With its loss Monday night at Marquette, the Syracuse Orange basketball team has now lost two in a row, and five of its last nine games. With a 4-4 record during the month of February and the end of the season fast approaching, Syracuse is inching closer to hitting the panic button, as the Orange is running out of time to get back on track and get things moving in the right direction.
The issue isn’t necessarily that Syracuse is losing games, because even good teams lose games. The team that ultimately wins the national championship could easily have a handful of losses or more on their record. When Syracuse lost at Villanova to close out the month of January, there was little reason to be concerned. When they lost to Pittsburgh and Connecticut on the road, it was disappointing, but it was tough to fault the Orange for losing to tough teams in tough road environments. Even with the recent losses to Georgetown and Marquette, there isn’t a lot of shame in losing to quality teams. The issue is how Syracuse is losing.
By the time March rolls around, most teams, at least the good teams, should be showing signs of improvement and getting ready to play their best basketball at the end of the season. But that doesn’t seem to be the case with Syracuse. They appear to be stunted in their growth as a basketball team. It’s almost as if they’re regressing, as the teams around them are getting better, as they gear up for the stretch run.
It starts in the backcourt with point guard Michael Carter-Williams. His growth and maturation as a player has seemingly come to a stop. He has not adjusted to the way that team’s are playing defense against him, which started with Syracuse’s first loss of the season against Temple. The good decisions and brilliant passes that made Carter-Williams one of the best point guards in the country early in the season are rarely seen anymore, as he has gotten away from his strengths as a passer, while also making bad decisions when under pressure. Adding to the problems is the fact that Trevor Cooney has yet to develop into a player that head coach Jim Boeheim trusts to play more than a few minutes a game. Without Cooney as a viable option, Boeheim has no option but to continue to play Carter-Williams, even when he struggles and makes poor decisions.
Things may be even worse in the Syracuse frontcourt, where they lack the muscle, aggression and fortitude needed to compete in the Big East. Now deep into his sophomore season, Rakeem Christmas should be coming into his own as a player; but instead, he often looks overmatched, as if he were still a freshman playing his first month of college basketball. Christmas has the size and athleticism to be Syracuse’s best center at both sides of the floor, but most of the time he is a non-factor at the offensive end and a source of disappointment at the defensive end, as he fails to give Syracuse the physicality and toughness they need inside against Big East teams.
As a team, the Orange continues to be puzzled at the sight of zone defenses. For a team that exclusively plays zone defense themselves, Syracuse consistently struggles when they face a zone. Outside of James Southerland, Syracuse lacks a player that can make outside shots and stretch out the zone, and they often lack the aggression that can get defenders in the zone out of position and open up easy opportunities for the frontcourt players that struggle to score on their own. In C.J. Fair, Syracuse has a player with ideal size and versatility to attack a zone defense from the inside out, yet Syracuse does not put enough effort into getting Fair the ball on each possession, despite Fair being their most consistent and reliable scorer all season.
It’s not the recent string of losses that Syracuse should be concerned about, but their inability to grow and evolve as a team. By this point in the season, the Orange should be better than they are, and they shouldn’t be losing games in the manner that they’ve lost five of their last nine games. As the season starts to come to a close, instead of rounding into form and playing their best basketball of the year, the Orange are inching closer to the panic button, as their season appears to be slowly slipping away.