Syracuse men’s basketball: I watched every transition defense possession from the Orange, here’s what I saw

“Sam is a basketball Sicko”- Kevin

It has been anything but pretty, but the Syracuse Orange are 2-0 after escaping close games with central NY mid-majors Le Moyne and Colgate.

In both games, the Orange have been defending in the final moments of the game looking to protect a one-possession lead on their home floor. Against Le Moyne, Chris Bell read the Dolphins’ screening action and stripped the ball away to seal the game. Then, against the Raiders, Colgate had three chances in the final 30 seconds to tie the game, missing an open three, a jumper in the lane, and slipping in the corner.

Adrian Autry was defensive in his post-game press conference following the 74-72 win over Colgate, but pointed out one thing that SU absolutely needs to do better.

“If there’s anything you are going to write about,” he said after Tuesday’s game. “Our transition defense was not where it needs to be.”

So I’ll take him up on that, I’ll write about the SU transition defense.

Before we get into the numbers and the film on Syracuse’s transition defense, it’s worth a look at the team’s overall defensive metrics through two contests.

KenPom has the Orange as the No. 144 defense in the country, slipping all the way down from 97 before opening night.

In the four factors, SU is 251st in effective field goal percentage defense and 278th in forcing turnovers. On the bright side, Syracuse has been the 14th-best defensive-rebounding team in the country, a welcome change from what Orange fans have gotten used to.

“Talk about this,” Autry implored the media. “Forty. Five. Rebounds. We haven’t had 45 rebounds in a long time.”

Syracuse has not gone on a 10-0 run, known as a kill shot, yet this season, mainly because the team is struggling to force live-ball turnovers and run in transition.

Now, back to the transition defense.

The Orange rank second to last in high-major basketball in fast break points allowed per 100 possessions, according to CBBAnalytics. The only team behind SU is Villanova.

According to Synergy Sports, Syracuse has defended 26 possessions in transition over two games, representing 16.4% of all defensive possessions. On those possessions, the Orange are allowing an average of 1.346 points, which ranks in the 5th percentile nationally. 343rd out of 364 Division I teams, to be exact.

For context, last season, SU ranked in the 62nd percentile of transition defense, allowing 1.004 points per possession.

I watched all 26 of those possessions to get an idea of what specifically has gone wrong.

Blow-bys

Jalen Cox had an awesome game for the Raiders on Tuesday, scoring 21 points. Many of them came very easy, as he would blow by a flat-footed Syracuse defender in transition, and make a layup.

Here, JJ Starling is waiting for Cox at about the three-point line, and the guard takes a skip step, misdirecting Starling for a split second to his left before crossing over to the defender’s right. By the time he makes the move, he’s already at full speed, and Starling is hunched over and late to turn.

His poor positioning is compounded by the fact that the path he has to take from the foul line to the rim is the same that the help defender, Freeman, would’ve needed to take. His path is blocked, and it’s basically a one-on-zero.

A similar thing happens with Jaquan Carlos here, as Cox makes that same right-to-left crossover at full speed, easily blowing by the defender. He also notices that Davis has his hips facing the opposite side of the court as he retreats to positioning, meaning if Cox can beat Carlos to the basket, Davis will likely be late on the help.

Davis doesn’t turn his hips to the ball until Cox is already in stride passing Carlos, and his jump is a tad late.

Watch Elijah Moore on this play. As he backpedals, he’s extremely upright, and he crosses his feet as Cox blows right past him to the basket. At this point, he has zero balance, and therefore, zero ability to change his direction fast enough, giving Cox a clear lane to the basket.

Cox is extremely fast, and he’s going to be one of the best players in the Patriot League this year, but it wasn’t just the blow-bys that hurt SU.

Shooters

Watch Donnie Freeman as soon as Cox gets the ball at the ACC logo in the backcourt. He looks in the direction of Nicolas Louis-Jacques but starts jogging back and turns away while his counterpart sprints to the right wing. Freeman is looking at the ball, and is well behind the play, essentially forcing Carlos to defend two players.

By the time Cox looks to pass the ball, Freeman is just barely across half-court, and he’s very lucky that NLJ missed this shot.

Here is another instance of Moore’s backpedaling putting him in a disadvantageous situation. Still very upright, he turns his hips inside to protect against the drive but overcommits, and Cox dishes the ball to Chandler Baker on the wing, forcing Moore to turn his entire body. As he’s getting back on balance, Baker takes one dribble to the left, and Moore is late on the closeout. Once again, SU is lucky this shot didn’t drop.

Communication

The key thing to watch here is the interaction between Eddie Lampkin and Donnie Freeman. Lampkin signals that he is coming to his usual spot, forcing Starling to come up and guard the ball. Freeman is in the lane, matched up with Dwayne Koroma, but Ocypher Owens is completely alone on the wing, and neither Freeman nor Lampkin does anything until it’s too late.

At the end of the play, Starling is the closest defender to Owens.

Jyare Davis is behind the play this entire time, as he hit the deck on the play right before. He then goes down the middle of the court, where it would make sense for him to take over guarding Freds Pauls Bagatskis, but he and Bell don’t connect, until it’s far too late.

Lampkin is also married to sticking with Koroma, and doesn’t step up.

In transition, you don’t always need to run to your matchup, just run to what makes the most sense, and figure it out from there. If the possession is long enough for it to matter in a half-court scenario, it’s already a win.

How do you fix this?

Syracuse is crashing the offensive glass more this year, which one would think leads to worse transition defense, but the numbers don’t actually say there’s any relationship.

Based on last year’s data from KenPom (ORB%) and Synergy (Transition PPP allowed), there is an R-squared value of just 0.0057 between the two. (shoutout Jim Root of the tremendous Three Man Weave podcast for making the graph)

The Orange have the bodies to be a force on the glass, but they also have the athletes to run in transition. It’s finding a way to connect on the defensive end that will make a difference for Syracuse.

In order to not get blown by, defenders can’t be flat-footed. If you’re not ready to slide or move in any direction at a split second, you’ve already lost to somebody coming downhill.

Additionally, every possession is a different animal, and you have to make sure that every player is accounted for. If you have the numbers, everybody needs to have a matchup, and if not, plug in the space that makes the most sense. Players must communicate effectively and act on those communications swiftly. Everybody’s head must be on a swivel, no more ball-watching.

And finally, while SU doesn’t have an effort problem, it’s important to play every possession like it’s the last.