Cuse Blow up with Fab Melo / Week 13 Huge Implications!!

Big East Tourney - Thursday Surprises??

UPDATES:

Notre Dame upsets Pittsburgh:  50 to 45

Georgetown upsets Syracuse: 91 to 84

Marquette upsets Villanova: 80 to 76

Prediction:

Cincinnati will lose to West Virginia: 62 to 54

Response to SJ Regarding The Cuse

Thanks for the input SJ

Syracuse Blasts Villanova out of the Dome (Video Blog)

Syracuse to become new Number 1 team in the country on Monday due to the upsets against Kentucky and Kansas today.
            
7 Villanova 36 41Total = 77


4 Syracuse 46 49 Total = 95


UP NEXT: Senior Night at the Dome against St. Johns Tuesday at 7pm

Syracuse Orange Oust Providence Friars on the Road (Video Blog)

NEXT UP:  SYRACUSE VS. VILLANOVA SATURDAY NIGHT AT 9PM

Syracuse vs. Georgetown Video Blog

Sorry about the first image, but it gets better!



SYRACUSE ORANGE

STARTERS  PTS


Wesley Johnson, F  16  (4 fouls) (Played all 40 minutes, but didn't do much in 2nd half)


Arinze Onuaku, C  2   (Fouled Out) (Foul trouble took him out of the game, not a factor offensively)


Rick Jackson, F  12  (Fouled Out) (played well down low, hit some huge shots throughout)


Andy Rautins, G  26 (4 fouls)  (5 of 9 from three point land)


Brandon Triche, G  8 (played tentative, but hit some big shots)



BENCH PTS


Scoop Jardine, G  0
Kris Joseph, F  11 (once again played well off the bench, especially late)
DaShonte Riley, F  0


TOTAL: 75




GEORGETOWN HOYAS
STARTERS  PTS


Julian Vaughn, F  0


Greg Monroe, C 20 (Monster numbers late in the game)


Chris Wright, G  20 (proved me wrong, played well and took it to the Cuse, made Rautins work)


Austin Freeman, G  21 (Huge in the second half, nothing in the first half)


Jason Clark, G 8  (Big miss from 3 with under a minute left)



BENCH PTS


Hollis Thompson, F 0
Vee Sanford, G  0
Jerrelle Benimon, F  0
Henry Sims, C 2



TOTAL: 71





Technicals: 2 GTOWN ( C Wright 1 ) SYRACUSE ( A Rautins 1 )
Officials: James Breeding ,Jim Burr ,Jamie Luckey
Attendance: 19,976

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

Syracuse Pulls Out a Nail-Biter Against UConn

      With 24,847 people shaking in their boots in the Carrier Dome, the now No.2 Syracuse University Orange improved to a school best (24-1) overall, as they barely escaped with a win against conference rival UConn 72 to 67.  Syracuse leap frogged the Kentucky Wildcats to move to No.2 in the country in the AP Poll, however, they continue to be No.3 in the Coaches Poll.  Overall, SU played like the No.2 ranked team in the country for most of the game, but couldn't put the finishing touches on the Huskies when they needed to in order to blow out UConn.  However, SU did respond positively when it counted most in order to shoot an incredible 82% from the line to clinch the victory in the closing seconds of this Big East Battle.

        This game was much tighter than what it should have been, as The Cuse squandered a 16 point lead in the second half, as their defensive intensity waivered to allow Uconn Guards Jerome Dyson and Kimba Walker to slice into the Cuse 2-3 zone and create solid scoring opportunities for themselves and others.  Walker's not known for his shooting ability, yet made 3 teardrop shots with under 8 minutes left in the game to keep the Huskies cutting into the SU lead.  Walker ended up with 14 points on the day, while Dyson added 19 points.  Dyson went 0 for his first 4 from downtown, but then hit two huge three pointers with under 4 minutes left in the game.

       With under a minute left in the game, Uconn and The Orange were tied at 65 to 65.  UConn had the ball and was looking to take the lead.....Kimba Walker brought the ball down the floor and to no one's surprise, Jerome Dyson pulled the trigger on a 3 pointer that would have put some serious pressure on Syracuse to do the same.  For the Cuse faithful, luckily Dyson was slightly off on his shot, as Kris Joseph got the rebound.  After a timeout, Syracuse Guard Andy Rautins rushed and missed a contested 3 off an inbounds pass, but Syracuse Center Rick Jackson rebounded to give SU the ball back.  However, at that moment Scoop Jardine drove to the bucket, unsure of what to do, and missed a layup that was blocked.  Somehow, Orange coach Jim Boeheim called a timeout with 36.6 seconds left and 32 on the shot clock, which apparently was before Jardine's bad attempt at a layup.  Overall, with SU regaining the ball it put them in the drivers seat to scrape out a victory, Johnson was fouled by Robinson as soon as play resumed and sank both free throws to give Syracuse a 67-65 lead with 30.4 seconds left.  Kris Joseph then followed with two more free throws with 11.5 seconds to go to make it a two possession game. Walker hit a layup to cut the lead back to a basket, but Joseph sealed it with two more free throws after he was intentionally fouled by Majok on a breakaway with 5.8 seconds left. 

**Analysis:

Solid win for the Cuse, but definitely showed that they're vulnerable to strong guard play from up top and around the foul line area.  Too many holes were exposed late, The Cuse weren't pumped up to play tonight.  They were expecting to win, but didn't want to put the nail in the coffin.  Nothing's easy in the Big East and that was proven tonight.

STATS:

Connecticut

Player Position **(Minutes- Points)

S Robinson F 36 -16

A Majok F 11 - 2

A Oriakhi C 13 - 0

K Walker G 38 - 14

J Dyson G 34 - 19

G Edwards 37 - 12

C Okwandu 19 - 2

J Coombs-McDaniel 8 - 2

Total = 67


Syracuse

Player Position **(Minutes - Points)

W Johnson F 40 - 13

R Jackson F 28 - 15

A Onuaku C 21 - 7

A Rautins G 33 - 8

B Triche G 26 - 8

K Joseph 31 - 14

S Jardine 21 - 7

Total = 72

 

Syracuse Barely Holds Off Depaul While Georgetown Dominates Duke

     It was a very stressful day for Syracuse coach Jim Boeheim and the rest of the Syracuse faithful, as the No.4 ranked Syracuse Orange (21-1) barely improved to 8-1 in the Big East by holding off the last place DePaul Blue Demons (8-13) 59 to 57 in Chicago, Illinois, Saturday afternoon.  The Blue Demons came out of the gates on fire, as they were shooting over 70% early on in the contest.  Clutch three point shooting and a barrage of dribble drives completely exposed the holes in the Orange two-three zone defense that had up to this point in the year completely confused the rest of the Syracuse opponents. 
        DePaul was led by Guard Will Walker who shot 5 of 12 from downtown and ended up with 21 points on the day.  Walker's sidekick, DePaul forward Mike Stovall also added 9 points to help bust out the DePaul lead to 18 points over the stunned Syracuse Orange that obviously had underestimated their opponent.  However, The Cuse shouldn't have overlooked the Blue Demons, even though their record is below .500, earlier this month they had beaten a tough Marquette Golden Eagles squad that just beat UConn and has played almost everyone tough so far this year.  Nonetheless, the Blue Demons 18 point lead in the first half was brought down to only 4 points at half time, as Kris Joseph came off the bench and once again played like a star, as he kept the crowd out of it for a while, as he dunked over Blue Demon defenders and had a number of layups that DePaul had no answer for on defense.  Iowa State transfer sensation Wesley Johnson also kept the Orange in it, as he put up 16 points on 7 of 15 from the field, and also dished off 7 assists to lead everyone. 

        Even though the SU scoring attack was somewhat balanced, the Orange only ended up with 59 points on the day, a drastic difference from their over 80 point average up until this game.  However, the most important factor in this game was that DePaul couldn't put away the struggling Orange, as SU scratched and clawed to stay within 9 points of the Blue Demons with under 7 minutes left to play.  At that point in the game, the Cuse went on their final run.  Trailing 52-43 with under seven minutes left, Joseph hit a 3-pointer to start the go-ahead run.  Andy Rautins then connected from the outside after DePaul's Michael Bizoukas threw the ball away and then a surprising shot in transition came, as Scoop Jardine buried another 3-pointer, and Johnson tied it at 54 with a one-handed fastbreak dunk over Stovall to completely silence the Chicago crowd.  Jardine then gave the Orange their first lead of the day with a layup that made it 56-54 with 3:37 left, and Joseph converted a layup and hit a free throw to make it 59-54.  The Cuse then played tough defense and continued to pressure the ball in order to squeak out a victory on the road, as Will Walker missed a contested three pointer at the buzzer that would have inevitably caused the stands to be cleared out onto the court.  Nonetheless, it wasn't meant to be, as DePaul hung their heads after a tough game they certainly should have won.

      In a much different manner than Syracuse had, the No.7 Georgetown Hoyas (16-4) used homecourt advantage and even United States President Barack Obama's support in order to completely dominate and embarrass the No.8 Duke Blue Devils that were never really in striking distance of the Hoyas.  The Hoyas won 89 to 77, as the size, strength, and length of the Hoyas was simply too much for the Blue Devils to handle.  This was evident on the offensive end, as the Dukies shot an unimpressive 37% from the field and only 31% from beyond the arc.  However, President Obama must have been overjoyed by the Georgetown effort, as the Hoyas shot an insane 71% from the floor and 46% from downtown to totally control the game and kept all the momentum throughout the entire showing. 

Greg Monroe, Chris Wright, and Austin Freemen were a three headed beast for Georgetown, as they each put up over 20 points and played monster minutes, as between the three players, they played all but 2 minutes on the game.  The lack of depth from the Hoyas played no part in influencing the Hoyas effectiveness, as Duke simply had no answer for Georgetown's Big East style of play.  Nevertheless, a surprising stat was the fact that Duke had 12 offensive rebounds to Georgtown's 1, but it made no difference, as Georgetown shot lights out and really didn't need the offensive rebounds anyway.  Duke also didn't do much with their extra opportunities, as the Duke trio of Kyle Singler, Nolan Smith, and Jon Scheyer each put up 17 or more points, yet their field goal percentage was disappointing and not nearly enough to keep the Blue Devils in the game.  The Hoyas tough loss to the Syracuse Orange last week definitely played a role in this game, as the Hoyas came out with a sense of urgency and wanted to put a huge non-conference W on their tournament resume at home.  It's clear that the Big East has put itself at the top of the Power Conference rankings in Men's college basketball, as wins such as this one against highly touted opponents like Duke shows that the depth of the Big East is plentiful and getting stronger year after year.    

 It was a big thumbs up from President Obama and Vice President Biden to the Hoyas, as they proved they have what it takes to remain a top 10 team in the National Rankings.

 Big East Standings

      *Conference Record / Overall Record

1. 3 Villanova 8-0 / 19-1
2. 4 Syracuse 8-1 / 21-1
3. 9 West Virginia 6-2 / 17-3 
4. 17 Pittsburgh 6-2 / 16-4
5. 7 Georgetown 6-3 / 16-4
6. Cincinnati 5-4 / 14-7
7. Louisville 4-4 / 13-8  
8. Notre Dame 4-5 / 15-7
9. Marquette 4-5 / 13-8  
10. Providence 4-5 / 12-9
11. South Florida 3-5 / 13-7
12. Seton Hall 3-5 / 12-7  
13. 19 Connecticut 3-5 / 13-8
14. St. John's 2-6 / 12-8
15. Rutgers 1-8 / 10-11 
16. DePaul 1-8 / 8-13