After another tough loss to a team in the top half of the Big East, Syracuse heads to the Big Apple Tuesday night to take on St. John’s. SU enters the stretch run with a trio of very winnable matchups against St. John’s, Cincy and Rutgers before a road challenge at Marquette caps the regular season. With the Bearcats nipping at the Orange’s heels, it’s important that SU creates some distance so it can hold on to a first round bye in the conference tourney.

‘Cuse has lost to the Red Storm just twice this decade and the Johnnies don’t seem to pose a threat this time around either. Norm Roberts’ squad is devoid of offensive production, having cracked 70 points in just one of its last five games.

St. John’s has battled through a multitude of injuries, and that’s a big reason why their offense is struggling to tread water. Malik Boothe, DJ Kennedy, Rob Thomas, Justin Burrell and Quincy Roberts have all missed time. Anthony Mason, who was going to be the team’s biggest contributor, played just three games before undergoing season-ending foot surgery. It’s understandable, then, that nine different players have started games and that the Red Storm sport an ugly 4-10 record in the Big East.

With the exceptions of Cleveland State and Providence, SU has taken care of business against lesser teams, and it’s hard to see Tuesday night being any different. The overly cautious SU fans will point out that St. John’s was a few breaks away from completing a 16-point comeback attempt at the Garden last Thursday against Duke, but the Blue Devils iced the game with free throws. This game would be a walk in the park for any team averaging 80 points per game, but knowing Syracuse, there’s always the chance this will be a two-possession game with one minute left.

This entry was posted on Monday, February 23rd, 2009 at 10:11 pm by Brian G. . You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.