FanPost

What is wrong with this team?

Just to clarify, I wrote this immediately after the Seton Hall game so I know its a little late but I wanted to put it up here. So there isn't anything about the Marquette game in here.

1. Uhhh Jimmy Boy...you've been coaching for like 500 years...why do you not have any kind of set offense? You keep saying game after game, "our problem is not defense, our problem is offense" yet you never seem to address the most important need, a half-court offense. (Yes, I did just criticize a Hall of Fame coach.)

2. Can anyone other than Rick rebound? I mean there are 3 other players that play significant minutes that are 6'8", one that is 6'10" that usually plays solid minutes and a 7 footer that starts. Yeah, yeah, Fab is bad, I know...BUT HE'S 7 FEET TALL! I think if I was 7 feet tall I'd be able to grab a basketball over someone shorter than me. Rick had 11 rebounds tonight, Kris, James, CJ and Fab had 14 combined. Against Villanova, Rick had 15 rebounds, Kris, James, CJ and Fab had 10 combined. Against Pitt, Rick had 11, CJ, James and Fab had 10, and CJ had 9 of those. Without Rick, I'm going to say this team would be 6-14 at best.

3. 2/3 Zone...you'd think that Boeheim's players would understand how a 2/3 zone works after 21 games this season and 34 years of coaching it. When you play a zone, you have to be active with your hands up and out and you have to actually move and expand and contract it for it to be effective. When you dont move the zone, even horrible teams like Seton Hall can shoot 10-17 from 3 point range. If this year's team is supposed to be able to fall back on the zone when they need to win close games why is it failing so badly right now? Another question, why is it failing so badly right now when it is obviously all you practice since Boeheim said "we cant play man, we cant press" because you NEVER PRACTICE IT. Fix the defense, Jim. There is only one player who seems to know how to play 2/3 zone...Rick, and he cant do it alone, even though he literally does every other part of the game on his own.

4. Scoop......I cant stand watching you on the courtl. You dont even try on defense and on offense you must have tunnel vision or something because all you do is drive to the basket and "shoot." By "shoot" I dont mean what people usually think of when someone says "shoot a basketball," I mean either throw up a horrible layup that really has no chance of going in or getting stripped when you try to dribble through 3-4 players (by the way, when there are 3 or 4 players in your immediate vicinity, that usually means there are 3-4 guys on your team open...just letting you know...the only player that seems to realize this is, you guessed it, Rick), or realizing halfway into your horrible decision "oh, this is a bad idea" and jumping up and "passing" the ball into your opponent. Boeheim, if you start Dion over Scoop I will love you forever, even though Dion is playing like crap right now too. The only difference is that Dion can still learn how not to think "I MUST SHOOT A BAD, CONTESTED SHOT WHEN DA BALL IS IN MY HANDS." (written before the whole Dion benched thing)

5. Does anyone know how to pass? Along with Scoop not having any clue that basketball is a 5 on 5 game, it seems that when Scoop does actually pass the ball out of the paint when he cant possibly throw up a brick, it goes right to Brandon or Kris who, in turn, try their own hand at the same thing....which never works. The only assists this team is getting right now is on fast breaks which isn't happening because the opponent is shooting a ridiculously high percentage because the defense is horrible (#3). Maybe if you moved the ball around the perimeter a little bit and actually played as a team and had some kind of half court offense this problem would be gone.....nahhh, makes too much sense....Or you could always just give it to Rick and let him carry the team...AGAIN. (Love you, Rick)

6. Jim Burr and Tim Higgins. They never fail to uphold their reputation for being the worst refs in college basketball. Against Villanova, this is just one example, one of the other refs calls 5 seconds on a Villanova inbounds play. Turnover, SU ball right? Noooooo, Burr comes over and says no, Nova called a timeout before 5 seconds. Really Jim? If they called a timeout.....WHY DIDNT YOU BLOW YOUR WHISTLE AND SAY TIMEOUT VILLANOVA??? Why wait until the other ref blows the whistle and says SU ball before you come over and "make the correct call?" You disgust me. I wish nothing but the worst on you.
Tim Higgins example: Seton Hall has the ball and is running down the clock like they were all game. It gets down to under 10 seconds and they start trying to find a decent shot to take (Scoop would've just tried to be Superman and do it himself which always works so well.) The clock continues to tick away with Seton Hall not finding any kind of shot that they can take where they would have a legit chance of making it...4-3-2-1 *WHISTLE*.......FOUL!?!? ARE YA FREAKIN KIDDING ME TIM?? You call a foul with less than 1 second on the shot clock......WHO THE EFF DOES THAT??? You must really hate Syracuse to call that because it happened literally right in front of me, and all the 2 SU players were doing was standing straight up preventing a clean line of sight.....you're golden...never change, Tim.