(EMPIRE Games @Barclays) Syracuse, Tue., Nov. 22, 9:30p, ESPN-2

[MakingPlays]

Syracuse is a good basketball team. Last night was a huge win against a solid team. Lets stopping minimizing our victories by criticising the teams we beat. We are 6-0 and either on the cusp or will be a top 25 team by next week.

Go johnnies!!!!!!!!!!!!!

It's like 3-4 guys on here that are just miserable. They beat an in-state rival and win a tournament, and their first thought is... Hey let me run on the message board and complain about how bad we are and mention how bad the other team is. Why even watch the games if all you want to do is look for stuff to complain about. That sounds like a horrible experience. Me personally when something makes me that miserable I turn it off.

 

[MainMan]

Team has some talent, obviously play gets ratty often, shooting remains sub par and you scratch your head often watching games. On positive note they defended well with some key stops last night. I don’t see this group becoming more proficient offensively and you either have to accept the chaos or drive yourself crazy Lol

I'm actually more optimistic that the offense will get better.

CMA's teams of the past few years actually had a nice half-court motion offense of back screens and cuts, give and goes and cleared-out backdoor plays that only got better as the season moved along.

Obviously need to go against a team playing Man for that to be effective. Can't do that against a zone as good as Syracuse's.

 

[gman]

Or those sitting all night in a hospital emergency room with someone not feeling well.

Hope your someone is feeling better!

 

[room112]

I'm actually more optimistic that the offense will get better.

CMA's teams of the past few years actually had a nice half-court motion offense of back screens and cuts, give and goes and cleared-out backdoor plays that only got better as the season moved along.

Obviously need to go against a team playing Man for that to be effective. Can't do that against a zone as good as Syracuse's.

And that's just the thing. CMA's teams over the past few years here have seemed to take some time to gel, before clicking fully during Big East conference schedule. We are integrating a few new pieces this year, so I'm hopeful things will get smoother.

 

[TonyinFairfield]

It's like 3-4 guys on here that are just miserable. They beat an in-state rival and win a tournament, and their first thought is... Hey let me run on the message board and complain about how bad we are and mention how bad the other team is. Why even watch the games if all you want to do is look for stuff to complain about. That sounds like a horrible experience. Me personally when something makes me that miserable I turn it off.

Exactly. It gets real tiresome real fast. One of the reasons why I've stayed away from this forum. Even after a 6-0 start, and a nice comeback last night, there are still guys here who focus on all the negatives and see nothing positive. I think I'll stay away for a while longer.

 

[MainMan]

And that's just the thing. CMA's teams over the past few years here have seemed to take some time to gel, before clicking fully during Big East conference schedule. We are integrating a few new pieces this year, so I'm hopeful things will get smoother.

Absolutely.

Under CMA's tenure, we've often played like trash in the first half of games. And we've played like trash in the first halves of seasons.

The "clicking" of the team has been too little too late for the past three years.

That's why I was incredibly disappointed with the player defections (Earlington, Greg, Dunn) of two seasons ago since I thought it would take too long for last year's team to gel. And it did.

Getting off to a good start this year makes me much more optimistic for where we might be going.

 

[bamafan]

What team have you guys been following? We haven’t exactly torn it up during the BE portion of the schedule. One 4th place tie breaker where we were like 10-9 rest near bottom of conference.

 

[Notanalum]

Best advice is sit back and enjoy the ride. This season is going to be a lot like Curbelo. Chaotic. I can’t wait.

Let’s also watch how, with each win, the buzz grows. The seats begin to fill up as people take notice. Go Johnnies

 

[Ray Morgan]

I have no idea how this season will end up, but every reason to believe this team will get better. There are correctable mistakes being made, primarily in decision making with the ball.

On defense, everyone assigned to Girard stayed committed to the game plan of denying him open looks. Players many of us have knocked for low IQs hounded Girard and resisted the strong temptation to leave him attempting a steal or by double teaming the ball. That takes discipline, and both Mathis and Wusu showed it. This team has to win with team defense in the half court, as we are not turning over our opponents at a high rate. Excellent half court defense late in the game, playing hard for the entire shot clock. It would have been nauseating watching Syracuse and their annoying orange clad fans celebrating in our town.

 

[SJUWillRockNYC]

This team has GRIT. If there’s one thing we all can agree on it’s that grit is freakin awesome and it’s what has this team at 6-0!

Would we all love it if they could make 4-5 less uncontested passes into the tenth row? Sure! But our game plan is to be contagiously wild and eventually it causes our opponents to throw 7-8 passes into the stands and start making uncharacteristic mistakes.

If they can clean up some of the sloppiness this team will be top 3 in the BE.

Hope they can clean it up by November 4th, that's the Iowa St. game.
If the slow starts continue, eventually we'll pay.

We got votes in the coaches poll (3), we're the 40th team.
Beat Niagara and we should be around 32 I'm guessing.
We should get a few votes in the AP

Yeah polls are meaningless but still nice to see them there.

 

[Fizzy]

Still a +19 in light minutes...plus he was there playing D at the end. We don't win without him. No way.

I love the Wooze-man! D is amazing!

Maybe we need some of that N$L money to hire a layup coach though...

 

[room112]

What team have you guys been following? We haven’t exactly torn it up during the BE portion of the schedule. One 4th place tie breaker where we were like 10-9 rest near bottom of conference.

But if you ask most anyone on here, they'd consider CMA's first two years successes, based on the circumstances. Last year was the major disappointment.

Year two, the team began the year 7-7 and 2-6 in the Big East, and finished 10-9 in the Big East and 16-11 overall.

Year one, the team began 13-11 and 2-9 in the Big East, before finishing 17-15 and 5-13 in the Big East (this team was not picked to do well at all)

 

[Section9]

I learned something last night. After my usual screaming at the TV for boneheaded plays/shots during the Temple game, I just relaxed and enjoyed the Kaos and confusion. I was relatively calm and was just waiting for them to wear down cuse. Even when we let them score the last four to tie the game and send it into OT I was good. Our smothering defense in the last 15 minutes was FUN to watch. I didn't even mind Jones' 3 with about 30 sec. to go because I knew we had broken their will.

Everybody talks about how we wear other teams down, but the amazing thing to me is that we have starters who play 35+ minutes a game and a few subs and we don't wear down, even after back to back games. Last night those guys looked like they could have gone for another 10 minutes or so. Kudos to the guys and Coach for having that killer attitude. You could see it in the faces and body language of the temple and cuse players, they had been in an alley fight and we brought the brass knuckles.

 

[braintrust]

Really thought this was one of CMAs best games...he tightened the rotation, like he would for BET or NCAA...he adjusted his defenses, it wasn't always the "90 feet of heat" that ends with a three on the other end. On offense, exploited the holes in the zone, and Soriano made Cuse pay on the dunks and jumpers.

Never saw this type of performance in Belo at Illinois, but still want the ball in Posh's hands for final four minutes.

 

[Red.Fans]

How does poorly coached team beat Jim Boeheim, who's only had 1 losing season in like 40 years. And this poorly coached team was down double digits and came back and won. Boeheim on paper has higher rated recruits, so how does a coach that can't coach and has lesser players magically beat one of the best coaches in college basketball history?

Plus they are New York's Team.

 

[Mean Gene]

I'm actually more optimistic that the offense will get better.

CMA's teams of the past few years actually had a nice half-court motion offense of back screens and cuts, give and goes and cleared-out backdoor plays that only got better as the season moved along.

Obviously need to go against a team playing Man for that to be effective. Can't do that against a zone as good as Syracuse's.

I think the offense will improve some also. If we could just get Posh shooting 30% from 3 then look out. Please don’t take that as a knock on Posh. The kid is a warrior and a leader and we would not be as successful a we have this season without him. I think he’s a better shooter than he’s shown so far. I think him figuring out his role and the process of meshing with Belo has definitely affected him offensively. I think that will improve and therefore Posh’s offense and our offense as a team will improve. Will he ever be a knockdown shooter , no. But, we don’t need him to be. We just need him to shoot well enough to keep the defense honest and open up few more things for us offensively. I think as the season moves along and he gets more comfortable he can do that.

 

[espken]

Plus they are New York's Team.

No one executes a pick and roll like Jimmy B.

 

[fat johnnie]

Plus they are New York's Team.

OMG! He ate the booger! During a presser! Oh the horror! Now I have this image ingrained in my mind as I prepare for my Thanksgiving feast. I know you’re not supposed to kill the messenger but Red.Fans I hate you just a little bit. Thanks for making me gag.

Boeheim should be fired for this it’s gotta be in the contract somewhere under conduct unbecoming or something to that effect.

 

[joe49]

Never been a fan of Jimmy B but respect him as a very good Coach. One comment he made about this game helping his team long term. I think that applies to our team as well. You want to play in these type of games. Hopefully, our guys are learning to play and WIN some tight games. Of course, I hope in future years we can improve our out of conference schedule a bit.

Being able to play the kind of teams that would help us draw 14,000 in msg. Two of those would be nice in dec. along with 5 from the big east.

 

[Section9]

OMG! He ate the booger! During a presser! Oh the horror! Now I have this image ingrained in my mind as I prepare for my Thanksgiving feast. I know you’re not supposed to kill the messenger but Red.Fans I hate you just a little bit. Thanks for making me gag.

Boeheim should be fired for this it’s gotta be in the contract somewhere under conduct unbecoming or something to that effect.

boggers are part of a gourmet charcuterie board in syracuse, right next to the cheese whiz, spam bites and chef boy-ar-dee spaghettios on ritz crackers.