The No. 2 Syracuse Orange were the victim of a rare home loss at the hands of the Louisville Cardinals, 66-60.
The Orange sprinted out to a big lead early in what seemed to be a cake-walk to a victory, but not so fast.
Syracuse became complacent, and Louisville rallied back quickly to take control of the game.
The Orange still had a chance to tie or win the game in the final minute, but a couple of questionable calls and missed shots closed that window of opportunity.
Head coach Jim Boeheim recently warned his team they would lose if they kept playing poorly, but apparently they didn’t heed his advice.
Friday, February 19, 2010 at 4:22 pm by steve
The No. 4 Syracuse Orange turned a close game into a rout with a 71-54 victory over the host Cincinnati Bearcats.
The Bearcats actually held a lead for a significant part of the second half, but that’s when the highly-ranked Orange decided it was time to take over.
Specifically, it was guard Andy Rautins who took over the game. He scored a game-high 20 points and made some key plays in the final minutes to blow it open.
It also didn’t hurt that the Orange’s defense seemed to befuddle Cincinnati down the stretch, as the Bearcats suddenly couldn’t find a way to put the ball in the basket.
Syracuse got points from just two players off of their bench, but it was more than enough. Kris Joseph scored 17 points while Scoop Jardine added 11.
Sunday, February 14, 2010 at 5:58 pm by steve
The Syracuse Orange have forged the reputation of starting slow, then coming back and barraging a team with high-pressure zone defense and their explosive offense.
Against UConn on Wednesday, the tables were turned, but the result was no different, as the Orange rung up their 24th win in 25 games, beating the Jim Calhoun-less Huskies 72-67.
The last time these two teams met, it was in Madison Square Garden for the Big East Tournament, where they played the longest game in Big East history before Syracuse finally beat UConn in six overtimes.
“We dealt with six overtimes. That’s history,” Syracuse forward Joseph said, smiling. “We did it once. We don’t want to do it again. We just wanted to win the game in regulation and we did a great job of closing it out.”
“They’re a great team. We knew they were going to battle back,” Joseph said. “We were up double digits with 10 minutes left. The game wasn’t over at that point and we all knew that. We had to keep battling. When it was a tie game, all we had to do was stay poised.”
Syracuse came out firing, opening a huge lead on UConn, but they tied the game back up in the final minutes.
That’s when controversy started. Tied at 65 with 36 seconds left, the officials credited Cuse’s Jim Boeheim with a timeout while Scoop Jardine was in the air on the way to the basket. (Jardine missed the shot and UConn rebounded it.) Instead of the ball being UConn’s with half a minute left, ‘Cuse retained possession and went on to win.
Thursday, February 11, 2010 at 10:18 pm by bryan
