As some of you may know I, along with my wife, sister, brother-in-law, niece, and what appeared to be a good portion of Syracuse, went to Boston for the NCAA East Regional games. For those of you who have never visited Boston, it is a great city especially if you like history. Unfortunately, when in Boston you can expect to do a lot of walking, which did put a damper on the trip for my pregnant wife. Despite the fact that my wife couldn’t walk very far we had a great time.
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| Syracuse vs. Wisconsin (from Section 307) |
Thursday we arrived at the hotel just in time to take the “T” to the TD Garden area for some pre-game appetizers and a few drinks. The entire area around the Garden was packed and Syracuse fans outnumbered other fans by at least 5 to 1. Apparently Syracuse fans like their pre-gaming more than most, since in the arena it wasn’t quite the same disparity, but Syracuse fans were definitely the dominant fan base. In fact sitting a row in front of us was a Syracuse fan who was dressed as Otto, but with his costume his head popped out the top. He also used his Otto suit to sneak in several flasks of rum, which was very good usage of the outfit.
Thursday night the Orange played a tough Wisconsin team. To this day I am amazed at the lack of zone sets teams employ against our 2-3 zone. If I was a coach I would put a guy at the foul line all game to make our center “pick his poison.” With our length, quickness and athleticism this may be successful against the zone either, but one thing is for sure I would not use Wisconsin’s offense. Wisconsin’s offense was almost completed relegated to passing the ball around the perimeter to either find an open three point shot or force one. Fortunately, for the Badgers they found enough open threes and made enough forced ones to stay in the game up until the final horn sounded. There were several times in the first half when Wisconsin drove toward the hoop passed the ball off and had open mid-range jumpers, but they only did this a few times for the entire game. Even though we only won by a point, Wisconsin played exactly the way we want teams to play against our zone: 23 feet away from the basket.
C.J. Fair (who after the game graciously posed for a picture with my sister) had a great game. He finally played like he had been playing when coming off the bench for most of the year. Brandon Triche hit quite a few big shots early in the game when our offense was struggling. Baye Keita gave us a ton of quality minutes and to his credit caught the ball almost every time he had the opportunity. To win a game when the opponent makes 14 three pointers is a credit to the Orange. Of course, Wisconsin’s inability to do ANYTHING inside and in most cases refusal to try anything inside coupled with shooting 7 for 22 inside the three point line offset their hot outside shooting.
Syracuse fans left the TD Garden feeling pretty good. We had gone from a team that was “lucky” to beat UNCA to a team that would be playing for a trip the Final Four. All while playing without our most consistent inside presence on both offense and defense. (Although, I would strongly argue that both Christmas and Keita stepped up big time in the Tournament while filling in for Melo.)
Friday and Saturday morning we did some sightseeing in Boston. Some of the highlights were going to the New England Museum, the Faneuil Hall area, Paul Revere’s House, the Sam Adams Brewery, Harvard Square and Boston Children’s Museum (for my niece). It was by no means a comprehensive tour of the city, but with a pregnant wife and ten month old niece we did see quite a lot.
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| Hurricane O'Relly's looked like Marshall Street with all the Orange. |
Saturday the bars around the TD Garden were even more Orange than Saturday and I would venture to say it was 15 to 1 in favor of Syracuse fans. The arena was also nearly as lopsided. It wasn’t Albany from 2003, but it was definitely a “home court” advantage for Syracuse and they were all pumped and primed to watch a great game.
Let me preface the next part of my post by saying I have had a lot of faith in the Orange through everything. As some may recall I appointed myself on the Board of Directors of Marsh’s bandwagon on syracusefan.com, so despite the various weaknesses of the team and the unreliability of Fab Melo I believed this team had enough talent to make a deep run and with a few breaks win it all.
Unfortunately, many of the areas even the most Orange-jaded fans couldn’t overlook as weaknesses popped up against Ohio State. Kris Joseph has been one of the best ambassadors for Syracuse basketball in a long time, but on the court he has frequently “disappeared” during big games. While he didn’t disappear Saturday night, he didn’t have a very good game. Too many times he seemed to be more concerned with drawing a foul than scoring a basket. On at least four occasions he drove baseline and either lost his balance or forced a shot while trying to force contact with a defender. During one stretch he dribbled the ball out of bounds, made up for it with a steal and then sailed the ball into the second row all within a ten second span.
Joseph has had bad games during this season and his teammates always seemed to pick him up. That was the good part about not having a “go-to guy,” there always seemed to be someone else to pick the team up. Saturday night we didn’t have that, we had a bunch of guys play to their ability, but no one played great (possibly for only the second time all year, the other being against Notre Dame). This coupled with several of our players playing poorly, some because they were in foul trouble, turned out to be deadly for our Final Four chances. Dion Waiters came off the bench very good and scored six quick points, but he would finish with only nine and the last three coming on an “and one” at the end of the game. Of course he did sit with foul trouble for quite a while. Fair, Scoop and Triche played okay, but neither put together a great game. Southerland and Christmas really didn’t get a chance to get going because of foul trouble. Keita was closest to having a great game, but he isn’t the type of player who is going to carry a team.
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| Syracuse vs. Ohio State (from Section 323) |
Make no mistake about it, our play would have been good enough to beat many teams out there, however Ohio State is a very good basketball team. They have a point guard who plays very good defense and made good decisions. They have three tough inside players who aren’t afraid to bang and get those tough offensive rebounds and have decent mid-range games. They also have a few G/F who can shoot pretty well and drive. I think two of the biggest shots of the game were baseline floaters when we were making a run and the shot clock was running down.
Given how we started the NCAA Tournament against UNCA and that we were playing without our starting center I can’t be too upset with the results. We made it to the Elite 8 and lost to a legitimate Top 10 team and a team that many picked to win it all before the season. That is not to say I am not disappointed. We missed at least five layups. We had quite a few bad and unforced turnovers. We had opportunities to win the game despite everything that happened and several of our key players not having good games. That is why I am disappointed, because we had a Final Four trip within our grasp and just missed grabbing it.
This was a very good Syracuse team and the 34-3 record proves it. We had no “go to” player, we had what seemed like constant off the court distractions, we had rebounding issues, we endured long spells without scoring and we had a pretty good center who couldn’t manage to stay eligible, but we still made the Elite 8 and we still won 34 games. Given our past history in the NCAA Tournament and tendency to have slumps mid-season, I would have taken this result at the beginning of the season in a heartbeat. I enjoyed being a Syracuse fan this year and will enjoy being a fan in the future!
FOOTNOTE: I truly do not believe we lost because of the officiating. With that being said this was overall the WORST officiated game I have EVER seen. These three clowns had no clue what was going on. There were at least three fouls called on each team when there was NO contact. There was a technical called on our coach from sixty-five feet away. There was an out of bounds play when one of the officials had no idea who was supposed to be getting the ball. There was a phantom whistle called when we were dribbling for no apparent reason. There was OSU’s best player on the bench for the first half after being called for one foul when he didn’t touch Dion Waiters and another that was borderline at best. The same OSU player was allowed to bull rush to the hoop one possession and the next Keita got called for a foul when slightly leaning against him. There was another occasions when a reaching foul was called after the OSU point guard was past the defenders and to half court on the way to a fast break. Neither team could get a flow to the game and the inconsistency on the calls did not allow either team to “adapt” to the officiating as analysts love to say is a necessity. It was truly a shame that a game between two very good teams, that had worked all year to reach that point, was marred by terrible officiating that took both teams out of their rhythm. I don’t buy that Syracuse was on the bad end of the officiating due to the 42-25 difference in foul shots, since at least 10, if not more, of OSU’s foul shots were at the end of the game when we were fouling on purpose. Take those away and it is only, at worst, a 32-25 OSU advantage.
