Pike has field day

The Syracuse Orange football team concluded their season on a sour note as they were mauled and clawed by Cinncinnati 30-10.

The game was never as close as the final score indicates.  The Bearcats already clinched the Big East BCS berth thanks to WV loss to Pitt on Friday.  If there was a reason to come out flat this was it.  However the Bearcats wasted little time in carving up SU’s defense like a Thanksgiving turkey.  Cincy’s Tony Pike engineered a 9-10 passing first drive that was as simple as pitch and catch.  SU’s defense was determined to not get beat deep and often dropped the entire secondary 10-15 yards off the ball.  It seemed the game plan was to bleed to death.   If it was, then mission accomplished.

On offense, SU decided it was wisest to test Cincy via the air as 5 of the first six plays were passes.  The result, a couple of three and outs.  The passing got no better the rest of the way as Dantley was at one point 1 for 16 on the day.  Of course there was no sign Andrew Robinson or Cody Catalina.  Greg Robinson was determined to take the ship down exactly as he had these last 4 years, his way.  I’m sure he must have been quite emotional in the aftermath of his final game, but I think the only emotion I have is relief.  Relief that this era is finally over.

I am glad his players got him a final win last week against Notre Dame.  But there was really no way they were going to get him a win this week.  Even if you were just looking at stats it would tell you all you needed to know.   The score may have been 13-3 at half, but Pike was already 21-28 for 195 yards versus Dantley’s 1-6 for 5 yards.  If it wasn’t for the penalties the scoreboard would have read something along the lines of 24-3.

It’s odd because just two years ago, these two teams played about as boring a game as I’ve ever seen at Nippert, a 17-3 game where neither team could do anything offensively.  Now look at Cincy’s offense.   Brian Kelly has lifted this program to a BCS bowl game and has done it by using 4 quarterbacks.  Has he earned himself a job at a top program?  I wouldn’t be surprised.

Kelly should be the choice

SU would be wise if it tapped another Kelly to replace Robinson.  Chip Kelly comes in for an interview this week.  And if they can get him to say yes to the job, there would be serious reason for excitement, especially for the offense.  Need proof?  Take a look at the dismantling that Oregon laid on its main rival Oregon St.  The win denied OSU a Rose Bowl berth.

Kelly would revitalize the Orange program.  He has the Northeast ties that many say are necessary to be successful.  He has developed a high powered offense that AD Dr Darryl Gross seems to be enamored with.  Gross must make a sound pick this time because he cannot afford to make another mistake.  Kelly would certainly intrigue fans and hopefully get them to part with their hard earned money and purchase season tickets.   A hire of Kelly would indicate that Gross would like to see that kind
of offensive display versus the safety of a guy like Randy Edsall.

Syracuse cannot and should not be relying on the basketball team to outdraw the football team.  That is a losing proposition.  The Orange has a long and proud football tradition and choosing Kelly will put the Cuse back on track to regaining that tradition.  There is young talent on hand that just needs to be molded and further developed.

Why not bring an exciting brand of offense to the Hill?  I for one would certainly enjoy seeing that.  Hopefully we will find out this week.

Flynn finally came alive in the second half, putting up 16 points and added some free throws towards the end to help ice the game. From the bench, Kris Joseph continues to impress, and tonight he scored ten points and coralled five boards in a personal season-best 26 minutes of court time. I thought Ongenaet would get more than 11 minutes tonight due to the attention Dan Werner commands from beyond the arc, but Werner was in foul trouble all night and Syracuse needed Joseph to help maintain the pace on offense.

Ongenaet’s minutes are quickly decreasing: since playing for 24 minutes against Richmond, KO was on the floor for 17 against Oakland and tonight just 11. Joseph is clearly forcing his hand and depending how he fares against a KU team that looked very good tonight, a starting role may be closer than most fans think.

Once again, SU put on a cardiac show at the charity stripe yet again with a paltry 59.4% showing. Things got dicey towards the end, but a great defensive showing in the last couple minutes denied Florida a go-ahead posession. There were a couple other glaring disappointments, but these could very well be fixed by tomorrow night. The first was Paul Harris’ turnovers. Paul registered his second double-double of the season, but his unforced mistakes led to the game being unneccesarily close. I don’t think this matchup was ever going to be a blowout like the Oakland and Le Moyne games, but the ‘Cuse should’ve had this one sewn up earlier.

Devo going 3-12 from the field and 1-6 from the stripe (yes, he did make the trip) was another troubling aspect in the win. There couldn’t have been more than 4,000 people in attendance for SU-Florida, so maybe it’s a case of him needing motivation from a big crowd and tough opposing team. That being said, the Sprint Center turned into Allen Fieldhouse East for the second semifinal, with Jayhawk fans filling an overwhelming majority of the arena’s 18,500 seats, so Eric won’t have any excuses Tuesday night. While Bill Self, Cole Aldrich, Sherron Collins and the rest of the KU team had nothing to do with the 2003 title game, the hometown crowd is starving for revenge.

Dantley to Davis caps improbable win for Orange

It was a most surreal afternoon at the hallowed ground where Touchdown Jesus spends it days watching over the home Fighting Irish.

I could only image what that statue must have thought while watching one of the more pedestrian match-ups on a day that saw games vie for varies trophies,  like the Olden Oaken Bucket or the River City Rivalry or The Game.

Well it sure wasn’t the prettiest football game I have ever watched.  Neither team really did much to prove that there should be a clear and decisive winner.   Syracuse had a pair of punts blocked.  Curtis Brinkley fumbled an early second half hand off that should have led to an easy game changing touchdown.   Ryan Howard continues to find fielding punts to be a challenge.  And Syracuse showed that it hasn’t practiced defending in the prevent formation.

Notre Dame did its part as well.  The Irish rushed for an anemic 41 yards.  They converted only 4 of 16 third down conversions against a unit that normally allows teams to convert 12 of 16.  When you add in that Notre Dame was completely complacent after grabbing a 23-10 lead and taking it into the fourth quarter where Syracuse hadn’t scored two TDs in the final stanza all season.  Its easy to see how ol TD Jesus wasn’t amused with what transpired in the last 45 minutes of senior day.  Especially odd was witnessing the pelting of snow balls by ND fans at their own players!

The Orange did some things that I haven’t seen all season.  The kinds of things a team whose coach is fighting for his job should be doing.  But alas it was after the job was taken away that we finally see the Orange pull out all the stops.  Why did we have to wait for all this creativity?  Let me list of few of them here:

1)  The Wildcat formation.   Direct snaps to true frosh Antwon Bailey seemed to confuse the ND defense.

2) A half back pass, which would have resulted in an easy 6 if executed correctly, again by Bailey who did manage to hit Dan Sheeran, who made a circus catch that led to a Pat Shadle FG

3) Stacking 8 or 9 in the box on defense. Sure it made Kevyn Scott look bad on a couple of throws to ND wideout Golden Tate, but the strategy made ND’s RBBC approach down right awful.  It also set the stage Arthur Jones to have a career game with 14 1/2 tackles and 1.5 sacks.  He was a man possessed and last night’s scheme allowed him to excel.

Still the Orange had to go win this thing.  And they did in dramatic fashion.  Bailey did all the damage on the first drive that begin at the end of the 3rd quarter, busting out runs of 5, 6, 11, 3, 9, and then 29 yards.  He seemed to get stronger with each run.  And despite what Pat Haden said, it was the type of running that normally was the dominion of Curtis Brinkley.

When Notre Dame missed a 49 yarder, the stage was set for the Pontiac Game changing moment.  Again Bailey went to work – 21 yards, 4 yards, 5 yards, ND’s penalty and Cuse was in the redzone.  It seemed to be in trouble when the Cuse was called for holding.  But Dantley made two big plays – a 9 yard pass to Fiammetta got the Cuse to the 11 yard line.  Then Dantley threw a perfect strike to Donte Davis and the game was ours!  Well not until we had to sweat out the worst coverage ever on a 4th down Hail Mary that I thought was ordered straight from Touchdown Jesus to deliver another cruel blow to hard scrabble Greg Robinson.  But alas it was not to be, Brandon Walker’s 53 yard field goal was short and the Orange had a victory!

I feel great for Greg Robinson, who really is a classy guy.  I feel bad that things haven’t materialized the way he envisioned.  But it was nice to see the players rally around him, chanting Grob!, Grob!, Grob! – even if he thought they were just text messaging him, it was great moment.  A memory to take from a season that most of us would like to forget.  It is a reminder that had the Orange just handled Akron and finished off Pitt when they had them that this team, with all the stuff swirling around them, could have still been in the hunt for a bowl.

Of course it didn’t happen and change wil be occurring.  And while we wait for what could be a Randy Edsall signing, let’s all savor last night’s victory in South Bend!

Will we see more man this year?

The Orange hoops team has gone out and made a big statement to Coach Jim Boeheim.  Let’s play some more man!  The Orange was able to make that statement by jumping out early in the first half and getting off to a comfortable lead and then not looking back.  There was a noticeable effort on the part of the starting 5 to get out and establish that this team can get a lead and keep it.

It just seems that this team is a bit more suited at this time to play man.  The wingspan of Flynn and Devo in the front of the 2-3 isn’t that long.  AO in the middle is not a huge shot blocking force.  But the overall atheleticsm of the team seems best for getting in shirts and harassing the opposition.  When Rick Jackson entered the game, he made his presence felt with a pair of rejections on one of Jonathan Jones’ forays into the paint.  A nice sign of the intensity displayed up and down the lineup.

The good: The first half had alot of nice ball movement by the Orange, not so much in the second half due to the fact that the game was in a cruise control mode for the most part.  There was an intent to move the ball quickly and look for good shots.  Twelve of the first thirteen hoops were assisted.  That is a nice thing to see.

Kris Joseph continues to impress.  He scored 13 points on 6-6 shooting.  Joseph is displaying a knack for getting his production from within the natural flow of the game.  He had a nice flurry in the second half where he scored three baskets within a couple minute span when things were starting to get lax on the court.  I believe that we could see him get even more minutes as his overall understanding of the defense improves.

Arinze continues to be an efficient source of production.  Another perfect night from the field.  He could in theory be our leading scorer if he got the number of looks that the guards have.  He is shooting a ridiculous 79% from the field.  He needs to demand more touches.

Let’s work on this: While it is nice to have a PG who can score, I am not overly enamored with having a point who is the leading scorer.  Flynn again led the way with 18.  He did a nice job of moving the ball around in the opening stanza, but then seemed to enjoy dribbling in the second.  It was good to see him drill some threes.  HIs ast/TO ratio was not good at 4:4.  This has to improve with Florida and Kansas as possible next opponents.

The TOs overall were a problem, especially in the second half when the game was in hand.  Things tend to get sloppy when you lead by 20 and the coach is working in players.  Still ball control needs to be addressed.

Three point shooting is still not firing on all cylinders.  In fact it wasn’t firing much at all.  Rautins and Devo were each 1-6, although Devo’s early 3 set the tone for a fast start.  KO and PH missed their two chucks from beyond the arc and were likely two more threes a piece that JB would rather not see.  Mookie hit his lone three and looked better for having sat in the last game.

Overall, it was a nice win.  Anytime there isn’t high drama in the second half is a good sign.  The team was determined to get off to a fast start and show their coach that they would like to play more man.  They definitely showed that kind of effort last night. At the end of the day isn’t what we want to see at this stage of the season?  One lingering question will be answered this week – just how good are we? Onward to the CBE and we shall see!