">
Is Tonight The Night?
So here we are, halfway through the Big East slate and SU is sliding and spraining its way to the middle of the pack in the conference. The latest episode of As The Orange Turns has featured two injuries, an assurance that one of those injuries would be a non-issue going into Wednesday night’s nationally televised game and then something of a renegging on that reassurance, as Pete Moore, the team’s media liason, was quoted as saying that Arinze Onuaku will be a gametime decision once again. The Orange also pulled off the notable feat of scoring 94 points against a decent team on the road, with just six players scoring.
On top of that, it’s hard to tell what’s going on inside the head of Paul Harris outside of his amateur rap video production endeavors. What we do know is that he’s failed to crack double figures in his last three games. Correlation may not equal causation here, as Harris pulled his load against Cleveland State and Georgetown, but when the team is not 100% healthwise, everyone who is physically able must show up, no questions asked.
You know what would be a nice distraction from all of these issues? A win. With the weeklong break after the Providence loss, there are two schools of thought. One that says the break is good and allows the team to rest and gives it more time to review what went wrong and take steps toward correcting those mistakes, and another that says it’s bad and allows a loss to fester and become larger than it probably should be. I subscrube to the former, but that’s probably just me shooting sunshine and lemondrops out of my arse. Watch out, those lemon drops will getcha.
The Mountaineers are flying somewhat under the radar with a .500 conference record, but each of their four losses in conference play have come to top ten teams: UConn, Marquette, Pitt and Louisville. As we’ve come to expect, a limited Orange roster will mean plenty of zone. Of course, that means catch-and-shoot specialist Alex Ruoff will get his share of chances to light it up from beyond the arc. When the ‘Cuse were rocked in Morgantown last season, Ruoff was an inferno, going 7-11 on his threes.
Perhaps a bigger question is SU’s rebounding ability if Onuaku can’t suit up, and with Arinze’s history of knee problems, you have to figure that even if he does suit up, he probably won’t be all that close to 100%. Rick Jackson has picked up a lot of the slack, but he hasn’t had much help. Over its last three games, SU has been outrebounded 45-34 on the offensive glass and 116-98 overall. West Virginia is no Pitt when it comes to cleaning up the glass, so a hobbled Arinze will make life better for Devin Ebanks, Da’Sean Butler and company.
