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 »

Saturday’s landmark victory over Villanova was an exhibition of all the things that have made this season the joy it has been. A zone defense that gives the opposition absolutely nothing in the paint; Andy Rautins making backbreaking threes and handling the ball with poise; a completely balanced effort with no one player making life on either end of the floor difficult, except from the perspective of the other team.

The last of those points is what puts this team in a category with the teams of 1996, 2000 and 2003. Syracuse clobbered Villanova on Saturday night, yet six of the seven players to tally meaningful minutes scored in double figures. Read the rest of this entry »

Here we are. Conference play has flown like Wes Johnson through the air, and the Orange are sitting pretty with three games remaining, leading Villanova in the conference standings by one game. A win on Saturday would seal up SU’s first regular season conference title since the championship campaign of 2003, barring something disastrous against St. John’s and Louisville.

SU’s fanbase has this one covered. The surprisingly successful year has led to fans buying tickets in droves, so much so that Carrier Dome management declared the game “sold out” at a quantity of 34,616, the first sellout in the history of Dome basketball and setting the new standard for on-campus crowds weeks in advance. ESPN Gameday is in the Loud House.  We even have t-shirts! Gerry McNamara’s Senior Day four years ago will be long remembered for the crowd and dozens of Scrantonian buses, but it speaks volumes when the fans rally around the entire team like they have for this one, as opposed to one player. Read the rest of this entry »

For awhile there in the first half, I had flashbacks to TJ Sorrentine. Providence went 10-19 from three during the first half Tuesday night, many of those attempts coming from crazy distances or with Syracuse hands right in the shooters’ faces. While you knew that such a tear couldn’t last forever, this was not your typical basketball game. Providence is a team that scores in bunches, due more to a high number of possessions than shooting accuracy and offensive efficiency.

Fortunately, Syracuse’s defense to start the second half was spectacular and kept the Friars from keeping the game competitive. SU built a 16-point advantage thanks to a 26-5 over the first 9:30 of the second half and never looked back, thanks largely to spectacular performances by Andy Rautins and Rick Jackson

Andy was terrific – with the point guards being mostly absent yet again, he picked up their slack, dropping a season-high 28 points on the Friars, going 8-12 from long range (6-6 in the second half) and popping his dunking cherry about midway through the second half. When the Orange trailed in the first half, he gave them some momentum going into the locker room by canning a trey. In a fast-paced game with tons of possessions, Rautins turned the ball over just twice while playing all 40 minutes.

Down in the paint, Rick Jackson came to play, equaling Rautins’ scoring output for a career high himself. While obliging to match the pace the Friars set, the guards found Jackson often, and he had very little trouble converting 13 of his 17 attempts. The Friars weren’t nearly as quick getting back on D as they were running their gimmick offense, and when they did, they were grossly overmatched by Jackson and Arinze Onuaku, who chipped in a workmanlike 12 and 7.

Now, Syracuse fans can breathe a sigh of relief, bask in a second-round Big East Tournament bye and commence focused anticipation on the Villanova game that will likely determine the conference champion, dictate whether or not the public healthcare option will prevail and end conflict in the Middle East once and for all.

It’s on.

SU’s loss to Providence last January remains as one of the most frustrating losses in Big East memory. The ‘Cuse hung  94 on the Friars that night at the Dunk and still lost, bringing back memories of high-scoring shortcomings to UMass and Rhode Island from 2007. 35 points from Jonny Flynn and 27 from Eric Devendorf, all for naught, thanks to double-figure scoring efforts from 7 Providence players.

The bright side is that five of those seven players have moved on from Providence, and this year’s team is presently locked up with Rutgers in a fervent battle for 15th place in the Big East. Not quite what second year head coach Keno Davis was expecting from a team ranking 6th in the nation in points per game and 11th in rebounds. Read the rest of this entry »

Thursday night’s affair featured a few things seldom seen from the Orange – a collective 90% clip from the free throw line, a dry spell in the second half that saw the ‘Cuse sink just two shots from the field in a span of over ten minutes, a mountain of foul trouble in the first half, and perhaps most surprisingly, Dashonte Riley getting meaningful minutes for the first time in his career (and looking like it, too).

The game also featured a few things we’ve become used to seeing (good and bad) – Wes Johnson dominating, a blown double-digit lead, Andy Rautins catching fire, steady if unspectacular play from the point, and lockdown perimeter defense from the guards.

I wrote before the game about a few things I needed to see reappear before I classify the Orange as ready to make a deep tournament run, and for at least one game, I’ve gotten some answers: Read the rest of this entry »

When the Hoyas met the Orange last month, they came into the Dome with a case of schizophrenia, having knocked off Butler and UConn, but losing to the likes of Old Dominion and Marquette. After SU squashed an early but large hole dug by Austin Freeman, it’s been more of the same for Georgetown – a home loss to USF and a loss at the RAC, which hasn’t been anything close to the road environment it was in the days of Quincy Douby, but wins against a pair of top 10 teams in Duke and a sound victory over Villanova. Oh yeah, they also beat Pitt in their house, arguably the toughest place to notch a road win in college basketball.

If the season ended today, they’d be on the outside looking in at teams with favorable enough seeding to warrant a game close to campus. Since they haven’t won as many as four in a row since December, it would be hard for the selection committee to justify giving the Hoyas a trip to Providence or Buffalo, the two Northeastern sites for the opening rounds.

The Hoyas are something of a land mine, and the fact that they’ve dropped three of their last six coupled with a heated rival coming into town should be enough motivation for them to play well Thursday night, but as has been the case throughout the season, will the execution be there to match?

Read the rest of this entry »

With or without respect to Wes Johnson’s tumble against Providence two weeks ago, the Orange had been walking across coals since their triumphant win against Georgetown last month. First, the close call against DePaul, then big second halves propelling the ‘Cuse to wins against the Friars and Bearcat, a near-meltdown against Connecticut, and finally, some comeuppance against the Cardinals on Sunday afternoon.

Behind lackluster efforts from Scoop Jardine, Brandon Triche and an ice-cold day from the field for Johnson, it felt like SU was pedaling a bicycle through cream cheese just to hang around. Andy Rautins played decently, uncorking a couple of big threes, but I feel oddly comfortable saying that there wasn’t one player for the Orange who I would say played well. I think Arinze Onuaku could have proven me wrong, but he wasn’t given many opportunities. Jardine, and to a lesser extent, Triche, seemed too impatient to wait for the bigs to establish position to feed them the ball, thus abandoning the gameplan that often brings SU the most success. Read the rest of this entry »