(Hiccup)

Before Syracuse pulled a Mario on us at the end of last night's game, I was ready to write another post about how much promise this team has, how great the newcomers are, how far we can go in March, etc. So I'll still try to keep this on a relatively positive note.

A lot of the good things we said yesterday still stand. As a matter of fact, some of the newcomers impressed me even more against the 'Cuse than against the Huskies.

I may have been unfair to the twins. Last night they were snatching contested rebounds, blocking shots, nailing 3's, driving and dishing -- Marcus had 2 turnovers last night, but he also had 6 assists. (!)

And Tyshawn Taylor? That f**king guy can finish!

On the other hand, Taylor did have 4 of our 17 turnovers, and TOs were the key to the game, I thought. The Orange had almost as many, but more of ours were in the backcourt, leading to easy runouts for them; I thought our defense was pretty good, but they shot 48% largely because we gave them so many layups.

Which begs the question: Who is our point guard? Down the stretch Taylor was bringing the ball up, but he doesn't really strike me as a PG -- only had 2 assists to his 4 TOs. If Sherron is our only guy who can really play the point, this could be a huge Achilles heel. Maybe Reed can do it? He had a terrible first half but finished with 5 assists.

FTs were obviously an issue as well -- one more from Cole at the end and we win the game. The twins seem to be a liability at the stripe: 1 for 5 collectively.

But the other major problem last night was Sherron, as he readily admits. He seemed out to prove that he was better than Syracuse's Flynn, which led to a lot of ill-advised freelancing down the stretch, and his miscues seemed to deflate our whole team. Maybe he's not yet "ready to lead," after all.