The focus for many Syracuse basketball fans this week is Wednesday’s McDonald’s All-American game. The exhibition, of course, includes two players slated to join the Orange in the fall – guard Michael Carter-Williams and big man Rakeem Christmas. The achievement is another feather in the cap of SU’s coaching staff, and the Orange is one of six teams (the others being Louisville, Duke, North Carolina, Kentucky and Ohio State) to place multiple Burger Boys in Wednesday’s game. In case you abandoned the NCAA Tournament in the wake of SU’s loss, that’s two number one seeds, a two-seed, a Final Four team and, well, Louisville. All told, some terrific company. Some Orange fans will hearken back to 2007, the last time ‘Cuse had a pair of high school seniors in the Mickey D’s game, but the situations Carter-Williams and Christmas will face when they get to campus are very different than the ones from four years ago. Where they fit in is a little fuzzy at the moment, but it certainly falls under the adage of “a good problem to have.”

In 2007, Burger Boys Johnny Flynn and Donte Greene smoothly slid into starting roles from the get-go in their freshmen seasons, but Michael Carter-Williams and Rakeem Christmas don’t figure to get a ton of immediate minutes due to the logjams in front of them at their respective positions. With only Rick Jackson leaving and three players coming aboard, there will be plenty of depth, perhaps more than any team in the conference. As I touched on last week, however, the kind of depth SU has leaves some wiggle room for both freshmen to make their cases for playing time. When practice starts in the fall, there remains a chance that both players will make early impacts because there aren’t many players already on the roster who are locks to run away with the lion’s share of available bench minutes next season. Let’s start with Carter-Williams and the guard rotation.

Like it or not, Scoop Jardine is the Orange’s starting point guard in 2011-12. He makes his share of mistakes and then some, but he’s also a threat to score 20 points on any given night and his experience, even if it’s overvalued by Jim Boeheim, puts him at a distant advantage as the incumbent. It’s unrealistic at best that Dion Waiters can run the offense in his sophomore season, and the coaching staff seems committed to keeping Brandon Triche at the two spot in most scenarios. This adds up to an opportunity for Carter-Williams to step in as the backup point guard next season. There have been reports of him developing floor general skills in his senior season at St. Andrew’s, though that’s an area that has been mostly neglected in his high school career. While he may be unpolished in facilitating an offense, it’s a part of his game that should be honed once he’s under the wing of Mike Hopkins, but until then, he’s still a very good scorer. In Waiters, Triche and Jardine, the Orange already have many of those in the backcourt, but in so doing, the Orange has essentially punted the component of running a sound offense. There’s also a concern in how playing time will be distributed among the several guards, (we haven’t even brought Trevor Cooney into the picture yet) – but the focus of this post is simply to take a crack at where the players fit on the depth chart, not how playing time will be chopped up.

Despite the depth SU has stacked in the frontcourt, there isn’t a ton of proven talent here, and this is a place where Rakeem Christmas could step in if the Orange’s current core of inexperienced bigs don’t make the progress needed over the summer. Let’s take a cursory look at that current group.

Fab Melo struggled under lofty expectations in his freshman year, but should improve as his strength and conditioning is stepped up along with practice and repetition. He also needs the playing time in order to get better, and if the last few games of the season are any intention, Jim Boeheim has every intent to give him those opportunities. Baye Moussa Keita was as good defensively last season as he was poor offensively and, like Melo, will be a sophomore. The Ongenaet comparisons are easy to draw, but Ongenaet also lost his starting spot shortly into his second season at SU because he was lost cause on the offensive end and there was some big dude from Philadelphia who could fill in, and that ended up working out alright. DaShonte Riley will be back following his redshirt year and will also compete for minutes after not having many opportunities two seasons ago as a freshman. Add Christmas to the mix and the end result should be a frenzied competition for playing time for a spot alongside Melo.

One theory I have is that Keita will be the odd man out. Christmas and Keita are similar in that both are very raw offensively and more polished on defense, though Christmas’ upside along with his size advantage of about 20 pounds makes him a touch more appealing in my eyes. Keita was viewed as a redshirt candidate last season before DaShonte Riley underwent surgery to fix his foot, but with more bodies with higher upside available this season, it’s very possible that Keita takes a redshirt season in 2011-12. It’s also possible Christmas isn’t quite ready from due to his limitations (specifically, his motor and intensity have been questioned), and we’ll see Keita after all.

Ultimately, I just don’t see many things Keita can do better than Christmas at this point, aside from running the floor. Keita was a surprise in his freshman year, and his experience will be helpful in the long run, but the bottom line is that he would’ve been on the outisde if DaShonte Riley was able to play last season. Jim Boeheim rarely redshirts a player solely to prolong eligibility, but I can see a situation where it would be appropriate to go down that road with Keita. By no means should the seas be parted for Christmas to get playing time, but I think he should get some chances. Riley remains somewhat of a wildcard because it’s been so long since he’s had any playing time and is coming back from an injury, but he should be in the picture as well.

Placing a lot of stock in an exhibition like the McDonald’s All-American game is a fool’s errand. It’s little more than a glorified scrimmage at its heart, but that shouldn’t take away the fun of dreaming about the futures of SU’s brightest stars.

In a way, it’s appropriate that the lightning rod of discussion surrounding SU’s early departure from the NCAA Tournament on Sunday involves Scoop Jardine, the team’s most polarizing player. In a tie game, inbounding the ball out of a timeout with less than a minute left, Dion Waiters passed to Jardine, who left his feet to catch the ball, and came down with one foot on the midcourt line. The referee blew his whistle for an over-and-back violation, but there was one issue: it wasn’t over-and-back; not because Jardine’s foot was on the line, but because on inbounds plays, when a player leaves his feet to catch the pass, the positioning of the player’s feet is irrelevant, provided they’re both in bounds (NCAA Rulebook – Rule 4, Section 3, Article 8):

After a jump ball or during a throw-in, the player in his/her frontcourt, who makes the initial touch on the ball while both feet are off the playing court, may be the first to secure control of the ball and land with one or both feet in the back court. It makes no difference if the first foot down was in the front court or back court.

Now, there are plenty of things that went wrong for Syracuse, and we’ll get to them very soon, but this was a turning point in the game. It gave Marquette an extra possession, and after a Darius Johnson-Odom three and four free throws, it was lights out at Quicken Loans Arena. Referees are constantly under the microscope, but they are paid to know the rules of the game and enforce them by the book. Judgment calls like blocking vs. charging are one thing; to fail to grasp a game situation and apply the correct ruling is more reprehensible. However, you can’t go back and replay the game from that point on, and SU’s next possession, where Jardine hurried a three-point shot vindicated those who believe the call wouldn’t have made a difference, but it’s definitely worth pointing out. There have been several controversial calls this season, but if the close scrutiny gives way to a sea change in the way officials are handled, then I’m ultimately a happy camper.

With that out of the way, officiating was far from the only factor that decided the game’s outcome. The Orange committed 18 turnovers, did a very poor job on the defensive glass and Rick Jackson was rendered innocuous by Buzz Williams’ back line in a way reminiscent of the loss to Louisville. The Orange didn’t have an answer for Marquette’s pressure defense, though the great efforts from Dion Waiters and Kris Joseph shone through.

As for Jardine, his roller-coaster career continues. Even after the Orange got the ball back following Johnson-Odom’s three, Jardine rushed a three-pointer with the shot clock turned off and 19 seconds left in the game. While Scoop has had his moments, his status as the team’s lead point guard has been a product of necessity as much as his ability, with the Orange bereft of backcourt depth.

We may be seven months from Midnight Madness, but the guard rotation is something to keep an eye on next season with the addition of Michael Carter-Williams and Trevor Cooney. While it will rightfully be an uphill battle for the freshmen to get playing time, I’ll just say that I won’t be disappointed if Carter-Williams or Brandon Triche made a serious push next fall. Carter-Williams is a score-first guard, but has dished out plenty of assists in his senior year, and I feel that Triche’s methodical style would suit him well as a facilitator while remaining a deep threat. Dion Waiters, who led SU with 18 points against Marquette, will also return, and has the potential to be one of the best scoring guards in the Big East as a sophomore, which is saying a lot.

The days of Jim Boeheim putting all his eggs in the Scoop Jardine basket may be numbered, though I’ll hold out a faint glimmer of hope that Sunday’s game forces him to put a greater emphasis on ball security and decision-making in his senior season. Dependable point guard play is one of the biggest indicators of NCAA Tournament success, and that’s why Syracuse wasn’t expected to go very deep by the more learned experts. I feel this season was only a slight disappointment relative to expectations back in October, but a disappointment nonetheless. If you had told me Syracuse would receive a three-seed despite losing Andy Rautins, Arinze Onuaku and Wes Johnson, I would’ve had a hard time believing you. At the same time, it’s acceptable for expectations to change throughout the season as the team’s strengths and weaknesses emerge and we learn more about the state of college basketball as a whole in a given season. In that light, it’s a letdown that the Orange were knocked out before they got to Newark.

In addition, the fact that SU was eliminated by a fellow Big East team partially softens the blow. There’s no doubt that the Orange underachieved in the tournament, as did many Big East teams, but the season had its share of highlights, and we saw just how crazy elimination settings can be. We’ll talk more in the coming days about what went right and what went wrong over the course of the season, and what we can do to align our expectations closer to what’s realistic.

The last time the Orange met the Golden Eagles, SU was arguably at its lowest point in the season. The entered the Bradley Center with three straight losses, Dion Waiters was in the doghouse, as was James Southerland, and the team was coming off a 22-point home drubbing from Seton Hall. Things looked their bleakest, and it didn’t get any better for the Orange that Saturday afternoon.

Jae Crowder carved up the zone that afternoon, hitting eight shots from the field and eight from the line. Darius Johnson-Odom, a spotty shooter, scored 17 points on seven shots. The Orange was outrebounded, lost the turnover battle and struggled from the charity stripe, and the Golden Eagles notched a 76-70 win. In March, though, the stakes are raised, and Syracuse bounced back to finish the regular season strong while Marquette stumbled across the finish line. In its first round game against Xavier, though, Marquette put the clamps on the Musketeers defensively, stifling Tu Holloway to a paltry five points on 1-8 shooting in the process.

Friday’s performance by the Golden Eagles appears to be a fluke, though, considering their season to this point. Buzz’s squad doesn’t defend all that well against perimeter shooting, doesn’t apply a ton of defensive pressure, and their inside players provide size but not a ton of skill. Despite inconsistency on the defensive end, especially in the backcourt, the Golden Eagles may be best served to force the issue from Scoop Jardine and Brandon Triche, a pair that hasn’t been playing anything near its potential in recent games.

For the Orange to make the Sweet 16 for its third straight season, the backcourt has to be a significant factor. This is a game in which I see Dion Waiters getting more chances than usual with his ability to drive and either finish or kick (usually finish). Fab Melo has improved significantly since the last meeting, but is still just coming along. The same goes for Baye Moussa Keita, but perhaps no one on the Orange has stepped up more lately than CJ Fair. The freshman had one of the quietest 14/7 games I’ve ever seen and is very smart with his shot selection and ball-handling, considering his height.

In the end, I see Syracuse gutting this one out on Sunday to advance to New Jersey for the regional semifinal, where it would have a massive crowd behind it. The chance of elimination alone should be enough to keep the Orange focused, but the opportunity to play so close to home should make things appetizing for Syracuse. I see a 73-65 win on the horizon.

Todd Golden of the Terre Haute (IN) Tribune-Star covers ISU basketball. He was gracious enough to drop some knowledge on the Sycamores in a Q&A this week.

Judging from the Sycamores’ resume, while they weren’t the favorite of the Missouri Valley Tournament, they did beat regular season champ Missouri State in conference play, and again in the Valley Tournament final to clinch the NCAA bid. At the beginning of the season, did it look at all like ISU could get into the NCAA Tournament?

No. At few points during the regular season did Indiana State look as if it was NCAA Tournament timber. The worm turned when ISU went 7-1 to start the MVC season. That built belief. After a mid-season skid, ISU won five MVC games in a row to end the season, including a key road win at Northern Iowa to finish 12-6. Even then, while the possibility of winning the MVC Tournament couldn’t be ruled out, ISU certainly wasn’t the favorite. Beating Wichita State in the semifinals, a team ISU had trouble with in recent years, was an important step. At that point, but not until that point, did I consider it a realistic possibility.

Assistant Greg Lansing took over the team after Greg McKenna followed former head coach Dana Altman to Oregon. How has he been able to keep the team together and get it performing at the current level?

It was pretty easy. Lansing recruited many of the players and predated McKenna on ISU’s staff. He had the trust of the players and was a confidant of sorts during the McKenna era. It was an easy and welcome transition for the players.

ISU played close with Notre Dame and Purdue in non-conference play before things slipped away. How was the team able to stick with them and what led to the power conference teams pulling away?

They hung in there because their concentration was at a good level. Against ND, they shot well and avoided turnovers, something ISU wasn’t doing with any kind of consistency at that time. They hung with Purdue because of defense (Purdue shot 33.3 percent). They lost because Notre Dame and Purdue both had too many weapons in the end. It’s hard to compare those games to now. ISU’s offensive focus was Dwayne Lathan and Jake Kelly-based. Since the beginning of the MVC season, focus changed to point guard Jake Odum. ISU is a much different team since those two games.

From the time you’ve spent around the team, what is the Sycamores’ mindset right now? Is it a “happy to be here” kind of mentality that we’re used to hearing from lower-seeded teams, or do they feel like they can make some real noise and have confidence after the tournament win?

It’s hard to tell. They project confidence and say the right things. They won’t be wowed by the fact they’re playing Syracuse, they’ve played “name” teams many times, though its been since 2007 that ISU has beaten a so-called good name team. Playing in a NBA arena won’t faze them, they’ve played in Indianapolis several times and some of the Valley venues (Wichita State and Creighton jump to mind) are equal or superior to that of the power conference venues. The enormity of being in the NCAA Tournament? The Sycamores have not done that before. No one expected them to be there, so it’ll be interesting to see how they handle it.

With the Valley holding its conference tournament back in the beginning of the month, almost two whole weeks will have passed between games for the Sycamores. What can you tell me about how the team has been preparing with that kind of lag time?

The idea has been to maintain the edge the team had at the end of the season, when it won eight of nine games. Practices went back to preseason basics, but were also a bit longer at times. There’s not much that can be done outside of scrimmaging and doing basic drills.

Is Indiana State a team that could be harshly impacted from not playing an actual game in two weeks, or will the rest benefit them in the long run?

I think it will benefit them. Like most teams at this point in the season, they had bumps and bruises they got time to let heal. Indiana State had a similar layoff (11 days) in late December and came out of it fine with the 7-1 MVC start. MVC teams always face this and few in recent years have been on the wrong end of a rout. I don’t think the lag time will hurt at all.

Jake Odum’s been impressive as a freshman. What makes him a weapon and is he the kind of player around whom Lansing could build a mini-dynasty?

Dynasty might be a bit strong, but Odum is special, and is certainly the building block with which ISU will grow in the next three years. He has outstanding court vision, basketball IQ, and has enough improvisational flair to go with it to make him very hard to defend. He plays within himself, but not to the point where he ever puts himself in a shell. He’s become more of a scorer in the last half of the season, which has made him doubly dangerous. Certainly, the future is ahead of this program. In many respects, this NCAA Tournament appearance came early. With a good recruiting class coming in, ISU should be among the MVC’s contenders for the next few seasons.

Focusing on the matchup Friday, what does Indiana State have to do to have a chance at pulling the upset? How do you see the game shaping up?

First of all, ISU has to find a way to stop Syracuse’s four-headed scoring monster. Help defense is going to be difficult for ISU to pull off considering the Orange can score in so many different ways. ISU was the best defensive team in the MVC by field goal defense, but this is the biggest test they’ll face this season. It won’t be unlike Notre Dame, and while ISU hung with them for a while, in the end, the Irish had too many scorers to contend with. Equally important, ISU has to avoid turnovers — something it hasn’t always done a good job of this season as lazy passes and poor decisions by some players have hurt in some of ISU’s losses. Syracuse’s zone presents problems, but ISU has a heady point guard and the mix and shooters and drivers to handle it … if they shoot well, of course.

The media has several motifs it likes to throw around when it comes to the Orange, such as the notion that any game played in New York or New Jersey is a home game, despite both being at least three hours from campus. It looks like there could be a similar infatuation with Indiana State’s most famous alum. What is your over/under for Larry Bird references during Friday’s broadcast?

It would make a great drinking game, wouldn’t it? I’d conservatively estimate 20, though one could easily add a zero to the end of that estimate. ISU fans eat it up, though. They love it and they should, not many mid-major schools can claim a NCAA runner-up in their background. With Gus Johnson calling the game for truTV, who knows what kind of Bird references he has dialed up?

Since it’s relevant to SU’s game Thursday against St. John’s, I feel obligated to talk about the horrendous officiating mistakes that took place Wednesday afternoon in the second round between St. John’s and Rutgers. Yes, it was beyond stupid for Justin Brownlee to carry the ball out of bounds with time left, and even farther beyond stupid for him to chuck it in the air, but the blame here goes squarely on the referees, and not surprisingly, it was Jim Burr right in the middle of it all. He made a b-line for the tunnel as soon as the game ended, but not quick enough to elude ESPN’s camera crew and a flurry of deserved criticism and frustration.

I’m very interested to see if and how this crew is reprimanded. As followers of the game, we’re very familiar with Burr’s misadventures. Even the best referees make mistakes, but Bur’s loss of control could be the straw that breaks the camel’s back. If a mistake is obscenely blatant, and takes place on a huge stage like the Big East Tournament, there’s no choice but for the NCAA to address the way it farms out work to game officials. Ideally, the workload of referees, who work on freelance bases, would be reduced to a few games a week. On the flip side, we would see some greener referees brought in who may not be much better, but I don’t see many realistic solutions that would do. So far, the NCAA has acknowledged that a mistake was made, but officiating manager John Adams implied that any action taken wouldn’t affect Burr’s status for the rest of the conference tournament. In my heart, though, I’m just glad that if a watershed moment in the NCAA’s management of referees took place yesterday, it wasn’t at the expense of the Orange.

In any case, St. John’s will be SU’s opponent Thursday afternoon in the Garden, where the Johnnies will hope to avenge a January loss to the Orange. As it did in January, the key for SU on defense will be stopping Dwight Hardy and Justin Brownlee, who went a combined 9-28 from the floor at MSG against the ‘Cuse. For SU, though, a couple things have changed. Brandon Triche has averaged 14.6 points in his last six games, and Scoop Jardine is averaging 17 points per contest with 21 assists against just six turnovers in his last three. One of the adages of tournament success is for a team to have efficient (if not dynamic) guard play, and we’re starting to see just that from Scoop.

At this point, just about all that’s missing is Kris Joseph realizing the vision that so many fans have of him as a gamebreaking swingman who can score from anywhere. It looked like he had turned a corner in February, only to drop off in the team’s last three games. His descent in scoring production (22 points in his last three contests) leads one to believe that he may be the only ‘Cuse player adversely affected by the scheduling nuance that gave the Orange 12 days in which to play its final three games of the regular season.

While Wednesday afternoon’s officiating mistakes left me grimacing and wanting to throw things, March basketball is March basketball, and we should be in for a great game on Wednesday.

Saturday’s 107-59 romp over DePaul may not have taught us a lot about Syracuse, but it did show what the Orange can do when they’re well-rested, motivated, and have momentum on their side, not to mention a little luck and a very bad team in the other locker room. Over the last two weeks, a debate emerged over whether playing three games in 12 days would lead to a slowdown, and we got a resounding “no” as the Orange staved off Georgetown and lead by gaudy margin after gaudy margin on Saturday.  The layoff gave many players on the team a chance to get healthier, and the comfortable disparity SU enjoyed all game afforded a little extra time – no one for the Orange played more than 27 minutes.  It also gave way to opportunities for SU’s reserves, some of whom hadn’t seen extended playing time since November. Mookie Jones got in the mix; Fab Melo scored ten points, culminating in a smooth jumper from the elbow. Closer to the front of the bench, James Southerland displayed his athleticism, and with impressive drives and leaping ability, CJ Fair showed that his ankle injury is behind him. Baye Moussa Keita also had a productive stint, chipping in four points and seven boards. The last five or so minutes gave us a brief a look into SU basketball’s future, with Rick Jackson, Kris Joseph and Scoop Jardine taking in a certain win from the bench.

After St. John’s lost to Seton Hall Thursday night, a window was opened in the form of a shot at the double-bye in the Big East Tournament.  Motivation is always nice, especially against a bad opponent like DePaul. Players can fall into the trap of looking past an unimpressive game to a more important one looming in the near future, and despite what the records imply about double-bye teams in the Big East Tournament*, you’d be hard pressed to find a player or coach who wouldn’t want one. Win the final game, and you’re cruising to your home away from home, Madison Square Garden, with an extra day to do some sightseeing. Lose, and not only are you playing earlier, but you’re stewing on an unsightly defeat for a few days.

*The 7-6 record of Big East Tournament teams with double-byes is slightly misleading – in a tournament setting, every team, except one, loses at some point. Additionally, byes inherently limit the number of possible games a team can play compared to the rest of the field, and subsequently limit the number of possible wins. The fact that double-bye teams have won both conference tournaments since the system was installed before the 2008-09 season tells us that it’s an advantage to not have to play as many games as the rest of the field.

Recently, it was discussed whether SU was starting to peak. At the time, part of me thought the post may have been a little premature. In the Big East, the depth of the conference can inhibit prolonged winning streaks, and just when you’ve beaten a top-ten opponent to give you a boost, one can knock you back down three days later, and there’s rarely a lot of time in which to regroup. While DePaul is a team that can cure all ills, SU winning four in a row coming into Saturday may have also played a role in the game being such a breeze.

Still, the Orange can’t get too high after this one. Even against a bad team, it’s not normal to shoot 70%, outrebound your opponent by 19, and it isn’t normal for Scoop Jardine to dish out eight assists without committing a single turnover. In a matchup that ends as the most lopsided game in the history of the conference, not only do you need one very good team against an awful one, but a little luck is required as well. All in all, Saturday’s game ended the regular season campaign on a great note, and it made for a memorable send-off to Rick Jackson. Now comes the most exciting time of the season, and momentum is with the Orange, owners of the longest current winning streak in the conference.

With the Big East schedulers giving the Orange a full week to bask in a win over Georgetown, the team returns to action Saturday to wrap up the regular season against DePaul at the Carrier Dome. We’ve talked recently about the perceived values, disadvantages, and history of teams with a double-bye in the conference tournament. After last night’s loss to Seton Hall, St. John’s put the fate of the final double-bye spot of this season’s tournament in the hands of SU. With a win tomorrow, the Orange would get another extended layoff, this time until Thursday afternoon. With a loss, they would still get one day off.

As mentioned earlier this week, the Blue Demons’ leading scorer, Cleveland Melvin, will be out with a sprained thumb, which makes a hard job all the more improbable for Oliver Purnell’s charges. Melvin is one of two nice building blocks for Purnell, and the other is Brandon Young. The point guard has averaged 12.7 points per game, is a developing three-point shooter, and is coming off back-to-back 20-point games in Melvin’s absence (though be advised that those 20-point games came against Rutgers and South Florida). With the Orange struggles defending the perimeter, he could have a big game.

There’s not much to be concerned about after Young. Tony Freeland is a decent wing who drives a lot, but has trouble converting from the stripe with a 59.2% clip. He put up a 24-point performance against Georgetown way back when the Hoyas were losing out of the gate in conference play, but has only scored in double figures three times since. At 6’10, Krys Faber has the height to be a good rebounder, but only pulls down 5.4 boards per game, and the back line drops off significantly after him. It’s the perfect recipe for Rick Jackson to cruise on offense, provided his teammates feed him the ball.

Saturday will also provide a chance to see where CJ Fair, Dion Waiters and Baye Moussa Keita are in recovery from their various health issues. It’s an interesting scenario, because if the Orange builds a big lead as they should against DePaul, the starters should get some rest and test out the , but at the same time, the coaching staff would probably like to play it safe with its reserves and not risk re-aggravation, so the distribution of playing time will be something to keep an eye on. As long as the team isn’t rusty after a weeklong break and isn’t looking ahead to playing in New York City next week, expect a comfortable win.

Saturday afternoon’s matchup against DePaul is the Orange’s last home game of the 2010-11 season, and it will be the Carrier Dome swan song for the team’s only senior, Rick Jackson. While his contributions this season have been well-chronicled, his reliability over his entire career on the Hill has been overlooked by many, in my opinion. In the time since Hakim Warrick left for the NBA in 2005 until Jackson’s arrival as a rotation regular in 2008, consistent post production was near-impossible to come by. The struggles of Terrence Roberts and Darryl Watkins were emblematic of the 2004 recruiting class; Donte Greene set up shop down low rarely, if ever, and while Arinze Onuaku was steady in his production, he remained shaky in stamina.

This season, Jackson has been as sure a thing as there’s been in the back of the zone since Warrick dunked everything from the low block and skied for rebounds he had no business getting. Rick’s steadiness has been more pronounced this season, as Baye Moussa Keita and Fab Melo have taken their lumps and DaShonte Riley hasn’t been a factor all season, rehabbing from surgery before the start of the campaign. Opposing coaches have made Jackson a focal point when planning their defensive schemes, which has left opportunities for his teammates to make bigger contributions, even if those opportunities haven’t been cashed 100 percent of the time.

Jackson came to Syracuse with his high-school teammate, Scoop Jardine, from Neuman-Goretti in Philadelphia (drink!). Scouts and college coaches liked his back-to-the-basket offensive game and fawned over his rebounding ability. The 10th-ranked center in the class of 2007, Jackson was ranked behind DePaul defector Mac Koshwal and South Florida big man Gus Gilchrist. Spurning offers from schools all over Philly, Jackson committed to SU fairly early in the recruiting process, in the fall of his junior year. Though Jackson and Jardine were rumored to be a packaged deal, an easy presumption to make, that wasn’t the case. Jardine gave his word to Mike Hopkins in September, and with Jackson still available, Big East coaches flocked to his games in a last-ditch effort to nab him. Soon after, Rick decided to follow his teammate to SU, rewarding the Orange’s deeper connection to the power forward.

His first year on the hill was spent platooning in a reserve role with Kristof Ongenaet behind Onuaku and occasionally spelling Greene. Averaging 12 minutes per game, Jackson didn’t have much responsibility aside from helping keep the team in games, but it was easy to see his potential when he played against weaker schools. As is the tendency for freshmen in the Big East, when league play rolled around, minutes became harder to come by. It was Ongenaet’s first season with Syracuse as well, but the Belgian had built collegiate experience playing juco ball, and that experience, coupled with his defensive intensity, endeared him to the coaching staff as Jackson adjusted to college life.

That portion of the depth chart carried over to the start of the following season, but after Donte Greene left for the pro ranks, a big scoring void was left in his wake. Ongenaet slid into the starting forward spot and Arinze Onuaku manned the middle, but Ongenaet struggled to contribute in replacing the lost offensive production. Eleven games into the season, Jim Boeheim pulled the string and replaced Ongenaet with Jackson for SU’s game at Memphis, where he helped the team win despite the loss of Eric Devendorf to suspension. In his recap, Brent Axe had the following to say about Jackson in his first career start:

Rick Jackson made his debut starting at power forward and responded with what was far and away his best game as an Orangeman. Jackson had 14 points, tying his career high, and was all over the place on the defensive end, making all kinds of hustle plays that won’t show up in a boxscore.

As it turns out, that last part can be used to describe nearly every game in Jackson’s career since, though these days, his hustle is louder in the box scores. Given 24 minutes per game in conference play his sophomore year, Jackson developed his post game as an inside threat alongside Onuaku, and on defense, showed all the ability that Ongenaet displayed and then some. Still gaining his footing, Jackson remained limited against more experienced post players like DeJuan Blair, Hasheem Thabeet and Louisville’s athletic tandem of Earl Clark and Terrence Williams. He was clearly overmatched by an absolute beast in Blake Griffin in the Sweet Sixteen. However, in posting four double-doubles in the season, including one in the first round of the NCAA Tournament, the coaching staff’s vision of Jackson in a bigger role started to materialize. Given twice the playing time from his freshman year, his production increased commensurately, jumping from 3.7 points per game to 8.3.

As the incumbent in 2009-10, and with Ongenaet no longer there to back him up, Jackson’s role as a complementary player grew, but signs emerged that he could be much more than that. His coming-out party came in Tampa, when he registered a career-high 21 points on a 9-13 line from the floor to go with 13 rebounds as the Orange beat Florida for the second straight year. Onuaku appeared to be playing on borrowed time with leg troubles plaguing his ability to get up and down the court and elevate for rebounds. As a result, Jackson and Wes Johnson combined to haul in nearly six boards per game, with Jackson leading the team at 7.1 per contest. In a fast-paced battle with Providence, he notched another career-high performance with 28 points, and followed it up with a huge game against Villanova in front of a record Dome crowd. In the conference tournament, Onuaku’s season ended early when Greg Monroe collided with the Orange big man. Boeheim played things close to the vest when it came to disclosing the extent Onuaku’s injury, but the truth was that it was bad enough that he would have to rely heavily on Jackson in the NCAA Tournament. Jackson helped carry the load on defense, averaging nine rebounds in three tournament games, but as the lone post threat on offense, opposing teams could give him more attention without worrying about getting burned by Kris Joseph and DaShonte Riley, who were also thrusted into elevated roles.

After the tournament loss to Butler, Boeheim ordered Rick Jackson to drop some weight over the summer in anticipation of a big senior year. Fab Melo and Baye Moussa Keita would be on the way, and DaShonte Riley would be a sophomore, but all three carried different shortcomings. For Melo, it was a lack of high school development, having only played the game for a few years. For Keita, it was strength, and for Riley, a foot problem that would eventually require surgery to end the season before it even started. Last fall, Jackson showed up to campus 25 pounds slimmer, and through 30 games, his conditioning program has enabled him to play over 35 minutes per game while averaging a double-double. Furthermore, only three times this season has Jackson failed to crack double figures in both scoring and rebounding. Against Detroit, he held a clinic, pulling down 22 rebounds. He got busy in Tampa once again with a season-high 21 points and 12 boards. He’s also showcased an ability to alter shots – on February 19, he blocked seven Rutgers attempts and had six swats in the team’s biggest win of the season so far, against Notre Dame. Steady from under the basket, his 59.1% shooting percentage rivals that of AO. Put it all together and you have a legit all-conference post man.

Now in the home stretch of the season, it’s become clear that as Rick Jackson goes, so go the Orange. In the team’s current four-game win streak, Jackson has averaged 14.5 points and 8.3 rebounds. In SU’s last three losses, though, he’s averaged just 8.3 points and 6.3 boards. In Jackson’s first three seasons, he was never asked to be the focal point from a scoring standpoint, but in an up-and-down season, he’s been the Orange’s only consistent option. It’s fitting, then, that Rick will be the lone senior honored this weekend.

The calendar has turned to March, and the most exciting four weeks of college basketball are upon us. While the Orange has had its share of March sadness in recent years – TJ Sorrentine, NIT berths, Johnny Flynn hurting his back, and Greg Monroe plowing into Arinze Onuaku – it’s also given us Gerry McNamara’s wild ride of 2006 and six overtimes. We’ll talk more in the coming days about what SU can do in the Big East Tournament to raise its seed for the NCAA Tournament and what has to happen in order for the Orange to climb over the Sweet Sixteen hump that has stopped them short of playing a fourth game the last two seasons, but today, we’ll take it a little slower, realizing that there is still one game to play in the regular season, even if it is against DePaul.

As for Saturday’s matchup, whatever small hope DePaul has of an upset in the Dome (hey, Seton Hall did it) likely went down the tubes Monday when it was confirmed that leading scorer Cleveland Melvin would be shut down for the season with a sprained thumb. He injured the thumb in the Blue Demons’ loss to St. John’s and sat out against South Florida. Not only is Melvin the team’s leading scorer, he’s also a Big East Rookie of the Year candidate, averaging over 17 points per game in conference play, and while DePaul was unlikely to make any waves in the postseason, you can’t help but feel badly for Oliver Purnell. He’s a decent coach who took the job knowing it’s the most challenging one in the conference, and even considering the hurdles in recruiting to DePaul, the cupboard left by Jerry Wainwright was almost completely barren. Melvin wasn’t even a Wainwright holdover – he decommitted from UConn after Purnell was hired, wanting a school that would play him at the wing instead of in the post as a four. For Syracuse, though, it’s another big player out with an injury (following Chris Wright’s broken hand), and another opportunity to build some confidence heading into the postseason.

Another point I wanted to touch on is the value that Syracuse’s wins over Notre Dame and St. John’s have built over the course of conference play. Back on New Year’s day, when SU disposed of the Irish, Mike Brey’s team had built a decent non-con resume. There were wins over Wisconsin on a neutral floor and over Gonzaga at home, plus a fairly innocuous de facto road loss against Kentucky mixed in with some cupcakes under the sub-100 mark in Ken Pomeroy’s rankings. At the time, Notre Dame was viewed as a good Big East team that looked like it would finish somewhere in the second tier as it usually does. Since losing to the Orange, however, Notre Dame has taken down Louisville, Connecticut, Pittsburgh, split with St. John’s and embarrassed Villanova Monday night. The Irish spent all February in the top ten, but even with the exposure in the Big East, it seemed like no one noticed until they caught fire against the Wildcats.

St. John’s story this season is more familiar to hoops fans – they haven’t lost at the Garden since January 22, showcasing impressive performances inside the conference and out, crashing the AP polls for the first time in more than a decade last month. SU blew out the Johnnies at MSG in mid-January, but if it comes to be that St. John’s and the Orange battle in the Big East Tournament, it may as well be considered a turf war.

The Big East schedule has always been chock-full of opportunities for marquee wins, but it’s hard to recall a season where January Big East wins have grown in value the way the ‘Cuse’s victories over Notre Dame and St. John’s have this season.  One meme for Syracuse the last two seasons has been the downfall of non-conference foes that were supposed to enjoy successful seasons. After Syracuse’s coming-out party against North Carolina and Cal last season, both teams failed to make the Big Dance, as did Memphis. Florida barely squeaked in as a ten-seed. This season, Michigan State still needs wins to feel good about its security in the tournament, and the Wolverines are making a last-ditch attempt to crack the field in a down year as well. Northern Iowa collapsed in the Missouri Valley after making national headlines last March. NC State and Georgia Tech’s coaches may not be around next season. In conference play, though, SU’s resume has received a boost from some unexpected schools, and for that, fans can thank Mike Brey and Steve Lavin, who have their teams rolling into the best month of the year.