Hello Melo!

Holy mackerel! Was that Fab Melo dominating a game? Mr. Melo, where have you been all year? I'm not complaining... glad to have you in March.

For those who missed the game, freshman Fab Melo played 22 minutes off the bench today, including most of the crunch time in a see-saw battle. He scored 12 points on 5 for 5 shooting from the floor, had 4 rebounds, and 1 beautiful pass to Rick Jackson from the high post. Even a nice close out on a three point shooter in the last 30 seconds of the game.

All of this was following his then-season best effort against DePaul where he went again went 5 for 5 from the floor. The last two games, Melo has scored 22 points, pulled down 10 rebounds on 10-10 from the floor and four blocked shots, in 38 minutes of play.

Brandon Triche led the team in scoring with 22 points, icing the game in the last 20 seconds with his free throw shooting. He went 8-8 from the free throw line, extending his streak to 37 consecutive free throws, along with a solid 5 assists and 6 rebounds.

Rick Jackson just missed his double double with 'only' 9 rebounds, but another nice day for Jackson, including 4 blocked shots, five offensive boards, and some clutch rebounds in traffic down the stretch. And C.J. Fair gave a nice spark off the bench with 7 rebounds in 14 minutes of play.

UConn is up next. Bring on the Huskies!

Will Big East Get 11?

The Big East should be sending 11 teams to the NCAA Tournament next week, and that was probably true before Marquette won any games in the Big East Tournament. Now that Marquette has won two games in the BET, I think it is a guarantee.

It is not only the depth of talent and success in the Big East that makes this so obvious. It is the lack of good teams in other conferences this year that is going to force the NCAA Committee to choose eleven of the Big East brethern.

Historically, there are some solid mid-major teams that deserve to be in the NCAA tournament because they beat up on some of the top 25 teams during the season. That isn’t the case this year.

The following 15 conferences have no wins against Top 25 teams: America East, Big Sky, Big South, Ivy League, Metro Atlantic, Mid-American (0-14), Mid-Eastern Athletic (0-11), Missouri Valley (0-10), Northeast, Ohio Valley, Patriot League, Southern (0-10), Southland (0-11), Southwestern Atlantic (0-11), and Sun Belt. Normally you have solid arguments from the Mid-American, Missouri Valley and Mid-Eastern Athletic conferences for inclusion of multiple teams; those conferences are a combined 0-35 versus the top 25 this year.

The following 6 conferences have one win each against a Top 25 team: Atlantic Sun, UC Santa Barbara, Colonial Athletic, Horizon, Summit League (1-17), West Coast, and Western Athletic.

Oakland (of the Summit League) is one of the few teams in the mid-majors who could make an argument for going to the tournament on their resume alone (25-9, 15-7 away from home, 1-4 versus top 25) and they won their own tournament, so they are moot point.

The Atlantic 10 has four wins against Top 25 teams.

The Pac 10 has only one ranked team: Arizona, and they are 0-3 versus the top 25. UCLA could make an argument at 22-9, 2-2 versus top 25, 6-7 away from home. USC is 3-1, but currently has an 18-13 record, so that’s not a great record considering their overall competition.

The top four teams in Conference USA are 0-4 against the Top 25. The middle of Conference USA makes a stronger argument with Southern Miss, Marshall and UCF going a combined 3-1.

The ACC has only 2 ranked teams (Duke and North Carolina) in the top 25. Duke is 4-1 vs the Top 25, but NC is only 2-3. Florida State is 2-4, though at 21-9 with a 8-5 road record FSU should be fine. Clemson, #4 in the ACC is only 1-2 against the Top 25, 3-7 on the road, and 20-10 overall. I don’t see how that betters any Big East team.

The Big Ten has three teams that did well against the Top 25 with Ohio State, Purdue and Wisconsin. #4 Illinois is 1-6 versus the top 25, Michigan 1-7, Michigan State 3-8 (and MSU lost to both UConn and SU

Mountain West goes two teams with San Diego State and Brigham Young. #3 UNLV is only 1-5 against the top 25, though they are an impressive 12-3 away from home. The rest of Mountain West is 2-25 versus the top 25.

The SEC has two ranked teams (Florida and Kentucky). Vanderbilt makes a good argument, but Georgia is only 20-10 with a 1-5 top 25 record. Alabama is only 20-10 with a 1-3 top 25 record. Those aren’t bad, but they aren’t screaming ‘take me’. Tennessee is a respectable 4-4, and had a lot of off-the-court issues this year, but their overall record is now 18-13.

The Big 12 run deep with a lot of wins against Top 25 teams, and six teams currently with 20+ wins. A lot of their bubble teams are horrendous on the road: Colorado 3-9, Nebraska 1-7, Baylor 2-6, Oklahoma State 2-9.

Contrast this with the Big East’s top 11 teams. They all have 20+ wins. The worst road record of the group is 4-7 which isn’t that bad; seven have winning road records. They are 28-10 on neutral courts. 9 teams in the top 25. Marquette was the closest thing to a bubble team, and they are now 20-13 overall, 4-9 on the road. Compare that to the other conferences 3-5 seeds, and you should be impressed. Marquette’s RPI is only 64, so that would be their biggest concern, but you don’t win two games in the Big East tournament, on top of a solid resume, and go home.

Villanova may have put themselves at risk; if any Big East team doesn’t make it, it would be the Wildcats who have lost 5 straight including an embarrassing loss to South Florida. But they are 21-11 overall, 5-8 versus top 25 teams, and their RPI is still #37 in the country. They have big wins over Temple, Louisville, Syracuse and West Virginia. And their overall body of work, compared to the weak efforts from other conferences, still points them in.

Syracuse, of course, is a tourney lock, and have been for a while. They have no bad losses (Seton Hall is the worst loss and they are 97 in the RPI). They have 12 total quality wins, and five of those are signature wins against Notre Dame, St. Johns, UConn, West Virginia and Georgetown. They are 6-4 versus the top 25, 9-3 away from home, 12-6 in the conference and 25-6 overall. The question is what seed they will get, and it appears around a #3.

Orange Beat Hoyas

Syracuse had an impressive 58-51 win at Georgetown on Sunday, putting them at 24-6 on the season, and 11-6 with one game to play. The win was impressive because they kept the game at their pace for most of the 40 minutes of play, and Jim Boeheim rotated a healthy mix of players into the game during meaningful playing time.

Syracuse did not shoot particularly well, but shot well enough. They were out rebounded for the game 35-27. But they did everything they needed to do to win the game. They played very active in the zone forcing the Hoyas into 16 turnovers and gave them few good looks at the basket. They protected the ball well on offense with only 9 turnovers (and only one ‘Scoop what the heck are you thinking’ moment). They had five blocked shots, though it seemed far more like 15. Hands up everywhere, no where for the Hoyas to shoot near the basket. And great transition into the fastbreak from the defense.

Raise your hand if you thought that James Southerland and Fab Melo would be on the court with less than 3 minutes to go, the team clinging to a three point lead, and there were no foul problems or injuries on the team?

Jim Boeheim had told Mike Waters the other day that he hoped to get a lot extra practice time for the freshmen during the abundance of free time the team had the next two weeks.

I was surprised that he decided he would use this game to do it. And it paid off. Southerland was the offensive spark in the first half, finishing the game with 9 points. And he displayed some hustle on his defense with a couple of steals, a block and three rebounds. That’s the way to earn some additional playing time. He ended up playing 21 minutes in this game.

Melo did not see much playing time in the first half but, ended up playing seven minutes, some of it during crunch time. He made some mistakes, but perhaps for the first time this year, he looked like a player who had some idea of what he should be doing on the court.

This may come in handy during the Big East tournament when the team can use the extra depth. C.J. Fair, Kris Joseph and Dion Waiters lost some playing time as a result, but we all know what they can do.

The Orange are now 7-4 against AP Top 25 teams this season. That’s the most wins by any NCAA team this season against the Top 25. The school record is 8 wins, accomplished three times, and last done just last year. The Orange will definitely get a shot at win number eight with their match up in the Big East almost certainly to be a top 25 team.

The Orange are an impressive 6-3 on the road. They are 3-0 in neutral sites, making them 9-3 in games away from home, and 4-2 against ranked teams away from home.

After 30 games, I still do not have this team entirely figured out. I’m guessing most the opposition does not either, which is to Syracuse’s advantage. I do know they know how to win.

Another 20 Win Season!

Congratulations to Jim Boeheim for this 33rd 20+ win season, an NCAA record for a coach. Boeheim has now won 20+ wins for 14 straight seasons; that would in itself be an impressive career for most coaches.

Let me dispel some myths about Boeheim’s ability to consistently win 20+ wins.

#1: He wins all his games against cupcakes and then goes .500 in the Big East to get to 20 wins. Wrong. In 32 years of Big East basketball, Boeheim’s teams have finished below .500 only twice: the 1980-1981 squad went 6-8, and the 2005-2006 team went 7-9. Only three other teams went .500: 1981-1982 (7-7), 1996-1997 (9-9), and 2007-2008 (9-9). That means in Big East play, Syracuse has been better than a .500 team 27 out of 32 times, or 84% of the time.

Let’s even give the Boeheim-hater the margin of 1 game over .500. That’s 5 more teams (two teams at 9-7 and three at 10-8). That still means he has had 22 teams in 32 years BETTER than that.

By no stretch is Jim Boeheim just a .500 coach in the Big East. And even if he were, the Big East historically has been a very tough conference. .500 in such a conference would be a nice accomplishment. The worst team in Boeheim history went 6-8 in the Big East. Oh yeah, that worst Boeheim team… won the Big East tournament, and lacking an automatic bid to the NCAA, went to the NIT, and eventually lost in the NIT finals. Pretty impressive, for his worst team.

#2: He wins all his games against cupcakes in out of conference games. Syracuse has played 46 top 25 non-conference regular season games over the past 32 years (I’m not counting Boeheim’s first three seasons when there was no Big East conference and thus no non-conference games). Syracuse is 29-17 in those games, winning 63% of those games. He obviously does better against the non-top 25 teams, but to suggest he wins beats only the unranked teams is a fallacy.

If we take his 63% winning percentage against non-conference Top 25 teams, and multiplied that by 35, the average number of non NCAA tournament games a year, he would still win an average of 22 games a year. That’s assuming that he played only top 25 games for every game of the season, which would be absurd.

#3: He reaches the 20 game level to look impressive. Boeheim’s teams have reached 20+ wins 33 of his 35 seasons. They have won 22+ games in 27 of his 35 seasons (and will make it 28 this year). 18 times his teams have won 24+ games, and this season should make it 19. So not only does he win 20 games routinely, he wins 22 and 23 games routinely.

Jim Boeheim has as 120-127 record in his career against top 25 teams (49% winning percentage). So you take the average Syracuse basketball team and you throw a random Top 25 basketball team against them, and they are even money to win the game.

He is 52-63 against top 10 teams for his career (45%). An average Jim Boeheim team has a 45% chance of beating a top 10 team. Outstanding in my opinion.

Boeheim is 17-53 against top 5 teams, or 24%. So throw any Jim Boeheim squad on a court against the top 5 teams in the country, and they will win 1 out of 4. I wouldn’t call that outstanding, but over a 35 year window, that’s a pretty good indication of how competitive his teams have been.

Syracuse is currently on a 7 game non-conference regular season winning streak against top 25 teams. The last time they lost to a top 25, non-Big East team, during the regular season was 12/5/2006 versus Oklahoma State.

Bottom line, Jim Boeheim wins 20+ games a year because he is an outstanding coach with a consistently strong program, and he knows how to win games.

Ending the Streak (Thankfully)

There are no ‘easy’ games in the Big East. A pretty common statement you hear in different media circles, and fairly accurate. Currently there are seven Big East teams ranked in the top 17 of the country. Syracuse had a four game losing streak, and I must admit I was getting quite uncomfortable as a fan, wondering if the Orange were falling apart. They were not playing like the same team they were up through early January.

They put me fears at ease with an excellent defensive effort at #6 UConn last night, winning 66-58. This is Syracuse’ first win at Connecticut in this millennium. A lousy offensive performance by the Orange, but a stellar defensive effort, fairly good ball control, and outstanding rebounding led the way.

Rick Jackson had another day at the office with his 15th double-double of the year. His pace has slowed down a little from December, but he’s going to be close to Derrick Coleman’s season rebounding record by the end of the year. Coleman had 422 rebounds, and Jackson is on pace for 403 (assuming 35 games).

Jackson would have had more rebounds last night but Baye Keita fouled that up for him. Keita had an outstanding night with 11 rebounds, 6 steals and 2 blocks. Those are clear signs of an active big man in the center of the defense. He did foul out of the game, but they are fouls of being overly aggressive, not overly passive, and that is more comfortable to live with.

I do not know what to make of the Syracuse team for the year. They are an outstanding defensive team (most the time), and when they are playing the defense well, they get a lot of transition points. The Orange run an outstanding transition game, which is good because the rest of their offense is just plain awful. They have moments where they look good, but they just never seem to find an offensive rhythm.

The three point shooting is just mediocre at best, though Brandon Triche can get hot. It’s not like they have difficult looks at the basket; Syracuse must have a couple of air balls each game from three point range (or so it seems). Jim Boeheim should outlaw any attempts at the alley-oop pass, as it seems to fail with these guys more often than succeed.

Fortunately Jackson is hustling every game and getting extra shots for the Orange when they miss the hoop.

The naysayers and the Boeheim haters are of course coming out of the woodwork saying the he once again inflated his won/loss record with an easy preconference schedule, and now that the Orange are facing real competition, they are losing. Of course, this isn’t true this year, nor is it true most years.

Syracuse was ranked #1 in the RPI on January 15th, when they were 18-0 going into the Pitt game. They are 4-2 this season against top 25 teams, and 2-2 versus teams ranked #7 or higher. They have 11 “quality wins” on the season (Northern Iowa, Michigan, North Carolina State, Michigan State, Drexel, Providence, Notre Dame, Seton Hall, St. John’s, Cincinnati, and UConn). And they have no “bad” losses.

They lost four games in a row, and two of those were against very good teams. It was an awful stretch of basketball the past three games. The Orange are going to lose again down the stretch. They are not good enough offensively to win every game every night, and I think after 23 games, we can recognize the hand that Syracuse was dealt. Offensively, they are not going to improve much more this year.

Defensively they can give any team in the country fits, and that will keep them in any game they play. In the NCAA tournament it will give them an advantage against those teams less familiar with the zone that the Big East competition. Running six straight in the NCAA would be tough for a team without a real offense. But they can definitely do some damage in the tournament, and you just need to win one game at a time.

You never know.

18-0!!

Syracuse is now 18-0, the second best start in school history. The record is 19-0, set by the 1999-2000 squad.

The 1999-2000 squad finished the year 26-6, going 13-3 in the Big East and winning the Big East regular season title. Like this year’s squad, that squad was a fantastic defensive team led by the Big East Defensive player of the year Etan Thomas and point guard Jason Hart. Offensively, it was a well balanced team with five players averaging 10-13 points a game. The team had a couple of snipers who came off the bench in Preston Shumpert and DeShaun Williams that made up for a relatively weak perimeter shooting starting five.

This year’s squad is running deeper than most Syracuse teams, going nine players deep routinely. Part of that is somewhat misleading in that Fab Melo really has not been playing much, putting the team into a eight man rotation shortly after tip off. However, if his effort in the Cincinnati game last night is a sign of things to come in the near future, that would be a blessing for the Orange.

I hope Syracuse fans are really appreciating the coaching job that Jim Boeheim has done the past few years and the tremendous effort the Orange have had on the court. They have been a top 10 team since November 24th, 2009. The Orange are 11-2 versus top 25 teams the past two seasons; that is outstanding and should quiet those who say Syracuse never plays anyone.

Over the past two seasons the Orange are 48-5. That is an outstanding run by any school’s in today’s NCAA basketball. Going back to February 24th, 2009 (almost two years ago), Syracuse is 58-7, and 14-5 versus top 25 teams.

They have beaten a #3 ranked UConn in the Big East Tournament in the epic 6 overtime game. They beat California and North Carolina in November 2009 to get national recognition despite having no top 50 recruits on the squad. They beat Georgetown twice last season in epic battles that just added to the Orange/Hoya legacy. The team reached #1 in the rankings in March 2010, and they earned a #1 seed in the NCAA tournament.

These are good times to be a Syracuse fan. For those who continuously bash Jim Boeheim, just shut up. It is the right of a fan to second guess a coach on some decisions he makes. I don't agree with every decision Boeheim makes. Coaches are not perfect, just like none of us are, but they highly successful ones like Boeheim don’t make too many of them. He knows his players better than we do, he knows what they are capable of in practice, and how well the team plays together in different configurations. It is the mindless bashing of Boeheim that is just borderline idiotic. And frankly, I should just remove the word borderline.

For his career, Boeheim is 119-125 versus teams ranked in the top 25 (48.8% winning). In games where he has played a team ranked higher than the Orangemen, he is 66-78. He wins 46% of his games against teams that the informed voters think are a better team. That is downright impressive, and yet people think he has a career of beating up on weaker teams. Eventually this season he will lose to a lower ranked team; it’s inevitable because being ranked #4, there just isn’t going to any opportunities to lose to anyone ranked higher than them. I’m sure some yahoo will criticize Coach Boeheim at that time. Not me.

I’m going to soak up the joyous ride this team is on right now, a historic run for the Orange.

15-0

The 2010-2011 version of the Syracuse Orange have entered a very elite group of Syracuse teams that started out 15-0. This year’s team is only the fifth squad to accomplish that feat in the 111 year history of Syracuse basketball.

It will be interesting to see how good this squad becomes. They were definitely an overrated team early in the year (to quote a Hall of Fame coach we all are quite familiar with!), and they managed to stay unbeaten in spite of themselves. The team started to gel, and now has impressive runaway wins over Michigan State, and Big East foes Providence and Notre Dame.

This years squad is definitely a versatile group of players, with a deeper than usual bench filling in for different roles. Now that James Southerland has the confidence in his perimeter shot and has shown some spots of inspired defense, the missing pieces of the squad are starting to get filled in. I would still like to see Scoop Jardine pass the ball more often and be a little more careful with it, despite his nine assists the last game. Better defense from Dion Waiters would be great (though he is improving), and a good 20 minute effort in some game, any game, by Fab Melo would really inspire me. The fact that Kris Joseph is hitting his 3's is very encouraging for the long term progress of this team.

But they team is playing shutdown defense like they did last year, and quickly converting to their transition game for easy baskets. And the team is crashing the board very well, something that has not always been a trademark of Syracuse teams. I think the top squads like Pitt and UConn will give the Orange a real test because they are so familiar with our zone defense and don’t typically get rattled, but I do like how this team is playing.

15-0 is very tough, as evidenced by the exclusive five member club. Last year’s team, which I think was much better than this year’s team, only went 13-0 before losing their first game. And I thought last year’s team had an excellent chance of winning the National Championship before the Arinze Onuaku injury finally came to hurt them in the Butler game.

So, how have the other four 15-0 teams finished?

The 1999-2000 squad was the last team to start 15-0, and they started off the season 19-0, a school record for most wins to start a season. This wasn’t the best team in Syracuse history, but like this year’s squad, was an outstanding defensive team. Etan Thomas, two time Big East Defensive Player of the Year, anchored the middle of the defense. Add in Jason Hart to harass the opposing guards and Ryan Blackwell to guard the post players, and it was a tough team to score on. The team would end up 26-6, winning the Big East regular season championship, and losing in the Sweet Sixteen.

1986-1987 team unexpectedly started 15-0 behind an unknown point guard named Sherman Douglas. The team had lost Pearl Washington, Rafael Addison, and Wendell Alexis from the year before, so expectations were not high. This team finished 31-7, as the Big East regular season champions. Douglas, along with Rony Seikaly, Derek Coleman, Howard Triche and Greg Monroe would make an impressive run through the NCAA tournament, only to lose to in the National Championship game to the Indiana Hoosiers.

The 1925-1926 team was led by the Three Musketeers: All-American junior Vic Hanson, and his classmates Charlie Lee and Gotch Carr would start out 15-0. They would lose their first (and only game) on February 24th at Penn State 37-31. A few weeks later they would play the Nittany Lions again, easily beating them 29-12 to revenge the victory. The squad was awarded the National Championship by the Helms Foundation for their 19-1 season.

The 1917-1918 team was the first one to start out 15-0, and they went to 16-0 behind All-Americans Joe Schwarzer and Bob Marcus. The team was a dominant defensive presence, and would enter the last game of the season undefeated. In a very physical game, Penn would beat the Orangemen 17-16. Penn would score only 2 points from the floor, the rest from the free throw line, as Penn’s Sweeney went 15-16 from the free throw line. Meanwhile, Syracuse’s Schwarzer, normally an excellent free throw shooter was only 5 of 13. The Orangemen were still awarded the National Championship by the Helms Foundation for their outstanding 16-1 record.

All five of these teams were outstanding defensive teams with strong rebounders and excellent guard play. Let’s see how far the 2010-2011 edition can go.