made up about 75% of the crowd. It's understandable to have a Wednesday night game in the Garen to get the revenue of the Syracuse alums, but it also alienates a huge chunk of your student fans who won't always be able to make the trip.
-The St. John's dance team may be overfunded. They had 2 wardrobe changes for the night so that they could give the crowd two terrible dance routines, one of which included a sequin leather jacket with a huge St. John's patch. When they were in regular uniform, they essentially just stood in place.
-Danny Schayes was in attendace, and by God, he was wearing an ugly shirt. He also made himself the most visible seven footer in the world with this jacket, which he walked through New York wearing:

Yeah, that's NBA ball jacket.
-Jim Burr was kind of tolerable tonight. He made a couple bad calls, but not on the level I remember seeing from him in the Dome growing up. The true officiating enemy is Gene Steratore, who seemed to love hearing the love from the home crowd that was outnumbered at the Garden.

In other news, Brittfarv's sister is a gourmet...of meth. (h/t Deadspin)

And Duke lost to unranked Florida State, so I'm extremely happy. Even if Dick Vitale tries to justify it to the world.

Good Mownin'...Just breathe:

Syracuse-St. John's Pre-Game

I'm not going to get hammered before I go to this game. I may have a beer, but that's about it. Being a blogger makes you look for the opportunities to get drunk on someone else's dime. I'm excited to head back to the Garden, and this will be my first time seeing the 'Cuse play in New York City. I will not be doing the doubleheader with the Johnnies women's game afterwards, since UConn's meaningless winning streak is now over.
But am I hyped to see Syracuse fans dominate the Garden.
Of course, George Vescey is drinking Lavin's Kool-Aid, and it seems like the cyanide hasn't started to take effect, as the Johnnies started their Big East season with 3 wins against West Virginia, Providence, and Georgetown, before falling to Notre Dame on Saturday. The Red Storm has 10 seniors, and Lavin is already starting the reloading with commitments from 4 top 25 swingmen according to Rivals. So is St. John's really back? This year might be a good sign, but next year will be the one that counts. Lavin will need that team to perform before big-time recruits start putting St. John's on their whittled-down lists of schools.
Syracuse may be undefeated, but the Orange may want to get their heads back in the game at the Garden. Seton Hall, even without Jeremy Hazell, was close enough on Saturday that I was scared. Even if they are slowing it down, without a real outside threat (the Pirates shot 3-26 on 3-pointers). The zone is again not going to need much extension, as St. John's shoots on 30.8% from outside. But 'Cuse needs to show some signs of life. The offense looked lost against Seton Hall, and with a tough stretch ahead against Cincinnati, Pitt, and Villanova, it's high time for Syracuse to get its shit together. And what better place than where they essentially hold a home-court advantage in the Garden. There will be tweets tonight (@themanualbuzzer), so follow along with the game on ESPNU. Good night, and go Orange!

Manual Buzzer On Location

Over the coming weeks, I will be traveling with the Syracuse men's—and women's (!)—basketball teams to the Big East Tournaments in Hartford and New York City, and then to the first two weekends of the NCAA Tournament! [Knock on wood] Needless to say, shenanigans and many drinks are imminent. I'm going to bring the camera along and hopefully I'll come back with a couple of photo essays documenting what it's like to travel with a college basketball band, what Syracuse fans are like outside their natural habitat, and whether or not Jonny Flynn can teabag-dunk over Hasheem Thabeet, per Pappy's request.

If you're going to be where the team is, or know where any Syracuse hot spots are in the area, let us know so we can share some drinks and good times with fellow Syracuse comrades. I'll check in after the Rutgers game on Tuesday—senior night—and in the meantime I'll be munching on some Syracuse Athletics cereal, or at least some popcorn...