The Orange broke the seal on the 2009-10 season with an easy win against Albany Monday night, helping Jim Boeheim to his milestone 800th victory. The Great Danes were tremendously outmatched from the opening tip and Syracuse did what they were supposed to do in putting the game away early, primarily in the paint.

The defense was very active all game, by far the most positive aspect of the entire night. The Orange forced an astounding 32 turnovers, recording 21 steals and playing a big role in Albany’s terrible night from the field (27.3%).

Despite not cracking the scoring column for the first 12 minutes of the game, Wes Johnson did a nice job of filling the stat sheet in his ‘Cuse debut with 12 points, eight rebounds, four assists and six steals before all was said and done.  It’s going to be very exciting having him around to cause all sorts of problems for opposing defenses. His scoring will come largely from transition baskets, cleaning up the offensive glass and the occasional jumper, and not so much on dribble drives, and I’m quite ok with that.

Elsewhere in the back of the zone, Arinze Onuaku had a very nice game as he continues to recover. The shooting touch is still there, as he went 6-7, but with only five rebounds, right now he has about as much hops as a can of Natty Light. Kris Joseph played with a newfound confidence, and it was tough to find a reason for Boeheim to take him off the court. Rick Jackson had a quieter effort, but did nothing to warrant any concern either, going 4-4 from the field.

Shifting to the front of the 2-3, Brandon Triche got a little wild, mostly in transition but a few times in the halfcourt sets as well. For the most part, his turnovers came on fast breaks – an erratic pass here or charge call there. Plenty of time for him to work on things, but we could’ve seen much worse from a freshman point guard making his debut. He also wasn’t the only one making mistakes early as the team got a little cutesy trying to show off. He just needs to wait for easier opportunities to present themselves instead of forcing things and I think he’ll be fine.

Scoop was also assertive in getting to the hoop, converting a couple three-point plays and also playing handsy defense. The backcourt combo of Scoop and Andy really impressed me, diving all over the floor and keeping their arms out. Speaking of Andy, it looks like he was taken out of the game as a precaution, and it didn’t look like much more than a little stinger when he landed on an Albany player’s foot.

While Rautins played, however, his game was a little bipolar – his three wasn’t falling but he found his man in the right spot and as mentioned before, was spectacular defensively. We’ve known for three years that Andy Rautins is a streaky shooter, thankfully his cold shooting night came in a game where it didn’t play a vital role in the outcome.

I said in the game preview to keep an eye on the battle between Mookie Jones and James Southerland, but maybe it’s best to look away when Mookie plays. I get that it’s early and he spent most of last year hurt, but he did not help his cause one bit. Terrible decision on both ends of the floor, culminating in one of those “coach’s nightmare” sequences of events late in the second half – missing a pair of free throws and promptly fouling the rebounder of the second shot. You have to hope the rough night doesn’t get in Mookie’s head, but I think he wasted a big opportunity when Rautins went down. To be fair, Southerland wasn’t very good either – he made a couple nice defensive plays but couldn’t get his shot to fall.

Lastly, DaShonte Riley looked solid for a freshman- for him to get meaningful run, I still think it would take a type of scenario where (for instance) AO is too hurt to play and two of Joseph/Jackson/Johnson are in foul trouble, but I continue to feel comfortable in the future of the back of this zone. It’s been awhile since SU had a freshman “true” center who really knew what was going on in the paint, so his development will be fun to monitor as well.

Congrats are in order for Jim Boeheim.  Hopefully he takes a minute from slaving over Robert Morris film to enjoy it.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, November 10th, 2009 at 8:00 am 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.