After heroically leading Syracuse through the Big East tournament, McNamara had an incredibly disappointing performance against Texas A&M that saw him not even make a field goal throughout the entire game. This is the 2nd year in a row that McNamara saves the worst performance of his season for his very last game.
In this one he struggled to get the ball up the court against the pressure defense from
Acie Law and
Dominique Kirk, and often had to give the ball up to somebody else in order to get it across the half court line. McNamara had a few nice passes that resulted in assists, but for every nice pass there was a forced pass into traffic resulting in a turnover.
McNamara appears to lack the first step needed to get by more athletic defenders in half-court situations, a problem that has arisen on many occasions this year for Syracuse. Despite his reputation for being one of the top shooters in all of college basketball, his 34% 3-point percentage doesn't back that up. McNamaras best redeeming quality throughout his college career has been his clutch ability, but against A&M, he was not able to put his team in a position to use this ability, and he sat on the bench during crunch time.
McNamara showed tonight why there are still some very serious doubts about his NBA potential once you get past the sentimental value of the moments hes been a part of in college basketball over the past 4 years. He still has his work cut out for him, likely starting at Portsmouth, to ensure himself of being drafted.
Comments