Louisville Stuns Syracuse at the Carrier Dome

          In front of a massive crowd of 31,053 fans at the Carrier Dome, which happened to be the largest SU crowd so far this year, the Louisville Cardinal (7-5 Big East / 16-9 overall) shocked the No.2 ranked Syracuse Orange (11-2 Big East / 24-2 overall) to win 66-60.  This win was absolutely huge for Louisville, a team which desperately needed a solid Big East road win for their NCAA tournament resume, as they came into the game today on the NCAA Bubble according to "bracketologist" Joe Lunardi....joke.  Moreover, Louisville came into Sunday’s Syracuse game lugging a 1-4 Big East road record, which is very unlike the stellar road teams that Louisville Coach Rick Pitino has fielded in years past. The Cardinals’ latest defeat happened in New York, where St. John’s absolutely owned them 74-55 on Thursday.  Louisville, a No. 1 seed in last year’s NCAA Tournament, has resided on the tournament bubble for the past couple weeks. The Cardinals had lost five of their last eight games before beating Syracuse.

       “We’ve played very good basketball this year. We’ve gotten bad breaks,” Pitino said. “I thought we had the West Virginia game. I thought we had the Pitt game. We were right there to win both games, and we wouldn’t be worried about a road victory to get yourself on the bubble if things would have gone our way.”

 However, the luck and certainly the calls seemed to all go in the Cardinal's favor today in the Dome, as Syracuse couldn't buy a call in the last 10 minutes of the game.  The one major questionable call that I'm sure left every SU fan fuming in their seats was the intentional foul call on Kris Joseph. 
       Syracuse’s Kris Joseph was whistled for an intentional foul with 17.8 seconds left in Sunday’s game, as the call came after Wes Johnson drove the baseline and missed horribly a twisting lay-up that was blocked by the under side of the backboard, however, could've been a call against Louisville, as I don't know many times Wesley Johnson gets rejected by the backboard without any foul coming into play. Anyway, Louisville’s Jerry Smith corralled the rebound and Smith turned his back on Joseph to protect the ball.  Joseph then pulled back Smith's shoulder to either immediately foul or strip away the ball and was called by Tim Higgins to be an intentional foul.  Neither SU coach Jim Boeheim nor Joseph understood the intentional aspect of the foul. Louisville had reached the double bonus, so Smith would have been awarded two free throws anyway. But the intentional foul allowed Louisville to retain possession. Smith sank both of his free throws to cushion Louisville’s lead to 64-60.

     “It was right in front of me. He hit him right on the shoulder,” Boeheim said. “He went for the ball and hit him. He didn’t grab him. I don’t know where (it was) intentional. It probably doesn’t matter. The kid makes the two free throws.”

     “I didn’t foul him that hard. There definitely was some acting involved,” Joseph said. “I just tried to go for the ball to get him to go to the line and shoot the double bonus. But the refs saw it differently. He’s just doing his job that he gets paid to do, so I’m not going to argue with the call.  “The ball was by his shoulder,” Joseph continued. “I just tried to reach over his shoulder, and he made it seem like I pulled him or pushed him or whatever the case may be. And the ref called it intentional.”

Game Analysis/Thoughts:

    Overall, SU's lack of defensive and offensive intensity and aggressiveness has definitely shown itself these last fews games.  Hopefully, SU is simply hitting a mid season slump and will use this defeat as a means of pushing and motivating themselves going forward.  The major factor in this game was the total lack of effectiveness of SU's offense, as Wesley Johnson scored 14 points, yet went 5 for 20 from the field.  Overall, SU shot 41% on 24 of 58, with 26% from downtown with 5 of 19 shooting.  These numbers will have to improve against Georgetown on Thursday, or SU has no chance of victory.  Syracuse needs to push the ball up the floor more often and take advantage of their length and height down low.  Most importantly, Syracuse needs to get back that killer edge mentality that has brought them to top 5 in the country.  They have tremendous talent and experience and were simply outplayed at the end of this game.  Their defense needs to sure up against the 3, as they gave up some costly three pointers with only minutes left in the game. 

Game Stats:

LOUISVILLE CARDINALS


STARTERS  PTS

Terrence Jennings, F  4

Samardo Samuels, F  8

Edgar Sosa, G  12

Jerry Smith, G  2

Preston Knowles, G  10

BENCH PTS

Kyle Kuric, G 0

Jared Swopshire, F 10

Peyton Siva, G  0

Rakeem Buckles, F  8

Mike Marra, G 12

TOTALS = 66


SYRACUSE ORANGE

STARTERS  PTS

Wesley Johnson, F  14

Rick Jackson, F  6

Arinze Onuaku, C 12

Andy Rautins, G 12

Brandon Triche, G  0

BENCH  PTS

Scoop Jardine, G 6

Mookie Jones, F 0

Kris Joseph, F 10

TOTALS = 60


Technicals: None

Officials: Tim Clougherty ,Tim Higgins ,Bob Donato

Attendance: 31,053


BIG EAST STANDINGS:

Standings Conference - Overall


Big East Wins : Losses - (Games Back) - % -  Overall Wins : Losses - %

Villanova 11 1 - .917 - 22 2 .917

Syracuse 11 2 (½) .846 - 24 2 .923

West Virginia 8 4 (3) .667 - 19 5 .792

Pittsburgh 8 4 (3) .667 - 19 6 .760

Georgetown 8 5 (3½) .615 - 18 6 .750

Marquette 7 5 (4) .583 16 8 .667

Louisville 7 5 (4) .583 - 16 9 .640

Cincinnati 6 6 (5) .500 - 15 9 .625

Notre Dame 6 7 (5½) .462 - 17 9 .654

South Florida 5 7 (6) .417 - 15 9 .625

Seton Hall 5 7 (6) .410 - 14 9 .609

Connecticut 4 8 (7) .333 - 14 11 .560

St. John's 4 8 (7) .33 - 14 10 .583

Providence 4 9 (7½) .308 - 12 13 .480

Rutgers 3 9 (8) .250 - 13 12 .520

DePaul 1 11 (10) .083 - 8 16 .333