In a much-anticipated match-up against the No. 1 team in the nation, Green Wave fans couldn't help but harbor hope that their team's 11-1 record was evidence that Tulane could put up a tough fight Thursday against Syracuse, giving the taller and more talented Orange a run for its money. And for approximately 30 minutes, the Wave did.
In fact, the Olive and Blue outscored 'Cuse 42-39 in the second half, though many of those late points came against the home team's reserves. Tulane essentially played exactly the same as it has all season, limiting turnovers, rebounding well and constantly moving the ball around on offense. But its weaknesses shone just as brightly as its strengths in the 80-61 loss, especially near the end of the first half, when the Green Wave allowed a 19-0 Syracuse run.
Before running through a couple of game notes, I thought it might be worth looking at a team analysis of Tulane's weaknesses written by Sam Thomas in the last edition of The Tulane Hullabaloo. This is an exact copy-and-paste job, but it perfectly applies to the Wave's Thursday night loss:
1. Bench production
Tulane’s bench scored a whopping zero points against the Yellow Jackets and contributed only four points in the loss to Wofford, shooting a combined 2 of 12 in those two games. The Green Wave’s starting five built an early nine-point lead against Georgia Tech, but as soon as Tulane head coach Ed Conroy went to his bench, the Yellow Jackets went on a 15-0 run. Conroy has been forced to play many of his starters for at least 35 minutes each game because of the weak performance of the substitutes.
A big part of the problem is that the Green Wave bench is stocked with inexperienced players, and many of them are not ready to be major contributors. Guard Jay Hook is a streaky shooter, and when his shooting touch is off, he is almost completely useless. Big men Grant Fiorentinos and Lotanna Nwogbo have not been getting playing time because of their inconsistent production. Wing Trevante Dye has been the most reliable of the bunch, but his offensive skills are limited.
The few veterans on Tulane’s bench haven’t contributed much either. Senior guard Trent Rogers is not athletic enough to create shots against quality opponents, and junior guard Ben Cherry has opened the season on a bad shooting slump, playing limited minutes.
2. Offensive flow
Conroy’s offensive system emphasizes constant motion, both of the ball and of the players. But when off-ball cuts and swing passes aren’t enough to get open shots, Tulane’s offense stagnates. In the second half of the Georgia Tech game, there was an almost 11-minute period in which Tulane went without a field goal. Against Wofford, the Green Wave shot only 32 percent from the field in the first half, allowing the Terriers to take early control of the game. Too often, Tulane’s offense turns into Kendall Timmons or Josh Davis driving to the basket and shooting over three defenders, or one of the guards jacking up a well-defended jumpshot, or center Tomas Bruha forcing a tough shot in the post. While there are certainly times when the Green Wave offense is firing on all cylinders, Conroy and his staff needs to find a way to prevent the scoring droughts that have hurt Tulane in the past few games.
Thomas is right on the money in his analysis. Tulane's bench went three players deep the entire game (Dye, Rogers and freshman guard Malte Ziegenhagen). Fiorentinos and Nwogbo didn't even make an appearance. Except for his four fouls, Ziegenhagen actually had a pretty efficient night for the Wave as he hit both of his 3-point attempts. As of now, however, Conroy is still looking for a sixth man that can come off the bench and spark the offense consistently.
The depth problem was only exacerbated by the 7-footer Bruha's absence. At least when Davis and Timmons had poor stretches against Georgia Tech, Callahan could still get the ball down low to Bruha, who could lay a few points in. Backup center Kevin Thomas, who started against Syracuse, just doesn't have the same scoring ability. Thomas wasn't much help in the rebounding game either. The 6-foot Jordan Callahan was the only starter with fewer rebounds. Even Tarrant, who almost always resides outside of the 3-point arc, managed four. Thomas finished the game with just one rebound.
Scoring Drought
Just as it has on several occasions this year, the Green Wave suffered a scoring drought midway through the first half. After pulling within three points of the Orange, Tulane allowed Syracuse to go on a 19-0 run to finish out the half, effectively putting things out of reach. The Wave allowed the shot clock to expire five times in the first half. Kudos to the players for staying disciplined and working for the open look, but at a certain point, you need to take what you can get and throw something up.
Tulane scored just 12 points in the paint to the Orange's 24 and actually shot a higher percentage from 3-point range than in general (43.8 percent to 34 percent). It was clear that without Bruha or production from Davis, the Wave could not score inside. Though the Green Wave hit 7 of 16 from beyond the arc, it went cold near the end of the first half, and without any scoring in the post, the offense went into hibernation.
Performance of the Game: Kendall Timmons
One promising sign, despite the loss, was how well Timmons played. Fellow team leader Josh Davis had a decidedly off night, finishing 0 for 9 from the field and with just three points, but Timmons had no problem carrying the team. Since he had to do it all of last season, it's a role that he's probably comfortable filling. In fact, the season may reveal that he's more comfortable being the No. 1 option than sharing that role with Davis. He filled up the stat sheet, finishing with a game-high 16 points, eight rebounds, two steals and one block.
Given how poorly Timmons played against Georgia Tech, it's encouraging to see that he does have the ability to play well against the toughest opponents that the Wave's schedule has to offer.
Tomas Bruha's injury
According to the postgame press release, Bruha suffered an injury to his knee during practice Tuesday. There are some rumblings that his knee, which required surgery to repair a torn ACL suffered last year, has been swelling up. This sounds like a nagging injury that could stick around for the rest of the year -- not a good sign for the Green Wave.
Bruha's injury and the way it was revealed by Tulane's athletics communications department, brought to light another example of how sometimes the communications department is willing to disseminate false information to the fans and media in order to "protect the team" or appease a coach.
The injury occurred Tuesday, but the pregame press release, which was not released until Wednesday afternoon, listed Bruha as a probable starter for the game. Either the department is really bad at its job or -- more likely the case -- it knew about the injury and, since no media organizations asked about it, didn't want to tip off the Orange to his absence. Either way, what's the point of listing the probable starters if you know you won't tell the truth when a starter is too injured to participate? It's just silly and dishonest.
The same thing happened during the football season before the Green Wave's season-ending game against Hawaii. Junior linebacker Trent Mackey, who is Tulane's top defensive player, needed emergency surgery to remove his appendix in the week leading up to the game. Mackey is a trooper who has played through injury before, but he had zero chance of playing against the Rainbow Warriors.
However, he was still listed as the starter on Tulane's weekly lineup release. Nothing was said about the surgery, except a passing reference to his injury in the release issued immediately after the game. The department obviously took advantage of the fact that no local media made the flight out to the islands to observe practice and ask about it. Again, if you're not going to be honest about who the starters "really" are in all instances, don't list them at all.
Looking Ahead
The Green Wave should dispatch its last non-conference opponent, Texas-PanAmerican, and head into conference play with a 12-2 record. That's not a bad start at all for Conroy's crew, but the squad will immediately face a stiff test in its first Conference USA game against Central Florida. The Knights, who sport Marcus Jordan as leading scorer, upset No. 4 UConn 68-63 earlier this year, so the game will be a good barometer for how Tulane will match up against C-USA's top teams. The Wave return home Jan. 7 against Southern Miss.
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