Some of the Syracuse non-believers have been making statements as to why Syracuse will/can not win a championship with their current team. For many Syracuse fans these questions have become a major stressor. I can not count the number of message board posts I have seen attacking ESPN and similar analysts for not giving credit to Syracuse.
Personally, while I do find it annoying, I do not spend much time worrying about what some "has been" or "never was" on television says about my team. With the exception of some local media who cover all the Syracuse games, I consider myself more of an expert than these talking heads on television. On top of that there are only two sports, in perhaps the world, where public opinion actually impacts who wins championships; college football and boxing. In both college football and boxing the contenders are chosen based on the polls. In probably 99.9 percent of all other sports, including college basketball, the champions and contenders prove themselves by competing in the sport, not by competing in the poll of public opinion.
It seems the most popular reason among analysts as to why Syracuse won’t win a championship has to do with “star power.” That leads me to the question: Does a team need to have a “go to” guy (or dude as some analysts have been saying) to win a championship?
Given the chance I would respond to this question with a question of my own: Why does a team have to have the same go to guy for every game?
My definition of a go to guy is a player who can take over the game at any given time. This leads to stretches where the said player scores three, four or five baskets in a row. A go to guy can come up with steals, blocks or other big defensive plays. A go to guy is also the guy you want taking the last shot at the buzzer or going to the foul line when there is a chance to ice a game.
Based purely on the first 20 games of this season I have seen a number of Syracuse players fit my definition of a go to guy during different games. Dion Waiters has looked like a go to guy on numerous occasions. Scoop Jardine has fit the bill several times. Kris Joseph, Fab Melo and Brandon Triche have looked like go to guys at times throughout this season. For short stretches C.J. Fair and James Southerland have looked like go to guys. For those of you not counting I have named seven of the ten regulars.
I would rather have a team where any number of players could be the go to guy than a team with one go to guy. It is easier to defend one go to guy. Defenses can be designed to key on one go to guy. If a team has a court full of potential go to guys, who do you key on?
The one area that I don’t believe I can judge our players on is clutch play. This is because of the simple reason that we haven’t been in a late game situation where we really needed a clutch play. I would completely understand if analysts began asking: Does Syracuse have a clutch player who can sink the big time pressure shot? We, as fans, don’t really know if we have a clutch player. Many times even a team doesn’t know if they have clutch player until they need one. I am hoping we are in a situation at some point where we get to see if we have a clutch player. However, I would be just as happy if we won every game by 8+ points on the way to a second championship.
Not having a single go to guy seems to be a big deal to some analysts. To me if this is their biggest concern with our team I am pretty happy! Since as a self proclaimed “expert” [see second paragraph] I am much more concerned with our half court offense execution, but I guess that is a good topic for another post.
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