The tale that is SU basketball this season continues to grow. Saturday night, SU creamed Maine 101-55, but the real story was the first half, when SU outscored the Black Bears 60-12. Andy Rautins was throwing 3/4-court bounce passes, the team went on a 32-0 run at one point and Wes Johnson may or may not have dunked from half-court with five Maine players hanging onto his lower body a la Michael Jordan in Space Jam.

The story up until the Colgate game was the series of second half runs that erased doubt from the outcome. More recently, it’s been first half domination. The last two games have seen the ‘Cuse win the opening half by a combined score of 107-28. More astonishing to me is the fact that while SU truly piled it on Saturday night, there wasn’t a single player for the Orange scoring in double figures at halftime.

For those of you waiting for a close game to find out how SU handles a tight situation or who the go-to-guy is in the clutch, that opportunity may come Thursday night. The Orange play the undefeated Florida Gators in a “neutral” game, which is actually far less neutral than last year’s matchup in Kansas City. For SU, it’s a second crack at a top-10 team before New Year’s, which will go a long way towards favorable seeding if they win.

This Florida team has a very different look than last season’s team, with Georgetown transfer Vernon Macklin and Burger Boy Kenny Boynton now in the mix. More to come in the preview later in the week, but we may very well see the closest matchup to date in the still-young season.

This entry was posted on Sunday, December 6th, 2009 at 10:50 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.