Wednesday night, the Orange did a very good job of putting Pitt in the rearview mirror and getting back on track with a good but not great win over Memphis. Sure, there were plenty of highlights…

• Kris Joseph having a Johnson-esque takeover in the second half
• Andy Rautins shaking off the cobwebs at the end of the first half
• Dominance in the paint until garbage time came
• Elliot Williams’ botched dunk, which helped key a 9-1 run to blow the game open

…but execution remained an issue on offense in the first half. Rick Jackson kicked it out to Willie Kemp to start a fast break, the problem being that Willie Kemp plays for Memphis. Brandon Triche looked like the freshman he is. Before Andy Rautins got going late in the first half, he made three turnovers right out of the gate, none of them being the result of anything I would call “rabid defense” by the Tigers. While he didn’t exactly flip a switch in the second half, Andy seems to be emerging from his most recent funk. Looking at SU’s next two matchups, at home against USF and a trip to the RAC, he’ll have a big chance to return to early-season form.

While Bob Knight harped on this for an inordinate amount of time while calling the game, he had a valid point: SU left a lot of points on the floor by missing a lion’s share of bunnies in the halfcourt sets as well as in transition, and Jackson and Arinze Onuaku continued to struggle at the free throw line,  shooting a combined 37.5% from the stripe. Finishing has been a problem now for three straight games, and few things frustrate me more than seeing AO try to lay it in from right under the basket rather than flushing the ball.

The second half went much more smoothly with the Tigers finally clanking their threes which in turn led to some very good transition play – Memphis shot 37.9% while SU connected on 59.1% of its shots in the second half. SU also went nearly 10 minutes in the second half with just one turnover.

Individually, Wes Johnson continues to be a steady offensive force. With a 19-point effort Wednesday night, he’s now scored between 17 and 20 points in 7 of his last 9 games. He’s just automatic.

The two-headed point guard monster wasn’t counted upon to do much scoring, but Brandon Triche and Scoop Jardine had just 4 turnovers (all Triche’s) in 45 minutes. Jim Boeheim said in his presser that while the game situation may have lent itself to Scoop’s style of play, he wanted to give Triche some extra time to basically get his legs under him and give him a jumpstart, akin to a father giving his son a push as he gets on a bike without training wheels. Against weaker teams like next opponents USF and Rutgers, I think we’ll see a lot of Triche as Boeheim tries to mold him into a better player by the time the schedule gets more Gauntlet-y.

Moving on, considering that he picked up three fouls in the first half, I was very impressed with Kris Joseph’s tenacity and overall performance. He was a major spark in the second half, with 15 points and an especially authoritative slam. Wes Johnson has been Boeheim’s Iron Man, but Joseph is proving he can handle the wing when Johnson has to move up to the four.

Glad to see the Orange back on the winning side, but they’re still in the process of returning to their early-season form. As I mentioned earlier, there’s a pair of easy matchups for SU coming up: at home against USF and a trip to the RAC, which gets more neutral every year (I guess being left out of 541 consecutive polls will do that). While SU can’t overlook those teams, there’s no reason why the Orange shouldn’t be able to open up some comfortable leads early on.

This entry was posted on Thursday, January 7th, 2010 at 6:00 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.