Syracuse Basketball: 2019-20 keys for success at home against Colgate

1. Stop forcing shots

Sure, this Colgate team isn’t going to be as tough as Virginia was. They’re not going to clamp this Orange offense down as well as the Cavaliers did, last Wednesday, but the Orange are their worst enemies when it comes to the offensive game. The Cavs played well defensively, for sure, but the Orange’s inability to create the right shot, or even wait for it made for it to be a very easily won game for Virginia.

There are going to be times where this offense gets a break, and times where it doesn’t have to perform to an above-average level to get wins, but that doesn’t mean that they shouldn’t be consistent in trying to be efficient. Shooting 23.6% from the field is something you just cannot do in D1 basketball. The Orange have got to be more patient when in possession. It’s all well and good playing at a high tempo against some of the better teams, but when it’s ruining your shots you’ve got to change it up a bit. Syracuse shot 5-29 from beyond the arc, against Virginia. This week, and from now on, they’ve got to stop throwing up shots when there’s little to no separation and when it’s just a straight-up poor shot.

Elijah Hughes will be the main, go-to guy this year for Syracuse. He went 4-14 on Wednesday. It wasn’t an awful performance, by any means, but the shots he took that he did end up missing just weren’t high-percentage shots. That’s the biggest problem with this offense – figuring out which shots are the ones they should be taking. Time isn’t a problem, as a big percentage of the shots they do take come with plenty of time to even run a move. They’ve got to be patient, intelligent and focus on one possession at a time.