The Morning After

Waking up this morning was like waking up from a bad dream.

Did that really happen?

Is it possible that Seton Hall (a team that was 2-6 in the Big East, a team that had an 8-12 overall record, a team that Syracuse hasn't lost to at home since 2006) came into the Dome and absolutely blew out the #9/#10 ranked Syracuse Orangemen?

That's the reality we are waking up in today. Syracuse, after winning 18 straight games to open the season, have now lost three straight games and the latest is the most humiliating.

It's one thing to lose to #4 Pittsburgh on the road. It's one thing to lose to #7 Villanova at home. But to lose to unranked and outmatched Seton Hall in this kind of fashion. To not only lose at home, but to be blown out. That is completely and 100% unacceptable for a program that was just last week ranked #3 in the nation.

Immediate feelings after the loss: Shock. Embarrassment. Humiliation. Disbelief. Anger. Disappointment.

Could 90-68 really be the final score? And can Syracuse really be on the losing end? If you missed the game and just saw the final score you would have definitely thought that the person giving you this information got the order of the teams wrong. But no. This is real.

From the opening tip to the final buzzer the Syracuse Orangemen were out worked, out hustled, out shot and were lacking the sense of urgency and poise necessary to make this a game.

If I were Jim Boeheim I would have told my players to stay in the locker room after the game. I would have told them to keep their sneakers on, and that we are waiting for the stands to clear out, because there's going to be practice. No basketballs. Just your sneakers and a whistle. Be ready to run. In hockey, they call it a bag skate. I'm not sure what they call it in basketball but to quote Herb Brooks in the movie Miracle, "you guys don't want to work during the game, no problem, we'll work now."

Rick Jackson was Rick Jackson. 12 points 11 rebounds 6 blocks 3 steals 3 assists. Unfortunately Scoop Jardine was the Scoop Jardine we have been seeing lately. Scoop was 4 of 10 from the field for 11 points with 2 assists and 3 turnovers. Brandon Triche was 3 of 11 from the floor and 1 of 6 from 3-point range to also finish with 11 points and 3 assists (and 3 turnovers).

James Southerland started in place of Fab Melo, and only succeeded at being invisible. Southerland was 1-5 from the field, 0-4 from 3-point range, had just 2 rebounds in 19 minutes and for much of the time he was out there he was difficult to even notice on the floor. Kris Joseph finished with 17 points to lead the Orangemen in scoring.

The defensive effort by the Cuse was 100% unacceptable. How a team like Seton Hall can score 90 points on you in a 40 minute game is beyond me. Jeremy Hazell came out of the gates literally on fire and finished with 28 points on 10 of 17 shooting from the floor (5 of 10 from 3). Not one player on the Syracuse team could match his intensity on either the offensive or defensive side of the ball.

I think going forward C.J. Fair should take some of the minutes we are watching James Southerland receive. He actually understands how to run a full court press, a facet of the game that looks lost on the rest of the team, and he can rebound the basketball. Fair was 3 of 5 from the floor for 6 points with 3 rebounds and 2 steals in 16 minutes. Dion Waiters finished 0-4 from the field. His only other stat was that he had 1 foul in 14 minutes.

Where do we go from here? It looks like Syracuse has three tough road games coming up against Marquette on 1/29, in UCONN on 2/2 and in South Florida on 2/5. The Orangemen better not treat that trip to Tampa like a vacation, because they will come home with the same level of embarrassment we are all forced to live through today.

This team needs a serious gut check. They need to find out if they are going to just shrivel up and die or if they are going to start hitting back and earning some of the respect back that they have most definitely lost after last nights game. The good news is that there are plenty of ranked opponents left on the Orangemen's schedule. It's not as if we play in the ACC and we only have one ranked team on our schedule. There will be opportunities to get some big, big wins under our belt as the season moves along, and they better take advantage of it!

photo courtesy of syracuse.com

Syracuse Looks to Snap Two Game Skid Against Seton Hall

Syracuse is struggling. That's a given. The Orangemen, who won their first 18 games of the season, have now dropped two consecutive Big East games against two top tier teams in the nation (then #4 Pittsburgh and #7 Villanova).

Seemingly the poster child for the past two defeats is Scoop Jardine. Scoop has combined to make 5 of his last 21 shot attempts (23.8%) from the floor in the past two games, and watched the final 6 minutes of the Villanova game on the bench. He has pulled down zero rebounds in the same stretch and scored a mere 2 points in 22 minutes against Villanova (1-8 from the field).

It's clear Syracuse is going to need to get their mojo back. If a person was faced with a long dry-spell or felt as if they were lacking in mojo, they would head out and try to track down a slump breaker. Thankfully for Syracuse, they won't have to look too far. And thankfully, we're looking at the Seton Hall Pirates.

Like an ugly girl at a party, The Pirates enter the Carrier Dome tonight at 7PM with an overall record of 8-12, and a very poor 2-6 mark in Big East play. Since Syracuse defeated Seton Hall in Newark, NJ on January 8th 61-56, the Pirates have gone 1-3, and have lost three games in a row (at Pittsburgh and two home games against Georgetown and Rutgers). Seton Hall may very well be our slump breaker.

The Orangemen need to treat this game as a springboard. Use it as an opportunity to get their legs back under them, get their confidence back, and get back some swagger that the team hasn't had since watching Kris Joseph go down with a concussion in the game against Cincinnati.

Since the tangling with Syracuse, the Pirates have gotten their leading scorer Jeremy Hazell (6'5" 188 pounds) back from a hand injury and a gun shot wound. Although Seton Hall is 1-3 since his return, Hazell is averaging 15.5 points per contest. Hazell is averaging 19.1 points per game on the season (he missed 13 games), and had he been in action against Syracuse 17 days ago, the outcome might have been very different. In the seven games Hazell has played, he has failed to score in double digits just once, January 15th in Pittsburgh, when he was held to 9 points on 3 of 13 shooting.

When we last saw the Pirates Herb Pope (6'8" 236 pounds) pulled down 20 rebounds and scored 14 points. It seems as if that game kicked some life in Pope, as he's averaged 15.25 points and 10.25 rebounds since January 8th. The 20 rebounds against Cuse was Pope's season high, as were the 16 points he dropped on Georgetown on January 18th.

In the last meeting between the two squads Pope and Jeff Robinson (6'6" 230 pounds) combined to out-rebound the entire Syracuse Orangemen basketball team. Robinson pulled down 14 boards and added 17 points to help keep the Pirates in the ball game. Although Robinson hasn't been pulling down rebounds at nearly the same pace, he has been scoring the ball, averaging 12.8 points per game over his last four.

For Syracuse, they absolutely and desperately need to get their guards going. Syracuse can not afford another stinker from the guards, not just on offense but defensively as well. They must help out rebounding the basketball. It can not be all Rick Jackson underneath. And the same goes for James Southerland.

Southerland had an impressive 8 rebounds against Cincinnati, however in the following two games (both losses) James has grabbed only 1 rebound in a combined 54 minutes of action. With Southerland standing 6'8" I'm not even sure how that's possible. He has to get involved in rebounding the basketball otherwise he's going to see his minutes dwindle in favor of a player who can rebound the ball, a player like C.J. Fair.

C.J. had a season high 9 rebounds in the loss to Pittsburgh while helping fill the void left by an injured Kris Joseph. Fair also scored a season high 16 points in 36 minutes. However, on Saturday Fair played just 10 minutes and had 1 rebound. Not great numbers, but he should have seen more time off the bench, especially with Syracuse getting beat on so many rebounds late in the 2nd half.

Kris Joseph returned from his concussion to score a team high 23 points on 8 of 15 shooting Saturday against Nova. He made his first 4 three-point attempts before missing his final 3 tries of the game from long distance. While he had just 3 rebounds in 34 minutes, expect to see that number increase as he is averaging over 5 boards per game.

Tip-off tonight is at 7PM on SNY and as usual, be sure to check back in with The Cuse Connection following the game for full recap and analysis.

photo courtesy of syracuse.com