TFG: The Orange has made it through the school’s toughest non-conference schedule in recent memory sparkling very brightly. There were only three games away from home, but each of them were against ranked teams, and each of them were victorious. SU could even be undefeated if not for the freak 65-foot buzzer-beater from Cleveland State, but it was just not meant to be. In the non-con portion were two very daunting stretches, one of eight games in 18 days and one of five games in ten days. In the latter stretch, the Orange won the last two of those games without Eric Devendorf. I don’t know about you, but I’m not too surprised that the Orange is in this situation. Don’t get me wrong, I’m definitely pleased, but with all the experience and talent coming back after last season, I thought 12-1 was very much attainable (though not probable or likely). Read the rest of this entry »

That was quite a show. Andy Rautins went 9-16 from three point range and eventually put SU’s lead out of arm’s reach over the Coppin State Tywain McKees. He was on fire, en fuego, made it rain, gimme all three of these, other overused SportsCenter phrases. He tied Gerry McNamara’s school record, but GMac set his mark against Brigham Young in the NCAA tournament, so Rautins will have to settle for the program distinctions of most 3′s made in a regular season game and most 3′s made in a Carrier Dome game. Not too shabby for a guy making just his second start since March 2007. Read the rest of this entry »

With SU facing some major question marks and a Memphis team full of talent, the Orange brushed both aside Saturday night. It isn’t often that a team can shoot 12-26 from the charity stripe, get outrebounded by 9 and still win against a tough opponent in their own house, but that’s just what Syracuse did. With Devo on the sidelines, Andy Rautins slid into the shooting guard spot and held it down capably. Read the rest of this entry »

We’ve seen this movie before, a challenging but beatable mid-major team comes into the Dome and upsets an Orange team for its first loss of the season, but Cedric Jackson’s heave* gives him the award for Best Actor (or worst, depending on your perspective). While some fans may look at this game and see the loss as the result of a freak shot that bounced just the right way off the backboard, they can’t totally disregard it, because had Cedric Jackson’s toss missed, Cleveland State still would’ve have had a chance to win it in overtime. Read the rest of this entry »

After the Orange took a ten-day layoff, it went back on the court, taking control in the second half of Saturday’s game against the Long Beach State 49ers. Just two days later, SU returns to work against the the preseason Horizon League favorite in Cleveland State. The Vikings are coached by Gary Waters, who led Rutgers from 2001-2006. For what it’s worth, Waters went 2-5 against Boeheim during his five seasons in Piscataway. Read the rest of this entry »

Perhaps Paul Harris said it best:

“People don’t realize, when you go through things, this is the only place where you can just let everything out, in basketball. This is what you love to do. It’s a game, you want to have fun. Everything that happened off the court can be off the court.”

It was once again a tale of two halves for the Orange Saturday afternoon. Despite leading by seven going into the locker room at halftime, you got the feeling that perhaps Eric Devendorf’s extracurricular activities were on the minds of the players, or maybe it was rust from a ten-day layoff. After breaks like these, teams either come out shaky and tentative after going so long without playing a game, or they sparkle due to extra time in practice. For SU, it looked like the former in the first half and the latter in the second. Read the rest of this entry »

Yes, it’s been a particularly busy ten days since the Orange walked off the court in another comeback job, against Cornell. Seems like forever ago. After digging through the newest football coaching hire and judicial board hearing, we find lower in the pile of SU sports news a game against the Long Beach State 49ers Saturday at noon. With Eric Devendorf appealing his suspension and Jim Boeheim publicly defending him, there’s no reason to believe he won’t suit up. Read the rest of this entry »

The judicial powers that be have reigned in and Eric Devendorf has been suspended for the rest of the school year, pending an appeal. Where does the process go from here? I’m glad you asked…

1. Devendorf has until 5 p.m. Thursday to notify the university of his intention to appeal.

2. His legal team will then have five business days to put together a formal appeal and submit it. Assuming his attorney takes its sweet time, so as to keep Devo playing as long as possible, this puts us at the end of the day Thursday, 12/18.

3. The university will then have ten business days to review the appeal and make a final decision. I had to include my toes for the count on this one, but I’ve come to the conclusion that the ten-day period will end on January 5.

4. The appeals board can modify or reverse the decision, or order a new hearing.

If this is how things run their course, Devendorf will be able to play in the team’s next seven games against Long Beach State (12/13), Cleveland State (12/15), Canisius (12/17), Memphis (12/20), Coppin State (12/22), Seton Hall (12/30) and South Florida (1/2). That covers the remainder of the non-conference schedule plus the first two Big East matchups. Things shouldn’t get too dicey until then in terms of Devendorf’s ultimate fate with his academic standing.

I’m not going to talk about whether or not he did what he was accused of doing, other than I’ll just say he’s never been one to be mistaken for a choir boy, and the evidence presented makes the ruling conceivable, even if you don’t agree with it.If he’s not going to be a team player, something I suspected from the day he set foot on campus, you would think that he’d at least want to protect his own name and image and not get involved in something like this. I’m not going to go so far as to suggest that all basketball players should have a weekend curfew, because that takes away personal accountability (and makes the rest of the team that much more pissed at Devendorf). When you also figure in that this incident took place Halloween night on a college campus, it’s hard to not to get the idea that alcohol was involved on one if not both sides of the story, convoluting the parties’ recollections of what happened.

Obviously, this whole situation raises a few question marks about the starting lineup and rotation, but I’ll get to those when the final hammer falls. My first impressions, though, are that Rautins will slide into the starting lineup (something I’m totally cool with, considering the circumstances and Andy’s recent play), plus the rest of the bench, especially Mookie and Kris Joseph, could see their roles increased.

How much longer can the Orange continue to pull this off? This is the biggest question racing inside the minds of Syracuse fans. For the fourth time this season, SU was behind at halftime, yet still managed to win. At this point, do we admonish the Orange for coming out flat against lesser teams, or do we laud them for digging out of the holes they create for themselves? You may have your own opinion, but for me, the answer is a little of both.

On Wednesday night, Ryan Wittman became the latest pasty shooter to light up the Orange, canning nine trifectas. Wittman was unconscious from outside, pure and simple. Normally, that type of performance would do the Orange in and send an unruly mob of fans to Jim Boeheim’s doorstep, but it didn’t tonight. You have to credit Wittman, but you must also credit SU’s resolve to counteract his firepower in the second half by sending everyone at him once he put the ball on the ground. Read the rest of this entry »

The Orange look to continue its hot start Wednesday night when they host the defending Ivy League champs. A win over Cornell would give SU its first 8-0 start since the 2001-02 season. You can think of Cornell as the Washington Generals to SU’s Harlem Globetrotters, as the ‘Cuse has won the last 30 meetings dating back to Jim Boeheim’s first season on the sidelines.

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