Now that I’ve gone through my five stages, I’ve decided this is as good a time as any to voice my reflections on Thursday’s loss to Butler and the season as a whole.

SU came out of the gates about as slowly as possible, managing just a single point over the first seven minutes of the game. Sloppy play and turnovers, the team’s Achilles’ heal, also derailed the Orange and made the uphill climb that much steeper. SU was a great team in the regular season, but they didn’t have that much experience playing from behind, especially to start games. Obviously, it’s a situation you never want to find yourself in, but there was no mistaking that the Bulldogs’ start on offense and sound defense frustrated the Orange to no end.

And when SU finally took a four-point lead with five minutes left, they inexplicably slowed the game down rather than going for the knockout blows. For a variety of reasons, the ball was hardly ever in the hands of Wes Johnson and Andy Rautins, the team’s two best clutch performers, in those closing minutes. Scoop had his moments this season, and I think at this point, he’s a better offensive point guard than Brandon Triche, but I think it’s worth noting that the team was 2-4 in games when Jardine took more than ten shots. The confidence is admirable, but even with Onuaku out of the picture, Scoop is no better than a 3rd or 4th option on this team.

I’d be remiss if I didn’t lay some praise to Brad Stevens’ team. He did an excellent job of preparing his troops and they were totally unfazed by the Orange. Gordon Hayward was terrific in the second half and the entire team rattled the Orange throughout the game, even when the Orange had a brief lead. Furthermore, Butler took out the 2-seed Kansas State Wildcats on Saturday to reach the Final Four and get to play a mere seven miles from campus next weekend. Read the rest of this entry »

Despite tempered expectations to begin the season, we’ve known how good this team really is going back to Wes Johnson’s coming out party at Madison Square Garden those two nights in late November . Still, if anyone had told me before the season that the Orange would be a one seed, favored in their third game of the NCAA tournament without their starting center, I would’ve done something drastic, like watch a Freddie Prinze Jr. movie or buy a ticket to a Knicks game.

Fast forwarding to the present, SU is in Salt Lake City to take on the Butler Bulldogs in the Sweet 16. While they come from the nondescript Horizon League, Brad Stevens’ troops hold the nation’s longest current win streak at 22 games, including a spotless run through their conference. They come from a mid-major conference, but they aren’t a mid-major team. If you’ve won 30 games, as both Syracuse and Butler have, you’re doing a few things right. Read the rest of this entry »

All the uncertainty over how SU would play without its starting center was promptly brushed aside Friday night and again Sunday afternoon as the Orange cruised through its first two challenges of the NCAA tournament. In knocking out the Catamounts and Bulldogs this weekend, ‘Cuse proved itself plenty worthy of the number one seed they received from the highly-scrutinized selection committee.

AO aside, Friday night’s victory was one of many balanced efforts that we’ve come to expect all season: the zone rendering Vermont’s attack fruitless (the Catamounts shot just 34.8% for the game), balanced scoring with five players hitting double figures, and a threatening long range game led by Andy Rautins and Wes Johnson. Aside from the last six minutes of the first half when Vermont went on a 14-2 run to cut the lead from 24 to 12, SU was in complete control the entire game, clobbering the Catamounts 79-56. Read the rest of this entry »

For the Big East, the first day of the NCAA Tournament went about as badly as could be. Notre Dame, Marquette and Georgetown all lost, and Villanova surely would be lumped in that group if not for some questionable officiating against Robert Morris, a team SU rocked by 40 in its second game of the season. Sure, the top three teams in the conference have yet to play, Louisville is no slouch either, and I enjoy watching the Hoyas get embarrassed as much as the next ‘Cuse fan. But this has to go down as one of the worst basketball days in the history of the conference. Despite it all, I’m more than ready for Friday’s game against Vermont to finally tip off.

Due to an early exit in the Big East Tournament during which Arinze Onuaku was injured, there’s been a lot of time for anxiety and stressing, as if the dreadful performance by the collective conference wasn’t enough. But when you step away from the ledge, it’s easy to remember that the Orange is playing a team that lost four times to opponents with KenPom rankings lower than 200 and lost to Providence by 42 points. Read the rest of this entry »

Despite late-season losses to Louisville Georgetown and big pushes by West Virginia and Ohio State to propel themselves to top seed status, Syracuse has that claim for the first time in 30 years. The selection committee oddly ranked ‘Cuse below Duke among the top seeds, possibly due to a combination of uncertainty regarding Arinze Onuaku’s health and the fact that the Blue Devils won their conference tournament.

If you go by road record (8-1 for SU, 5-5 for Duke) and pitting the deep Big East against the ACC having the off year it had, putting Duke over SU is definitely a head-scratcher, but we’re not talking about a screwjob of epic proportions. Digging a little deeper, the Orange may actually be in a favorable situation.

The impact of that ranking is that should each team advance to the Sweet Sixteen, Syracuse gets shipped all the way out to Salt Lake City, while Duke has a shorter trip from home to Houston. For what it’s worth, there are three Big East teams in Duke’s region (Notre Dame, Villanova and Louisville) compared to solely Pitt and SU in the West. More to that end, there are seven power conference teams in SU’s region against eight in Duke’s. Not to say that the mid-majors in the West region won’t make some noise, but I’m not convinced SU was slighted in the end, unless there’s a massive SU alumni colony in Houston that I don’t know about.

In other SU news, the chances of AO suiting up for the weekend are about on par with my chances of bringing Bar Refaeli home with me. Since SU lost to Georgetown on Thursday, Onuaku hasn’t been allowed to jog, let alone run or jump on the achy leg. It goes without saying, then, that he hasn’t practiced.

The likely adjustments to the starting lineup would involve Kris Joseph starting, bumping Rick Jackson to center and Wesley Johnson to the 4. Joseph would take the three spot normally held by Johnson, and Andy Rautins and Brandon Triche would man the guard spots as they have all season. There isn’t a lot of dropoff in production when you consider how well Joseph has played this year, but the impact is truly felt when you consider that Boeheim has only used a seven-man rotation and that Dashonte Riley is inexperienced. I think Riley can fill in capably off the bench against a first-round opponent, but as the competition gets better, the margin for error, specifically the ability to withstand foul trouble, will play a much larger role.

A preview of Friday night’s game against Vermont will come later this week.

A big run midway through the second half propelled Georgetown past ‘Cuse, finally cracking the nut after two prior attempts came short. After the intermission, the Hoyas tore the 2-3 zone apart, going off for 54 points on the strength of a 69.2% shooting clip.

Andy Rautins set a career high with ten assists, but the big story, of course, is the status of Arinze Onuaku’s “strained” right knee. With 5:07 remaining in the game, AO tried to block a Greg Monroe shot but landed awkwardly on the floor. Unable to get up on his own power, he was helped by SU trainers and taken to the locker room, followed by his family. X-Rays came out negative and now SU fans sit on pins and needles awaiting results of an MRI to be taken Friday.

Instantaneously, SU fans were reminded of Gerry McNamara’s injury troubles that led to him being ineffective in the 2006′s first round game, and it’s easy to see why. The season takes its toll, nagging injuries become more significant issues with major impact on performance…I get it. But as we speculate on Onuaku, there are a couple of reasons not to be too bogged down:

1. SU is still positioned for a 1 seed, which means that its first opponent will likely be one that SU can defeat handily without Arinze Onuaku. Considering no 16 seed has ever beaten a 1 seed, this will buy AO a couple more days of rest until the second round. Again, without knowing the details, all we can do is speculate, so two days may not turn out to make a lick of difference, but time is always a luxury when dealing with injuries.

2. Whereas Gerry McNamara’s 2006 groin troubles were partially the result of carrying the team on his back for four straight games and having to play five days later, AO will have a full week of rest until the first round game in Buffalo, assuming he can play, which is obviously a variable at the moment, to say the least.

3. There’s also the fact that those opening round games will be in Buffalo, a stone’s throw from campus, which will lighten the load.

For now, all we can really do is wait and hope that nothing is torn, but it’s safe to say that Wes Johnson’s hand is no longer the most scrutinized body part on this team. One could write an epic about Arinze Onuaku’s lower leg troubles, but only now have they become strongly linked with SU’s mortality.

So twice wasn’t enough for these masochists from DC. After putting to bed whatever faint tournament hopes the USF Dominique Joneses Bulls had, the stage is set for the season’s third installment of SU-Georgetown. The last meeting between the two rivals in Madison Square Garden was four years ago, when Gerry McNamara put on one of the top clutch performances in college basketball history.

By now, you know the story of how the first two games of the campaign between the ‘Cuse and the Hoyas went. In Part I, Georgetown raced out to a 14-0 lead before SU snuffed it out and won convincingly at the Carrier Dome. In Part II at the Verizon Center, it was SU who got out to a big lead. The Orange came very close to blowing a 23-point lead, but held on late.

They say it’s tough to beat a team three times in one season, but with the Hoyas having just played Wednesday, I have a hard time heeding that advice. Maybe it’s a law of sample sizes, maybe it’s the fact that Syracuse is clearly better, but it’s tough to see Georgetown upending the outright champion of the conference in its third attempt.

That’s not to say that the third time can’t be the charm, because it very well could be. It’s the Big East in March – crazy things happen:

A player puts a team on his shoulders for four straight games to carry them into the Big Dance.
Games go six overtimes.
Gritty Belgians fall on their heads.
Providence wins.

And I haven’t even gotten into how schizophrenic Georgetown has been this year. They’ve beaten Duke, beaten Villanova on the road, won at Peterson Events Center, but have lost to Old Dominion, South Florida and Rutgers. You just don’t know which team is going to show up.

It’ll be an entertaining game for sure, and Syracuse has a chip in its shoulder as they look for some closure following Sunday’s free-fall at Freedom Hall and put a clamp on their #1 seed. I feel pretty good about saying Syracuse by 12.

By now, you’ve probably caught wind of the comments Gary Parrish made toward an SU fan who questioned his balloting methodology. In case you didn’t, here’s a very quick breakdown, and you can find more details here:

Parrish Article: Kansas is better than SU because SU loses at home whereas Kansas loses on the road.
SU Fans Tweet Collectively: We disagree – conference quality, common opponents, undefeated on the road, etc.
Next Parrish Article: Comment about one female SU Tweeter’s appearance which can possibly be construed as sexist, but definitely unprofessional.

As much as we may disagree with how they vote, dissenting journalists in the minority like Parrish have just as much right to vote how they please, but that’s not what this is about. When Parrish decided to call out one reader with a low reference to her personal appearance, he essentially put himself on the level of a six-year-old and only made himself more vulnerable to criticism, or if you want to look at it another way, more publicity.

Monday afternoon, Parrish went on Brent Axe’s radio show to address his ranking and defend his remarks, but all Parrish did was dig himself deeper when Axe called him out on his remarks. Rather than apologizing, Parrish tried to justify the unjustifiable with the shaky-at-best reasoning of  “don’t dish it out if you can’t take it,” and even questioned how he could have crossed a line if he didn’t know where the line was. Essentially, Parrish was given a golden opportunity to save face and make the only right move there was to make, and he completely blew it.

The victim in this situation is in the process of filing formal complaints to CBS and is considering legal action, and as Twitter is constructed to enable, is gathering up arms and making sure everyone knows about it. More power to her, but I would probably handle the matter in a quieter way. This isn’t over, and for all we know there could be an interesting case study on the impact of social media on mass communications when all is said and done. Read the rest of this entry »