Officially Unofficial Syracuse Game Thread

[BobStackFan4Life]

I remember a certain poster laughing at the thought of Va Tech hiring a better basketball coach than Wake.

 

[Milhouse]

a lot of other posters think that poster knows basketball too

 

[PhDeac]

because buzz williams is a better coach than danny manning. that was obvious when both were hired.

were you serious with that question?

Pretty sure it was rhetorical.

 

[DCDeac]

Also, pretty interesting that they contested every shot at the rim. Block or foul, they did not care, they were going to take their chances with us on the line. There is a reason we got so many free throws. They also were very aggressive on the offensive glass because the reward was greater than the penalty. I do think this one the coaches game planned poorly. I think we underestimated Cooney. He is one of those guys you can never leave and you have to make him beat you making difficult 2s. We started with Mitch on him. It may be a good match based on athleticism but Mitch is our least capable guard from a defensive point of view. Mitch is programmed to avoid getting beat on the drive and to avoid the foul. Sticking with a shooter is not his strength. Cooney already has 9 or 11 points before we switched and even after the switch we were still not denying him the ball. I think we thought we could guard him straight up and not give him any special attention. Turned out not to be the case. Kind of like the decision to let Leday have the 3 pt shot in the VPI game.

Crawford ended up on Cooney first possession. He barely made an attempt to get over a screen and gave up an open 3. 2nd one was in transition over Dinos who didn't pick him up in time. Wilbekin picked him up after that but his 3rd three was on a tip out rebound after Wilbekin nearly got a steal, then he outmuscled Wilbekin for a 2. Codi picked him up next and like Crawford barely tried to fight through a screen to give up his 4th three. We tried Watson next and he gave up an immediate open 3 for his 5th (right after giving Lydon a wide open 3 on a slow closeout).

It was collectively a horrid defensive effort on him by almost every guard we have. Luckily we combined it with terrible defense from everyone else and a hapless offensive effort.

 

[YankeeInAtlanta]

I thought I heard that all Manning did was emphasize defense and practice defense after the loss to Virginia Tech.

So leading up to the Syracuse game the Coaches emphasized and Coached and practiced defense and then during the Syracuse game Wake's defense was collectively a complete failure.

So is Wake's poor defense a talent issue or a Coaching issue or both?

 

[Bluegrass Deac]

Most of our problems are talent issues IMO. We shoot a lot of threes to attempt to cover up a lot of deficiencies.

 

[Dutch Deacon 65]

because buzz williams is a better coach than danny manning. that was obvious when both were hired.

were you serious with that question?
YES]