Orange Madness

Putting too much stock into a five minute intrasquad scrimmage is useless, unproductive... and extremely fun. Besides, if you're reading this blog, your standards are clearly lower than Alex Rodriguez's postseason batting average (shots fired!).

I promise that as this blog evolves, the posts will get a little more structure.  But for now, I'm just going to go with a stream of consciousness style to break down our first look at this season's Orange.

-  Our MC's for tonight are former Syracuse point guard Scoop Jardine and his girlfriend Jasmine Jordan (yes, that Jordan).  I fully expect Scoop to make a couple good, solid jokes to get everyone in the flow of the event, and then go for the home-run joke that fails, followed by dead silence and murmuring throughout the crowd.  Much like his career and his affinity for the unnecessary 3/4 court alley-oop attempt.

-  Brandon Triche is going to be really good.  And then really bad.  He is going to dunk on a player 8 inches taller than him.  And then you are going to forget he is on the court for 15 minutes.  Such is the enigma that is Brandon Triche.

-  Baye Keita has brought the Moussa back!  That means he will be approximately 33% better this year.  It also means I have spent approximately 33% more words on him than I think he is worth.

-  Syracuse Men's Basketball Dancing Ability Power Rankings:  1) James Southerland, 2) Brandon Triche, 738) Jim Boeheim

-  I am not going to be able to talk rationally about Trevor Cooney this year.  Listen C.J., it's not you, it's me.  I hope we can still be friends...

-  I forgot we got this Michael Gbinije fellow.  The good news is he looks like he's going to be a real player for us next year.  The bad news is he transferred from Duke.  I am going to have a very hard time not feeling conflicted rooting for him.  I hope for his sake that he's as good as people say he is, because if he's not I will certainly be at the forefront of spreading the rumor that he is an evil Dukie spy planted by Coach K to sabotage Boeheim's chances to catch him on the all-time wins list.  Luckily, I have one more year to come to terms with this.

-  Jerami Grant will take the throne from Rakeem Christmas, who begot Fab Melo, who begot Dashonte Riley, who begot Sean Williams, as the freshman big man who just isn't ready yet and gets buried on the bench.  Mercifully for Jerami, Boeheim will spare him the embarrassment of placing him in the starting lineup before yanking him 30 seconds into the game and planting him firmly on the bench for the next 39 and a half minutes.

-  If we didn't play 2-3 zone so much, Michael Carter-Williams would be Big East Defensive Player of the Year this season.  He may just make first team all-defense anyways.

-  C.J. Fair was surprisingly absent from the 20 or so minutes I watched.  I'm going to chalk it up to his disappointment in my decision to dump him approximately .72528235 seconds after the first Trevor Cooney three-pointer.  C.J. -  I know this is going to be awkward since we are still hanging with the same group of friends, but don't let this affect our season.  

-  Rakeem Christmas is really good at finishing alley-oops.  The jury is still out on if he can do anything else.

-  DaJuan Coleman will lead the team in rebounds, ill-advised mid-range jumpers, and Chipotle burritos eaten this year.

That pretty much covers the exciting events of the night and all the key players for this years team.  I'll be back with some better organized thoughts and predictions for this years team throughout the next couple weeks in the run up to the first exhibition game.  In the meantime, if there's any topics you'd like to see me address, feel free to shoot them over to me at jmschwartz17@gmail.com.