Syracuse basketball: Analyzing the Orange defense through the four factors

Let’s dig into some numbers

To paraphrase from Game of Zones, you don’t need analytics to know that the Syracuse Orange’s defense isn’t up to standard. You know that, you can see that.

But it’s often good to look at the data to see where there are issues, and look at the film to tell us why this is happening.

So here’s a look at Syracuse’s defense with a lens of the four factors.

Four Factors

Shooting Splits, and a look at transition threes

Syracuse opponents have a 52.1 eFG% in ACC play, which is 11th in the league. The Orange allow opponents to shoot 36.4% from beyond the arc, 12th in the conference. However, Syracuse does not allow a high volume of three-pointers. Over SU’s last three games, opponents have taken just 17 threes per game, despite each team shooting over 20 per game on the season.

The Orange give up plenty of high-quality three-point attempts in transition. In fact, Syracuse allows the most three-point attempts in transition per game in the ACC (season-long stats), but teams tend to attack the basket more in the half-court.

I wrote about transition defense all the way back in November, after the Orange narrowly escaped against Colgate, giving up over 20 points in transition. While some of those were threes, it’s worth looking at again, considering it hasn’t gotten any better as the season goes on.

Over the course of the last few games, a few plays have stood out.

Watch the interaction between Chris Bell and Jaquan Carlos on the far side. When Carlos darts down low, Bell is running back to guard the same man, Amsal Delalic in the corner. Carlos points toward Bell to keep his head on a swivel, but both get sucked too far to the corner, nearly colliding before Bell turns around. Bell doesn’t make his first step until the ball is in Dunn’s hand, and the Orange are lucky that this shot didn’t go in – as Dunn is shooting over 40% from three this year.

Poor communication has been a hallmark of Syracuse’s transition defense all season long, and some of the fundamental traits of transition defense have gotten lost, leading to open threes.

Nobody stops the ball, and Markus Burton gets a wide-open three. Obviously, this is a 3-on-2, so Notre Dame is likely to get a good shot regardless, but the path of least resistance here comes easily and quickly.

This play made my eyes roll in real-time, but after watching it back, I appreciate the vision of Jaeden Zackery to give up a look at the rim for an open triple. Lucas Taylor lets Chase Hunter slide right behind him to the wing, and when Chris Bell is beat to the spot by Zackery, all it takes is one pass to get a wide-open three. I think Taylor might’ve misread the play here, and Bell getting beat doesn’t help.

Here are some metrics

Teams tend to attempt slightly more threes in the halfcourt than in transition, but Syracuse skews the other way, and even with a not-exceedingly-high 3P% allowed in transition, the volume makes it a major problem.

Forcing Turnovers, and a look at ball screen coverages and zones

This was one of Syracuse’s greatest strengths last year. With guards like Judah Mintz and Quadir Copeland who had extremely active hands, and Maliq Brown, who might be the most versatile defensive chess piece in the ACC, SU had the second-best turnover rate in the ACC.

Now, the Orange rank 15th in the ACC in turnover rate. Nobody on the team has a steal percentage higher than Jaquan Carlos’ 1.9. It isn’t just one type of play that Syracuse is struggling to force turnovers out of, it’s all of them.

Comparing last year’s ball screen defense to this year’s ball screen defense, it’s easy to see why fewer turnovers are forced.

Because they had guards with extremely active hands, the recovery ability from Maliq Brown, and more overall versatility, Syracuse would pick up higher, and try to push teams away from where they wanted to go with the ball. Maliq Brown’s ability to hedge and switch made Syracuse an excellent ball-screen defense, ranking in the 86th percentile nationally. Most teams didn’t use a ton of ball screens against SU because of this, as Orange had plenty of defensive deficiencies that could be exploited.

Just watching this year, you can tell how much less pressure is put on the ball handler, and how much slower overall the Orange are on rotations

Eddie Lampkin is not a nimble defender, and whenever he’s on the perimeter, it’s not because he’s going to make a play. The Orange tried hedging with him earlier in the year, and bled open threes, and playing at the level of the screen has allowed for easy, stress-free layups like this one for Pittsburgh.

Because Syracuse has to protect itself from many more vulnerabilities on the ball screen, the Orange can’t be close to as aggressive, and the guards can’t try to poke the ball free as much. I went back to watch a few possessions of last year’s defense just to get a feel, and it felt like a different sport.

SU has played its fair share of drop coverage recently, and while some of the top pick-and-roll defenses in the country are drop defenses, they have a key factor that Syracuse doesn’t: An elite rim protector.

UC Irvine (Bent Leuchten) and Creighton (Ryan Kalkbrenner) can get away with playing this style of defense because their big men deter shots at the rim with their shot-blocking abilities. Eddie Lampkin does not.

Against Notre Dame, Syracuse came out of drop coverage in the second half, and played a lot tougher on the ball, helping spark the comeback. The defensive mentality completely shifted. It was probably Autry’s best-coached game of the season, showing the ability to dig deep and make adjustments on both ends.

But against Clemson, the Orange went back into drop, got picked apart from the start, and struggled to match the Tigers’ energy.

Grabbing Rebounds, and shots per possession

I’ve ragged on Eddie Lampkin a lot so far. I’m going to change that.

Because of Lampkin, Syracuse has completely flipped the rebound battle. Even after the switch from zone to man, Syracuse had the worst rebound differential in the ACC last season. A big part of that was because of the way the Orange aggressively defended ball screens, and attempted to force turnovers.

Syracuse is now in the top half of the ACC in rebound differential and allows the 5th fewest second-chance points per possession in the conference.

In order to score, a team has to shoot, and Syracuse has maintained a spot at 5th in the ACC in fewest opponent shot attempts per possession. While last season, it was turnovers that created that advantage, this year, it’s rebounds.

What’s the problem with that? Live-ball turnovers create transition offense, defensive rebounds typically don’t. Syracuse has only been able to run in transition on 12.6% of its offensive possessions, which is in the 13th percentile nationally.

Rebounding helped keep Syracuse in games like Pittsburgh and Texas Tech, but both of those games were losses because the Orange only forced three turnovers.

Avoiding Fouls

The final four-factor is free throws attempted per field goal attempt, and Syracuse is 15th in the ACC, taking a nosedive since conference play began.

I don’t really have a ton to say about this, although the Orange – predictably – foul a lot more when Lampkin is off the floor, but also have better rim defense. Although it tends to cancel out in the overall on-off splits.

Two more things

Off-ball screens

While transition threes are a big reason for why Syracuse has struggled to defend the three-point line this year, defending off-ball screens is another area where the Orange have given up the long-ball.

Syracuse allows 5.8 points per game on off-ball screens, by far the most in the ACC. That number is absolutely skewed by Le Moyne scoring 21 points on off-ball screens, and Youngstown State scoring 10, but even removing those games, 4.7 points per game would still rank last in the ACC.

These types of quick hitters are ways that teams scheme up easy points – and SU has just not defended them well whatsoever.

Zones

I added a note about this in my notebook back in December, but there’s a little bit extra that I’ll add here.

In its last two games, Duke, the best defensive team that the ACC has seen since Tony Bennett’s 2020 Virginia team, went to a zone in each of its last two games – throwing a wrench into the game plans of both Wake Forest and NC State.

Duke had played five possessions of zone all season prior to Saturday, but threw it in during the second halves for 16 combined possessions, and allowed just 4 total points. Going to zone isn’t capitulating that you’re man doesn’t work, it’s a strategic play to change a game. One that Syracuse has simply not been able to execute this season because of how bad its zone has been.

Last season, Syracuse zoned on over 20% of possessions, including a ton against UNC, doing just enough to win that game at the Dome. SU allowed a score on 39.9% of zone possessions last year. This season, that number is 60.3%, and it explains why the Orange have tried to avoid zone, only playing it on 4% of possessions.

Conclusion

Syracuse’s roster was built around having an excellent offense, and living with the defensive results. It was built around having multiple offensive initiators – Carlos, Starling, Lampkin, etc… – on the floor, and getting elite shooting from Chris Bell. For a variety of reasons, this has failed, and the defense, which now ranks 152nd, becomes problematic. The offensive struggles accentuate the defensive struggles, which in turn, reaccentuate the offensive struggles. It’s a symbiotic relationship where neither side has held up its end of the bargain.

The coaching staff has been searching for answers, but hasn’t been able to find consistent ones because the roster that it built isn’t good enough on that end.