December 19, 2005
gerry's career year?
After a slow start to the season, Gerry McNamara is proving he will be one of the elite players in the Big East for a fourth straight year. In last night's 90-80 win over Davidson, Gerry put 38 on the board to go with 5 assists, 3 steals, and a block. Yes - McNamazing filled the entire stat sheet by picking up his first official block of the season (though he did have another in an exhibition game). Nichols also had a career night, finishing with a personal best 26 points and was the only Orangeman to play every minute of the game. As a whole, the team did pretty well, even if they needed a top notch effort from their leaders to get past the Wildcats from the NC. Watkins overcame another horrific offensive performance (2 for 10 from within 10 feet) by pulling down 7 rebounds and sharing the glass lead with On The Spot Gorman and Terrence Roberts, who went for 21 and 5 (21 minutes and 5 fouls).
Unfortunately, I haven't had a chance to watch the entire game yet (fear not - it's Tivo'd) as my man Fast Eddie had his son, Fleet Foot AJ, baptized during halftime and we missed about 10 minutes of the second half. Quite alright, though, as baptisms always turn into killer parties - especially on NFL Sundays - and if anyone knows how to take care of a baptism while watching the Cuse and Colts at the same time, it's Fast Eddie.
So, since I've decided to wait a little while before watching the tape of what we missed - tonight's Packer-Ravens game seems like a good opportunity to catch up on old film - I looked through Gerry's career stats to get a sense of the impact his sudden scoring binge has had on his season averages. Considering that each of SU's past and future opponents have identified him as the team's primary scoring threat, we should expect that Mr. Mac would have a tough time shooting this year, right? The team gets little to no help in the paint, and Nichols is only just starting to cement his spot as the number 2 player on the floor. Logic would lead us to believe that McNamara would be hounded into bad shots and poor percentages by the competition again, much like last year. Of course this would also lead many of the fans to complain about the decline of #3 - as they did last season - when the argument was that he doesn't have "it" anymore and takes too many shots, missing more than he should.
Well, to the dismay of the naysayers and despite being the primary target of every opposing defense, Gerry McNamara is getting started on putting together the best season of his Syracuse career. Since his frustrated start of the season that gave his detractors a little more firepower when the team opened 3-2, McNastic has come on strong and played some of his best games since enrolling in 2002. During the first five games of this year, Gerry averaged just 13 points per game on 28% shooting. It seemed that he was struggling to find his touch, even though he maintained he felt good each time he took the floor and didn't know why the shots weren't falling. As a result of feeling so good, he found himself shooting a Damone Brownian 24% from three point range, including the 0 for 10 spell during the Cornell debacle. He was only able to survive by playing the point guard position well, as he helped the team with 88% from the stripe and a 2.7:1 assist-to-turnover ratio to go with 1.4 steals per game. Gerry was a strong floor general, but the team was averaging only 71 ppg and looked desperate for him to pick up the scoring slack.
Since the back-to-back losses, though, Syracuse has significantly increased the pace of the offense. In the last 5 games the team is averaging 82 points per contest and Gerry's finally managed to discover that shot he knew would come back to him. During the current stretch he's scoring 22 ppg on 40% shooting. Thanks to last night's 8 for 12 jumpshooting clinic, his 5-game 3 point percentage is at .405 (he's now 37% for the season). The assist-to-turnover dropped to 1.6:1, but Gerry's compensated with some disruptive defense, doubling his steals per game to 2.8 since the Bucknell game.
I can't mention all this improvement without noting the altered team strategy that paralleled McNamara's recovery, though - the five games since the Bucknell loss are the same five games that one Eric Devendorf has started. Hmmmm...Coincidence? Perhaps having another shooting threat in the game has helped Gerry find open looks - during the TCU game any fan near the court could actually hear the opposing coach repeatedly screaming the same two words at his team every time ex-starter McCroskey touched the ball: "NON-SHOOTER! NON-SHOOTER!" If it was that obvious to TCU, imagine what teams were able to do if they had actually played the Orange before. Even if he doesn't score 20 or grab 10 rebounds, Devendorf gives SU a third option on the outside that the opposition must respect or they risk getting burned (see same TCU game).
Regardless of the reason, McNamara is back to his old form and looking to get even better (his scoring, rebounding, and assist averages are all at career highs) as the season progresses. As usual, it's still difficult to determine just how good his senior year will be until the Orange play that Big East schedule. If he can keep his touch, though, Mr. McNamara is on his way to repeating as a member of the first team All Big East that will further cement his place as an all-time great.
