NCAA Basketball: Top 10 most watchable teams midway through 2019-20 season
By Max Hastings
3. Syracuse
Yea… forget what I said about Dayton being the biggest surprise of the 2019-2020 college basketball season cause this takes the cake. A bottom 5 team last season in terms of watchability, the ugly duckling has turned into a swan out of nowhere.
In my article on the Top 5 Most unwatchable teams, I berated head coach Jim Boeheim on his reluctance to address the offensive side of the ball and based on his comments in the offseason right after I wrote that blog, I’m gonna assume he read that article and finally decide to get with the times (I’d give this a 0.01% chance of being true but a blogger can dream, can’t he?). After failing to crack the top 100 in any offensive watchability category last season, Boeheim’s squad ranks INSIDE the top 70 in every watchabilty category besides Pace of Play (because of the 2-3 zone).
This includes ranking 10th in Assists per FGM and 32nd in 3 Point rate, two categories they ranked inside the bottom half of the league in last year. Part of this, though, has to do with personnel over Boeheim’s game plan. Last season transfer Elijah Hughes has stepped up big time to replace the scoring of Tyus Battle, becoming a top-notch playmaker in the ACC, averaging just under 20 points and 5 assists per game. They have one of the best backcourts in the nation, too, in stud freshman Joseph Girard and coach’s son, Buddy Boeheim.
This electric trio has combined an average of 90% of the 3-point output and over 60% of both their overall scoring output and assists. I could do a whole separate article on this (and probably will) but to keep this short, even though it is not all his doing, this is one of the most watchable teams Boeheim has ever coached.