Syracuse Basketball: Offense displayed new wrinkles in win over BC

Syracuse basketball continues to trend up after a win over Boston College. The offense seemed to click again, with an added diversity in their production.

Syracuse basketball rolled Wednesday night as they returned home to face Boston College. The Orange stifled a putrid Eagles offense holding them to 13 points in the first half, the lowest output from an opponent this season in a half.

The Orange were not quite running the smoothest offense to start but things began to change with about eight minutes left in the first half. Syracuse only had an 11-to-7 lead scoring less than a point per minute before sparking a 27-to-6 run to close the half.

It started with a simple backscreen screen off-the-ball from Howard Washington to get Wednesday night’s leading scorer Buddy Boeheim open for what was his second of four made three-pointers in the game.

That three seemed to be the point Boston College finally decided that chasing Boeheim off the line was their best strategy, but Boeheim had a plan to counter it. Boeheim challenged Eagle defenders off the bounce in transition taking four of his next five shots inside the paint, converting on three of them as one was blocked.

Even with the shot that was swatted, these were positive drives for one of the ACC’s leading three-point shooters. Boeheim has struggled from the mid-range this season, shooting a tick under 32 percent on 63 attempts according to Barttorvik.com.

It has been mentioned before how the mid-range analytically is shown to be one of the worst shots on the floor, especially in the colligate game with less space available space there meaning the change of attack was a positive one for the Orange.

Boeheim getting to the rim in the future against teams that won’t be missing their leading big man will prove more difficult then it did against Boston College, so driving aimlessly is not the answer.

Being opportunistic like he was in transition with three of his scores, or with creativity to get mismatches on switches could open up a small fear in defenders’ minds. If the fear of Boeheim going to the basket creeps in, opposing teams might naturally close out softer and allow better-looking perimeter shots.

With that creativity on offense mentioned earlier, Syracuse took advantage of mismatches against the Eagles. Boston College without Nik Popovic was forced to rely on 6-foot-7 freshman CJ Felder and 6-foot-8 sophomore Jarius Hamilton. While both young forwards showed some promise against Syracuse, Boston College switched on most screens, especially ones on the ball.

Switching left Marek Dolezaj and others with several mismatches and the Orange attempted to capitalize on them. The impact was not just felt by Dolezaj’s production scoring-wise, Dolezaj made his only attempt at the rim Wednesday night and Boston College’s smaller defenders did a good job of forcing him to shoot a couple of times farther out than he wanted.

However, the impact was felt in the spacing the offense was given. Dolezaj was able to create three assists officially but added a couple of hockey assists by getting the ball moving.

There were good looks from the post when he had a smaller defender on him and was able to see over-the-top to create looks for his teammates. Boston College was also shading help toward post-ups for the Orange freeing up lanes for Elijah Hughes and others to facilitate with the ball in their hands from the opposite side of the floor.

These increasing options for the Orange might not mean immediate success right away that will lead the team to the NCAA Tournament. Being multi-dimensional though will give this team a higher ceiling in the future. Finding multiple different ways to score efficiently will help any team when the perimeter shots are not falling or if a team possesses an elite rim defender.

One reason why coach Jim Boeheim prefers his zone defense is that it is meant to limit the options for an opposing offense. At times this year, his young team has limited themselves offensively and settled for what opposing teams wanted them to do.

Against Boston College, they were diverse and showed wrinkles that will develop with time, and become part of a more complex gameplan when preparing to play the Orange.