2022-2023 NCAA Basketball Thread Basketball • Page 179

Nah, they were fine against the zone all night. (Jack White was awful.) Defense suffered without Tre and Cam, RJ ran the point most of the night, and was tired af. But the zone wasn’t an issue.

 

The season rests on Tre’s shoulder. Literally.

 

I love that gif so much and always struggle to find it when I need it.

 

Still tho ... wtf?

 

They needed another ridiculous piece of clothing to auction off.

 

I love that gif so much and always struggle to find it when I need it.

 

Shit happens. Unless it's pee. Then pee happens. People pee their pants.

 

Your life and my life appear to be very different.

 

I'm gotta go back and watch the highlights. Hard to get a feel for the game off of the final two possessions haha.

 

K calling it a “shoulder sprain.”

Fuuuuuuucccccccccccccccckkkkkkkkkk injuries.

 

This isn't totally true, especially in OT. The zone did a great job of taking away the inside pass, limiting touches to Zion, and forcing a couple turnovers/tough outside shots.

Probably. But also, a friendly reminder, dude had prostate cancer and incontinence is fairly common for those who have had the disease.

 

I mean, let’s be fair. Jim Boeheim is a 74 year old man. That he pissed himself is not surprising in the least.

 

That was “limiting touches to Zion”? He got anything he wanted the entire night. He sliced the zone up and had 35 points. Minutes were the only thing that stopped him, not the zone.

If Jack White didn’t decide to go 0-10, or Cam wasn’t sick, Tre didn’t get hurt, this wasn’t even going to be close. But, the zone was not a problem, and it definitely did not take away the inside pass, or limit Zion’s touches.

 

Yep.

Yep.

Yep.

 

Fuck it all burn down basketball.

 

How many touches did Zion have in OT?

 

Best touch Zion had of the night.

 

Discussing the effectiveness of the zone to a five minute window is absurd.

And the answer is: not enough. But the man was gassed. From destroying the zone for the previous couple hours.

 

How many touches did Zion have in OT? Cause last time I checked, that's a pretty important five minute window.

 

Why do you think repeating the question makes your argument better? If you think the zone slowed down/worked/was effective against a player that scored 35, shot 14 FTs, had 10 boards, and shot over 50% ... uh .. ok. The zone wasn’t a problem tonight. Losing the PG on a night when the forward was already sick ... was. This game wouldn’t have been close if Tre doesn’t get hurt. It was on its way to a blowout before that.

 

Because you don't want to answer it. Because doing so forces you to either admit that in the last five minutes of the game, the zone clamped down and was extremely effective, or that the legendary Coach K somehow didn't realize that his star player was feasting for 80% of the game working out of the middle of the zone but for some reason decided to completely abandon that strategy with the game on the line. I'm going with the former. It's okay to admit that another team did something good, just like it was okay for me to admit that without Jones/Reddish on the floor, this game likely has a very different outcome.

 

I did answer it. It’s right there in my post. But the effectiveness of a zone, in a game, is not dictated by a 5 minute period. That’s just silly. The zone didn’t cause an open Jack White to go 0-10. Or missed FTs.

And even if we take your argument of K making a mistake by not calling more plays to his clearly exhausted player in OT with someone who hasn’t played PG all year running the offense ... that’s not evidence the zone was effective.

 

Pretty sure Jack White was open for a reason for a majority of the game, especially given how Syracuse typically extends the zone outside of the perimeter.

Oh, and for those curious, Zion only pops up twice in the play-by-play for OT: a turnover and a missed three pointer. In the last 9 minutes of regulation, he had 7 points and 4 rebounds. There's not a shadow of a doubt in anyone's mind that he was the best basketball player on the floor tonight. But there's a very obvious reason why the best basketball player on the floor was a nonentity in the final minutes of regulation and in OT. I'm not even arguing about the zone's efficiency for the entire game! I'm talking about the last 5 minutes of play specifically. We can squabble about the semantics here all we want, but the zone was effective for the 5 minute period that determined the outcome of this game.

 

[Insert Jason's retort about Tre Jones and Cam Reddish's absences determining the outcome of the game long before OT, as if Duke doesn't have seven other very good basketball players on their team, here.]