To me the measure of a great team is when other teams completely abandon what they are comfortable doing just to have a CHANCE to win. Another measure of a good team is to win these games when teams force you to play outside of your comfort level.
Syracuse has the most feared transition game in the country. Anyone who has watched Syracuse play this year knows that Syracuse has an excellent offense when they can push the tempo and run fast breaks. Whether you love him or hate him Rick Pitino is one of the best coaches in college basketball. It is because of his strategy against Syracuse (and how it goes against his normal strategy) that I can say with little doubt that Syracuse has the deadliest transition game in all of college basketball.
In the regular season finale Pitino’s Louisville squad scored 19 points in the first half. Without a doubt, this low scoring output was partially due to Syracuse’s defense, which has been very good all season. With that being said the low scoring output was primarily due to Louisville’s decision to bring the game’s pace to a crawl. This was the same strategy Louisville used against Syracuse in Louisville a few weeks back. This is also a strategy other teams have used against Syracuse this season and while it has slowed Syracuse at times Syracuse still has won 31 of 32 games this season.
In the regular season finale Louisville “raced” to 30 points the second half of the game to finish with 49 points. Thursday evening against the second best Big East team (at least according to conference record), Marquette, Louisville played at the pace they like to play at and raced to FIFTY first half points! At halftime, Rick Pitino said, “We knew they would run with us and this is the pace we want to play.” That’s funny, against a great transition team (arguably the best) Louisville had no interest in getting into a “track meet.” It makes me wonder what the result would have been like had Louisville pushed the pace in either game against the Orange.
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