How to Beat Syracuse, Georgetown

It's Basketball Night in Washington. Syracuse and Georgetown are set to tip off at 7:30 p.m. tonight on ESPN 2.

Get your popcorn ready.

Let's break the matchup down:

How to beat Syracuse's 2-3 zone
Beating a 2-3 zone requires a pretty simple formula, but against better teams, executing the plan is the hard part. But for the sake of tonight's game, let's talk about beating a 2-3 as if it is, in fact, easy.

Spread the floor. The key to beating any defense is spreading the floor, but it especially helps against a 2-3. Exhausting a 2-3 zone requires lots of ball movement and off-the-ball screens -- two things Georgetown does extremely well. Big men have to flash to the high post a lot to give the guards a chance to get the ball into the middle of the zone to collapse the defenders, who have to recoil to their positions on the floor to limit backdoor cuts and defend the big man. The other way to collapse a zone is to rotate the ball to the defense's weak side and then penetrate, forcing the defenders to quickly return to their assigned areas and leave shooters open all over the floor. It's all about catching the defense out of position and forcing it to recover rapidly. Teams get to the foul line that way, and they find open shooters and cutters that way.

Georgetown's Chris Wright, Jessie Sapp and Austin Freeman are all decent slashers, and it helps that they -- plus DaJuan Summers -- can all shoot the 3. That gives Georgetown options -- the Hoyas can spread the floor, swing the ball and penetrate, then look for open shooters, or they can rotate the ball, flash big fellas like Summers and Greg Monroe to the high post, move the ball through them, and spot open shooters and cutters.

The problem with this plan -- and a major reason why I like Syracuse tonight -- is that Georgetown can penetrate and kick all it wants, but its shooters are struggling of late. Freeman, Sapp and Wright are shooting just 22 percent from 3 in the past three games. If the Hoyas go cold tonight, it won't be pretty. Not just because cold shooting hurts, but I don't see Georgetown doing very well on the boards. The Hoyas are one of the poorer rebounding teams in the Big East.

Attack the glass. The one major problem with a 2-3 zone is that when it is extended, offensive players can sneak into gaps and snatch offensive rebounds. If a shot comes from the outside, the weak-side wing defender is most likely higher up in the lane toward the middle of the floor. That leaves the backdoor open for a crashing rebounder.

The strong-side defender is also probably out defending the wing or trying to close out the shooter, that leaves another gap for an offensive rebounder on the strong side and forces the middle defender in the 2-3 to deal with at least two guys crashing the glass.

What Syracuse does very well, though, is rebound. Obviously Jim Boeheim has figured out a way to make his teams rebound well despite the obvious issues with a 2-3 zone. Paul Harris, who's only about 6-5, is an exceptional rebounder. In fact, he leads the team with close to nine rebounds a game. To have an asset like that, especially on the weak-side block of that zone, is a great way to avoid giving up too many offensive rebounds.

Another way to overcome the problems of a 2-3 is to overplay your positions, i.e. hustle and quickly recover. Syracuse's guards can move quickly and operate well within their positions in the zone. Closing out shooters and boxing them out is something Syracuse does well. That's why the Orange are plus-five in rebounding advantage and their opponents shoot just 39 percent.

How to manage Georgetown's unique pace
Georgetown is one of the most frustrating teams in the nation to defend. The Hoyas move extremely well off the ball on offense, and their patience and ability to use the entire shot clock often catches even the most elite defenses napping. But they also play very meticulous defense.

The Hoyas have the nation's 14th-most efficient D. Georgetown's opponents shoot just 37 percent. In case you didn't notice, that pits two very good defensive teams against one another tonight.

Syracuse has to do what Pitt did in its 70-54 undressing of the Hoyas more than week ago:

1. Cut off the baseline and Georgetown's backdoor cuts, which the Hoyas will try to use against Syracuse's weak-side defenders.

2. Punish Georgetown on the glass. The 2-3 zone, like I said above, is susceptible to big offensive rebounding nights for good offensive rebounding teams. Georgetown is not a good rebounding team, period. That takes care of a big problem that Syracuse will have against dominant rebounding teams like Pitt and UConn. In fact, that's how Syracuse will get a lot of its points -- putbacks and second-chance points after the first shot, in the paint, against a condensed man-to-man defense.

3. Push the tempo when possible. Jonny Flynn, much like Pitt's Levance Fields and Notre Dame's Tory Jackson, loves to push the pace and run the fast break. Flynn floats to a wing outlet or creates space in the middle of the floor to catch an outlet pass after a defensive rebound. Because he is such a dynamic scorer himself, Flynn causes mayhem running the break. He has elite scoring options on the wings in guys like Harris, Eric Devendorf and Andy Rautins and bone-crunching trailers like Arinze Onuaku and Rick Jackson. But his ability to pull up and shoot a 3, foul-line jumper or floater, plus his flair for the slash and jam, makes him extremely tough to handle.

Hopefully this guide will help you through the game tonight. Syracuse will try to shut off the backdoor valves of the Hoyas "Princeton on Steroids" offense and control the glass on both ends of the floor. The Orange will also really want to push the tempo and run whenever given the chance.

Georgetown wants to spread Syracuse's 2-3 zone and shred it with ball movement, elusive cuts and solid screens, all while dictating a deliberate and slower pace. If the Hoyas get going early from 3-point range, this game will be very exciting. But if they struggle, and Syracuse does its thing, this could be similarly as ugly as Pitt's win in D.C. two weekends ago.