Syracuse Basketball: Dumb fouls continue to haunt the Orange

Syracuse basketball continues to make dumb mistakes that have haunted them throughout the season. Here’s a deep dive and what it means.

Let’s talk about some good news and some bad news with the Syracuse basketball team.

We’ll start with the bad news.

The Orange continue to commit dumb fouls that have put them in precarious positions throughout the 2019-20 campaign.

The good news is despite those horrific mistakes, the Orange have won more games than they’ve lost (14-9 overall, 7-5 in the ACC). That includes the latest wild contest vs Wake Forest in the dome on Saturday night where Syracuse was able to pull out the 75-73 victory by the hair on their chinny chin chin.

After the game Syracuse head coach Jim Boeheim opened up about those critical errors that have cost his team:

"“We aren’t doing the things we have to do to be successful. We get up 12, 14, or 16 points and we make silly mistakes. Players on this team have committed fouls that we can’t commit. This game should’ve been safely in the bag. We had a double-digit lead and we had a 2-on-1 fastbreak and Quincy Guerrier tries to do something that no one would try to do.It’s a 2-on-1 fastbreak, you make the bounce pass, you get the layup and you’re up two more points than what we were and Quincy doesn’t end up with a foul. I’m trying to teach him but he’s just not getting there and he’s hurting our team.Bourama Sidibe is committing fouls we can’t commit. He’s going to commit some, but he can’t do the foolish ones. Marek Dolezaj is still picking up two fouls every game that he shouldn’t.By this stage in the year, we should’ve learned.”"

A few quick thoughts:

• Joe Girard III didn’t commit dumb fouls (he had zero fouls as a matter of fact), but his shot selection was putrid. He finished 3-of-12 from the field, 1-for-6 from deep but it goes beyond the box score, he just wasted a lot of good opportunities and he needs to be smarter.
• It wasn’t all bad for Quincy he had several super aggressive plays in the game where he fought for offensive boards and found creative ways to finish a few three-point plays, but he also has to be smarter. Syracuse needs him to stay as foul free as possible.

In this game, Syracuse was able to overcome all of that to pull out the win and survive which is obviously the most important thing.

Although if the Orange has any hopes of making the NCAA tournament and possibly making a run, they need to clean this up as soon as possible or that dream will be over.

Winning the game the way Syracuse did vs Wake Forest isn’t sustainable with all the guys who got fouled out, so hopefully, this team can learn a lesson from their victory.