Defense Returns to Form

Just when I was about to give up on the season, and consign the team to a quick exit in March, the Orange beat the seventh ranked, and universally hated Huskies, on the road no less. That will do wonders for their RPI, probably undoing much of the harm that was caused by the unspeakable Seton Hall loss.

This team is the most inconsistent, unpredictable, and generally hard to figure bunch I can ever recall. In the Garden last month, they ran all over St. Johns, embarrassing the same Red Storm that later beat Duke by fifteen. Not long thereafter, they gave up ninety points to a Seton Hall team that came into the Dome having lost six straight. How does that happen? How does the defense surrender that many points to a team that isn’t playing five hundred, and then shut down a top ten team that had beaten the likes of Kentucky and Michigan State on consecutive nights?

I think this team needs a psychologist as much as a coach. When Brandon Triche is hitting his threes, he exudes confidence on the court; but after a couple turnovers, or if his shot isn’t going down, he starts moping, and you can just see that the kid is second guessing everything he does. Same for Kris Joseph, another mercurial personality who sometimes checks out of games if things aren’t going right. If everyone could just maintain his self-confidence, and avoid making bonehead plays, I think they could play up to their ranking. But as we’ve seen, they can just as easily play as though they don’t even deserve a bid to the NIT.

Assuming they get a road win at South Florida, and play well against the Hoyas when they return to the Dome, maybe it was a good thing to let go of the top five ranking. They were overrated at that level, regardless of how many games they had won. They need to have a chip on their shoulder; they need to feel like they have to play hard for forty minutes. In fact, forget about how they feel; they need to play hard for all forty minutes. There will be no more nights off for the remainder of the season. Every Big East game will be a struggle, or can easily become a struggle. Let’s hope they’ve plugged the holes in the defense, so that their inconsistent offense will at least have a chance to win, even when Triche and Joseph are moping. Let’s also hope they have no more four-game losing streaks. Go Orange.