Mostly Bad News, but a Bit of Good News

Let’s start with the bad news, considering there was so much of it. For the first thirty-five minutes of yesterday’s Villanova game, pretty much the entire Syracuse team seemed to be sleepwalking. Jackson’s missed dunk early in the first half was a harbinger of the afternoon’s sloppy play. How often did the Orange dribble the ball off their feet, or allow passes to go right through their hands? And although it was a good idea to try and get the ball inside to Jackson, our guards kept telegraphing these lazy passes that would immediately get picked off. Most of the Cuse turnovers were really unforced, just gift-wrapped deliveries for a Nova team that really didn’t need any assistance.

Second, our backcourt play was just awful. Jardine and Waiters went a combined three for twenty, with a single three-point shot all afternoon. Eight points total. I don’t know if this had anything to do with the Philly connection, but both of those guys are Philadelphia natives, and maybe they were pressing. Maybe they wanted to show up the hometown team, who knows? But in the end, Nova’s guards ate them up at both ends of the court. Not only could they not hit anything, but Jardine especially kept making bad choices with the ball – playing selfishly even though he couldn’t manage to score; driving into the lane when Nova was collapsing inside, giving him nowhere to go; trying to force the ball into teammates who were completely surrounded by Nova’s defenders.

Third, until the last five minutes of the game, the Orange were consistently getting out-hustled by Villanova. On several occasions, they had two or three guys under the boards, yet one of Nova’s big men would manage to come down with the rebound. And late in the game, on those few occasions when they seemed to get a stop because Stokes or Fisher finally missed a three-ball, they’d fail to come up with the rebound, giving Villanova yet another chance to score, but worse, giving them another thirty-five seconds when time was running short.

Fourth, the zone was largely ineffective for the first time this year. That had something to do with the fact that Villanova’s guards seemed to be hitting everything they threw up. In the first half, they shot over sixty percent from three point range. Partly that resulted from patience – many of those shots went up with only a few seconds left on the thirty-five second clock. But it also resulted from the Orange not extending the zone – not getting out and challenging those three-point shots. Of course, Nova’s guards seemed a step quicker than the Orange guards, and were able to get into the lane almost at will. Our zone often suffers when the opposition has real quick guards who can penetrate and cause havoc. So the zone was vulnerable outside and inside, and surrendered forty points in the first half.

And because the zone was ineffective, there were almost no fast break opportunities. Their most productive offense all year has been the fast break; the team plays well in the open court, but seems to go stagnant in the half court. Yesterday was no exception. The offense looked static much of the afternoon.

Let’s stop counting, but another weakness was the failure of the freshmen centers to show up. For a couple games, it looked like Fab Melo might be coming around, and even though he won the opening tip for one of the few times this season, he and Keita were not a factor. As a result, Syracuse could not take advantage of its height. In fact, all afternoon it seemed like Nova’s big men were more of a presence inside than any of the Orange big men.

So if the Orange got outplayed on offense and defense, and if their guards had their worst game of the season, what’s the good news? Well, despite all I’ve said, Syracuse was within four points late in the game. Give Jackson his dunk, and eliminate just a couple of those sloppy turnovers, and it’s a tie game. We don’t put Nova’s guards on the foul line late in the game, and the whole thing comes down to the last couple possessions. Or to state all that another way, even playing their worst game of the year, the Orange still managed to keep it close against one of the nation’s top teams. So even though they can’t beat good teams when their guards take the day off, I think that when the team plays well, they can play with anyone.

The other good news, as far as I’m concerned, is that they won’t be ranked in the top five, and probably not in the top ten, come Monday. That’s a good thing. They need a chip on their shoulder. They need to feel that everyone has lost respect for them. They need to know that they must bring a sense of urgency to each of the remaining Big East games.

One final observation. In the second half, when they began to come back, when they cut the lead to single digits, and then to six, and later to four, I thought back to the championship team in 2003. On more than a dozen occasions that year, the team fell behind early, and then stormed back to win. On several occasions, they came back from double digit deficits. I recall the last home game of the season against Rutgers, when the Dome was packed to the rafters, when the crowd, over 33,000, set the record (since broken several times) for on-campus attendance. The team trailed by around twelve points early in the game. They came back, and that sent the crowd into a frenzy, raising the decibel level to the danger zone. In the end, those Orange won by more ten points, and the huge crowd went home happy. But yesterday, every rally seemed to stall. At one point in the second half, they cut the lead to six, and held Nova to a single point for almost four minutes. But on three or four straight possessions, the Orange couldn’t manage to score, couldn’t even manage to get off a decent shot. Soon they were again trailing by ten points. I know it’s unfair to compare this team, or any current team, to the mythical 2003 team. But wouldn’t they have a better chance in the tournament if they had the ability to come from behind – if they had the confidence to know they could rally from a big deficit?

This week they play Seton Hall, and before anyone gets too sanguine about that game, keep in mind that the Hall did not have Hazell in the lineup when they narrowly lost to the Orange earlier in the month. I’d hate to see three losses in a row. Let’s go Orange; let’s wake up, and get back to winning ways.