Thoughts on Cincy

After the debacle against Notre Dame, a team everyone expected to be able to beat without Fab Melo, I wasn't sure what to expect against a seemingly much stronger Cincinnati team.  The interior play in the absence of Melo was not very good, but there were plenty of other reasons why Notre Dame was able to defeat the Orange.  Syracuse shot poorly, didn't rebound very well, and settled for way too many jump shots.  For most of the game the players looked like they were pouting and mourning the loss of Melo.

This team looked like a completely different team against Cincinnati, despite the rough first few minutes.  Even the Bearcats making three pointers from an average distance of 24 feet didn't seem to faze the Orange.  While the 60-53 victory was not always pretty the Orange did "fix" some of the issues they displayed against Notre Dame.  Our slashers drove to the basket more in the last 10 minutes against Cincy than we did the entire game against Notre Dame.  This helped us set up open outside shots, even if we didn't make as many as we normally do.

Syracuse crashed the boards much better than they have in quite some time, perhaps all season.  Even when Cincy was getting rebounds they had to work for them.  Rarely did they get an easy rebound and put back that we, Syracuse fans, are accustomed to within the structure of the 2-3 zone.  Additionally, some of our players finally gained some sense.  Kris Joseph who has been colder than ice cube in Antarctica started to use, what I think is his best asset, his ability to drive to the basket.  Brandon Triche and Scoop Jardine also began to play like the war we know and expect them to play.  James Southerland gave some quality minutes on both offense and defense.  Michael Carter-Williams got into the action for a few minutes in the first half.  He wasn't stellar, but he was far from a liability on the court.

With that being said, the player who stepped it up the most Monday night was Rakeem Christmas.  Some fans have stated that having Christmas on the court is like playing 4 on 5.  This may be a little harsh, but in some situations hasn't been far from the truth.  Against Cincy Christmas was active on both ends of the court, making post players work underneath the hoop on defense and setting some very good screens on offense.  The highlights of his night were two assists to cutting players under the basket.

I am still hoping Fab is able to return to action, but if we can get these type of quality minutes from Christmas and get Keita back to playing like he did the first half of last season we are not in as bad shape as many originally feared.  On top of that, we beat a fairly good conference opponent on their home court with Dion Waiters, who many consider the best player on the team, playing his worst game of the year.