@whatthefrik agree! Either ice ball screens or hard hedge. With our size- would like to see them ice ball screens
Icing and hard hedging are dicey propositions because Yigi doesnt appear able to execute it. Too slow of foot to stop the ball handler, I assume. Like Edey was.
Maybe mix up coverages to make them think a iitlle? Or put Alexis in. That's all I got.
And Yigi brings the ball down to his waist every time he’s in possession.
That bothers me a lot for any big man.
@middawg Yep, not unlike our football team: lots of things to correct, but we still got the W.
And, I thought Cuse looked, like, well Cuse. Lots of bouncy long athletes. Heard someone saying this was a mid ACC team that might threaten to make the tourney. They look to me like they have the building blocks for a pretty solid team and I would guess will be top third and in the tournament. Liked McNamara's temperament, although he was getting so far out on the floor at times, I thought he might call for the ball and take a shot.
Their fans indicated one or two key guys out. I didn't review their team at all so don't know who that was, but one was Tobiason, a transfer who averaged 15 at Temple. And preseason reviews had them decent but lacking depth. Still, that blonde mop head frosh looked really good.
I think we look improved. A bit, not enough, fingers crossed we see some gains in the next two weeks.
I question the strategy of scheduling two games in Indy 10 days apart. The tickets for both games were very expensive, with the UK game costing even more. I’m interested in seeing ticket sales for that UK game. They were advertising tickets for that game last night, so it obviously isn’t sold out.
Not sure selling out Lucas Oil was ever in the cards to be realistic here.
After a night to sleep on it...
Positives:
-Burton was really good. Love to see that.
-Harris was really good. Love to see that.
-Mustaf was really good. Love to see that.
-Syracuse was pretty long, and fairly athletic, and we outrebounded them.
-22-26 from the FT line is very good.
-Love how we closed the game in the last 4 minutes, taking control in the last 2.
Negatives:
-Sherrell wasn't overly impactful.
-Yigi is a liability in some ways, especially defensively. His rim protection, I'm not sure, is good enough to overcome his issues guarding on pick and roll.
-Inconsistent defensive energy.
-Inconsistent ball movement on offense. Both those inconsistencies killed our team last year. Not a fan of seeing them in each of our first three games.
-Our BLOB plays are way too slow developing. Its good action, but too slow. We had a 5 second call, and numerous others that could have been called.
-While we closed well from the 4 minute mark down to the end... we didn't close the actual game out well, giving them a look to tie it at the end. And we looked pretty shaky handling the press at the end.
-We have to be better guarding good attacking lead guards. Their main 2 attacking lead guards killed us all night.
Too early to tell what kind of team Syracuse will end up being. New coach, tons of new players. They looked to be pretty talented, and overall, well coached. But hard to tell how good a win this will end up being.
Devries has some pieces coming together. Clutch opportunities more frequently achieved. To me it looks as though Sherrill is auditioning for the NBA. Dis attached probably isn't correct term but he's not transitioning toward the same goal. FT's, RB's, TO's operating in good neighborhood.
@hoosier-clarion I like that we won the game, despite Lindsay being off for most of the night, and both Sherrell and Yigi not being overly involved or impactful offensively. Tells me we have quite a lot more versatility and depth, than we had last year.
@iunorth Fine game analysis, IU North, describing the good and ugly. I liked seeing an Indiana team not collapse over the final few minutes and finding a way to win. Didn't like the defense. We weren't scaring anyone around the rim and the 6'0" Syracuse freshman was dribbling around like John Stockton.
DeVries needs to find some way to integrate Sherrell into the offense. Not a fan of 7'0" guy playing around 25 feet from the bucket, hunting for 3's.
Syracuse plan. Keep bigs out of the paint and wanted us to do the mid game. We absolutely fell for it. Bigs got lifted easily. Took hurried 3s and did the mid range stuff. Still won ugly though. Out of bounds entry needs work.
@bigmike The offense looked better when he went to a 4 out, with only 1 big guy. Sherrell made 2 threes, and don't think he had a miss, so I'm less concerned about that, than I am a 7'er getting 1 rebound. Wasn't he a decent shot blocker and rebounder at Bama? Seems he's struggling feeling comfortable in this new role. Outside of the 2 threes, he really wasn't a factor yesterday.
@kkott He got two quick fouls, seemed in and out of the lineup all game after that. I can't fathom he won't be a 10 and 5 type guy, at a minimum, for us. But he wanted to play this more expanded role, hopefully he and CDD figure out how he can thrive doing it.
I like Mustaf better every time I see him. Just a junkyard dog that does all the dirty work. I even see a bit of AJ Moye.
Manhertz looks smooth even on a bad shooting night.
We have to figure out how to use Sherrell. He had 3 combined shots/rebounds. That needs to take about three minutes typically.
Seemed like Sherrell was DeVries' top target the offseason. Although may have been media loving his 'stars' ranking.
But you'd think coach would have a plan. So far haven't seen a lot.