March 2, 2012

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march 2-4, 2012

Syracuse can carry enormous momentum into postseason with win on senior day against Louisville

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WE ATHER

t h e i n de pe n de n t s t u de n t n e w spa pe r of s y r acuse , n e w yor k

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3

Finish line Joseph, Jardine look to end regular season, Dome careers on high note

By Mark Cooper

T

Sports Editor

hey try not to think about it. But amid the most successful regular season in Syracuse history, Scoop Jardine and Kris Joseph are on the verge of completing their SU careers.

“I haven’t really thought about it, I don’t like to too much,” Joseph said Feb. 20. “I love Syracuse, and I’m definitely going to miss it, but I don’t really think about it too often.”

There’s only one home game left. Syracuse (29-1, 16-1 Big East) completes its regular season Saturday with a matchup against Louisville (22-8, 10-7 Big East) at 4 p.m. in the Carrier Dome. The No. 2 Orange has flown through its conference slate without a ton of adversity, winning nine in a row since its only loss of the season to date. But Saturday has meaning in a historic sense for both Jardine and Joseph: This game is the culmination of their careers in front of a home crowd.

Joseph tied the mark for most wins by a player at Syracuse with the Orange’s victory over Connecticut last weekend. His 113 wins match the most of anyone in an SU career, tying Sherman Douglas, Derrick Coleman and Stevie Thompson.

“I’m sure I’ve made a lot of people proud,” Joseph said. “My parents, my family and that’s what’s most important to me.”

Two seasons ago, Joseph and Jardine were the first two off the bench on an Orange squad that held the best regular-season wins mark until this year. Jardine backed up Brandon Triche at point guard, but actually played more minutes than Triche and averaged 9.1 points per game.

Joseph was the wing off the bench and was third on SU in scoring with 10.8 points per game.

This year, on a Syracuse team that has eclipsed the regular-season success of that squad — and will likely earn a No. 1 seed in the NCAA Tournament — they are the leaders. Dion Waiters and C.J. Fair fill the role Jardine and Joseph once held.

And Jardine has established himself as a trustworthy floor general. He is third among all Big East players in assist-to-turnover ratio in conference play.

“He’s the only leader on this team — he is the leader of this team,” head coach Jim Boeheim said after Syracuse defeated Pittsburgh Jan. 16. “He is the only vocal leader.

He is a guy who will make plays and is not see louisville page 6

andrew renneisen | staff photographer jim boeheim and the Orange are looking to go undefeated at home for the first time since the 2002-03 season, in Scoop Jardine and Kris Joseph’s final home game at Syracuse.

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2012 women’s basketball Big East tournament Friday FIRST ROUND

SATURDAY

SECOND ROUND

12Syracuse

SUNDAY

QUARTERFINALS

MONDAY

TUESDAY

SEMIFINALS

CHAMPIONSHIP

noon noon

13 Providence

noon 5West Virginia

9 South Florida

6 p.m.

4 Georgetown

2 p.m.

7 p.m.

2 p.m.

16 Pittsburgh

2 p.m.

8 DePaul

10Villanova

1Notre Dame

6 p.m.

6 p.m.

15 Seton Hall

6 p.m.

8 p.m.

7Louisville 11Cincinnati

2St. John’s

8 p.m.

8 p.m.

14 Marquette

8 p.m.

6 Rutgers 3 Connecticut

Open 4pm-1am

(11am-3am on weekends) 315-445-9464 Wingssyracuse.com

big east tournament champions

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5

Chance for redemption Syracuse heads to Big East tournament hoping to make up for lackluster regular season

By Andrew Tredinnick

T

Asst. Copy Editor

he final outcome of Syracuse’s regular season left many players feeling they needed to atone for their underwhelming performance.

The Orange’s season skewed far from expectations. The campaign ended with a losing record in the Big East, dotted with several blowout losses and surprising defeats.

Yet forward Iasia Hemingway still feels SU can prove a great deal in the Big East tournament, which begins at the end of this week.

“Finishing 12th in the conference was not what we expected, so going into the Big East tournament we look forward to really showing what we’re capable of doing,” Hemingway said.

“We didn’t do it in the regular season, so why not just leave it all out there in the Big East tournament.”

Syracuse (17-13, 6-10 Big East) will begin to try and recover from its poor regular-season showing when it takes on No. 13 seed Providence (13-16, 5-11 Big East) in the opening round of the Big East tournament in Hartford, Conn., Friday at noon. SU players and coaches are looking to the tournament as one final opportunity to right their season and pick up some wins over premier conference opponents in the season’s final stages.

It’s still up in the air whether the Orange will land in the NCAA tournament, Women’s National Invitation Tournament or nowhere at all, but the Big East tournament could dictate which tier Syracuse falls into.

“As a team we’re pretty much all levelheaded,” SU guard Carmen Tyson-Thomas said. “ … We’re not too excited because I know I’ve been there before and we have no freshmen. We’re just looking forward to getting in there and making some plays and getting some wins.”

The Orange has battled through a tumultuous journey trying to find its identity all season long. After opening the season 11-4, SU began conference play with six losses through its first eight games. But SU was able to get back on track by crushing the Friars 80-54 on Jan. 31.

Hemingway scored a game-high 24 points in the win over the Friars, which saw five SU players score in double figures.

The rout marked the start to a better second half of the conference schedule for SU, and the Orange closed out the regular season with a .500 stretch over its last eight games.

But despite the blowout of the Friars earlier in the season, Hemingway said the team’s focus in the tournament can’t be sidetracked by overlooking Providence.

“The Big East is a great conference, and you can’t go in taking any game lightly, at all,” Hemingway said. “ … We went 23-of-23 from the free-throw line, that was amazing, but we can’t go in automatically thinking we’re going to have a perfect game again because that was a great game we played against Providence.”

Head coach Quentin Hillsman recognizes his team missed some opportunities to pick up wins early in the season, but he’s hoping the improvements Syracuse made in the latter half of the schedule will carry SU forward.

After upending then-No. 21 DePaul and nearly defeating then-No. 15 Georgetown a week ago, see providence page 15

stacie fanelli | asst. photo editor iasia hemingway wasn’t satisfied with Syracuse’s 6-10 record in the Big East during the season and will look to bounce back when SU opens the Big East tournament at noon Friday. The 12th-seeded Orange takes on 13th-seeded Providence in Hartford, Conn.

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andrew renneisen | staff photographer (from Left) fab melo and scoop jardine have both been key to Syracuse’s dominance this season. SU’s 29-1 regular-season record is the best in program history.

louisville from page 3

afraid to make plays — good plays.”

The one knock on this Syracuse team all year has been the lack of a go-to guy in clutch moments. The 2002-03 Orangemen who won the national title had Carmelo Anthony. The 2009-10 team was balanced, but Wes Johnson was the unquestioned best player.

But the two SU seniors have shown the ability to carry this team in clutch moments.

In Syracuse’s biggest early-season test, against Florida Dec. 2, Jardine finished with 16 points and seven assists to help the Orange to a four-point win. He scored seven of the team’s nine points in a crucial stretch late in the second half that extended Syracuse’s lead from three to eight.

Joseph has quietly put together a steady season, leading Syracuse in points and minutes.

He stood out against Georgetown by scoring 29 points and nailing the game-winning 3-pointer in overtime.

And he scored a team-high 21 points against UConn last Saturday. With the game tied at 63 late, Joseph sliced through the cen-

ter of the lane, laying the ball in over Huskies center Andre Drummond to help SU regain the lead.

“They make all the key plays for us, usually,” Boeheim said of the pair after the UConn win.

Jardine and Joseph will play in front of what should be a raucous crowd against the Cardinals. More than 30,000 tickets have been sold as of Tuesday. It will be the sixth game with an audience of 30,000-plus in the Dome during Joseph’s career and the fifth for Jardine.

The only other game this season that eclipsed the 30,000 attendance mark was Feb. 11 against UConn. After that 85-67 win over UConn, Jardine said he’s just trying to cherish these moments as his career winds down.“I’m just playing basketball with confidence, and it’s really sad that it’s about to be over for me,” Jardine said. “I appreciate everything I got here at Syracuse, from the fans perspective, even from you all.

“This is it for me, so I want to play and leave everything on the floor, on Jim Boeheim Court. Every game I play here, I’m going to do that.” mcooperj@syr.edu

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Around the nation GamestoWATCH No. 6 North Carolina (26-4, 13-2 Atlantic Coast Conference) at No. 4 Duke (26-4, 13-2 ACC) Saturday, 7 p.m., ESPN

In a game that is shaping up to be another chapter in the most historic rivalry in college basketball, the winner of Saturday night’s game will take home the regular-season Atlantic Coast Conference crown and earn the top seed in the conference tournament. Tyler Zeller crumpled in the final minutes of the teams’ first matchup Feb. 8, but Zeller has led the Tar Heels to six straight victories since that 85-84 loss. Most recently, he torched Maryland for 30 points, aggressively attacking the Terrapins defense en route to 23 free-throw attempts. The Blue Devils are also riding high, looking for their eighth straight victory and first outright ACC regular-season title since 2006.

Key to the game: Austin Rivers

Rivers silenced the 21,750 at the Dean Smith Center three weeks ago with his buzzer-beating 3-point dagger over Zeller. The Blue Devils freshman guard finished with 29 points on 9-of-16 shooting from the field, including 6-of-10 from deep. But heading into Saturday’s rematch, he is coming off one of his lowest scoring outputs of the season — 10 points against Wake Forest on Tuesday. Duke’s leading scorer will need a strong, bounce-back performance, and the Blue Devils may rely on him for more late-game heroics to earn a repeat result against the Tar Heels on Saturday.

No. 1 Kentucky (29-1, 15-0 Southeastern Conference) at No. 16 Florida (22-8, 10-5 SEC) Sunday, noon, CBS

Riding a 21-game winning streak, UK will look to enter the Southeastern Conference tournament undefeated in conference play with a win Sunday in Gainesville, Fla. When Kentucky hosted the Gators on Feb. 7, Florida hung tough for the first 15 minutes, but the Wildcats slowly pulled away thanks in part to a 13-point, 13-rebound performance from freshman forward Michael Kidd-Gilchrist. Though Florida is coming off back-to-back double-digit losses to Georgia and Vanderbilt — which sent it plummeting down the polls — Tennessee is the only team to have beaten Florida at home.

Key to the game: Anthony Davis

A top candidate for National Player of the Year, Davis paces Kentucky with 14.1 points and 9.8 rebounds per game to go with an NCAA-leading 4.7 blocks per game. And in conference play, the 6-foot-10, 220-pound center has been even better, averaging 15.5 points and 4.9 blocks. If the Gators want a chance at upsetting the nation’s best, they’ll have to limit Davis’ effectiveness on both ends of the court.

No. 10 Ohio State (24-6, 12-5 Big Ten) at No. 5 Michigan State (24-6, 13-4 Big Ten) Sunday, 4 p.m., CBS

The Buckeyes were unable to defeat the Spartans in Columbus, Ohio, on Feb. 11 and will have a much harder time knocking off MSU in East Lansing, Mich., on Sunday — a feat which could lock up the regular-season Big Ten title. Michigan State is 17-0 in the Breslin Center this season, having beaten four teams currently ranked in the Top 25, including No. 13 Michigan and No. 14 Wisconsin. And coming off a 70-55 loss to No. 18 Indiana, the Spartans will be hungry for another victory.

Key to the game: Jared Sullinger

The sophomore forward finished OSU’s first matchup against Michigan State with 17 points and 16 rebounds. But he was also just 5-of-15 from the field and committed 10 turnovers. In the team’s last game — a 75-73 win over Northwestern on Wednesday — he came through with 22 points and 18 rebounds. He also only turned the ball over four times and made 8-of-15 field-goal attempts. The Buckeyes will need Sullinger to be efficient Sunday to earn a victory over the Spartans.

—Compiled by Stephen Bailey, asst. copy edtior, sebail01@syr.edu

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HALF-COURT SHOTS (22-8. 10-7) 19LOUISVILLE AT SYRACUSE2 (29-1, 16-1)

STARTING LINEUP

SATURDAY 4 P.M., CBS

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point guard

Scoop Jardine

6-2, 190, Sr. 8.9 PPG, 5 APG

Peyton Siva 6-0, 180, JR. 8.6 PPG, 5.5 APG

shooting guard

small forward

Brandon Triche

kris joseph

6-4, 205, jr.

9.1 PPG, 2.7 APG

chris smith

6-2, 195, SR. 10.3 PPG, 2.3 APG

6-7, 210, sr.

14.2 PPG, 5 RPG

kyle kuric

6-4, 195, SR. 13.1 PPG, 4.6 RPG

Jardine has been a reliable scorer and distributor in the Orange offense all season. Siva is a talented playmaker, but he has also been plagued by turnovers. His five against SU were costly, and he has continued to struggle, committing 13 turnovers in the last four games.

Triche failed to score in double figures in seven straight games. The SU guard has just shot 13-of-44, or 29.5 percent, from the field during that stretch. Smith has been up and down in the Cardinals’ four games since playing Syracuse. He scored 20 and 14 points against DePaul and South Florida, respectively, but only finished with two points combined against Cincinnati and Pittsburgh.

Joseph has been the team’s steady scorer, reaching double figures in 25 of SU’s 30 games.

Kuric, who has given the Orange headaches in the past, was bottled up by SU earlier in the season, scoring just three points.

power forward

center

coaches

rakeem christmas

6-9, 222, fr.

2.7 PPG, 2.7 RPG

chane behanan

6-6, 245, fr.

9.3 PPG, 7.6 RPG

Christmas has played sparingly all season, often replaced by C.J. Fair just minutes into the game.

Fair has been a steady scorer and rebounder for the Orange. Behanan led Louisville with 16 points on 7-of-8 shooting in the first matchup between the teams.

fab melo

7-0, 244, so.

7.9 PPG, 5.7 RPG

gorgul dieng

6-11, 235, So. 9.6 PPG, 9 RPG

Melo turned in a typical performance against UConn on Saturday, scoring 11 points to go with nine rebounds and three blocks. Melo held Dieng to 2-of-9 shooting Feb. 13, but the Louisville center bothered SU in the lane and recorded four blocks.

Jim Boeheim

Rick pitino

W-L: 885-302 36th season

W-L: 619-228 26th season(11 at louisville)

Boeheim has directed this Syracuse team to the best regular season in program history. Pitino’s Cardinals have had highs and lows throughout the season and come into the game after a disappointing 58-51 loss to USF at home on senior night.

THEY SAID IT “I haven’t really thought about it, I don’t like to too much. I love Syracuse, and I’m definitely going to miss it, but I don’t really think about it too often.”

Kris Joseph

SU forward

“I appreciate everything I got here at Syracuse, from the fans perspective, even from you all.

This is it for me, so I want to play and leave everything on the floor, on Jim Boeheim Court.

Every game I play here, I’m going to do that.”

Scoop Jardine

SU guard

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UP NEXT >>

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BIG EAST TOURNAMENT

free throws

march 6-10

Beat writer predictions

Louisville spoiled Syracuse’s regularseason finale two years ago in the final game at Freedom Hall. The then-No. 1 Orange fell 78-68 to the Cardinals as Kyle Kuric went off for 22 points in the second half on 9-of-11 shooting.

Syracuse’s 52 points against Louisville on Feb. 13 was its lowest total all season. It was one of only three games all year in which the Orange failed to score 60 points or more. The team’s lone loss came against Notre Dame when it managed just 58 points on the road.

113

Syracuse 59, Louisville 56

Scoop for the win on senior day.

zach brown Syracuse 77, Louisville 64

Pick any card you want, but an upset is not in there.

big number

The number of wins Kris Joseph has been a part of during his Syracuse career. The senior forward is currently tied with former SU greats Sherman Douglas, Derrick Coleman and Stevie Thompson.

Get live tweets of the game

@DOsports

michael cohen Syracuse 69, Louisville 68

Do Brandon Reese, Matt Tomaszewski and Nick Resavy get to play?

mark cooper

13

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Last time they played Feb. 13, 2012 Syracuse 52, Louisville 51 For Jim Boeheim, the end of Syracuse’s game against Louisville ended in a fitting way.

In the final 2:11, neither team recorded a single point. During that span, Dion Waiters had a layup blocked, he missed an open jumper and missed a free throw on the front end of a one-and-one.

Louisville couldn’t connect with a bucket, either. The Cardinals turned the ball over twice, missed a reverse layup and fumbled a last-ditch effort from half court at the buzzer.

“It probably should have ended that way,” the SU head coach said after the game Feb. 13, “because it was really a defensive struggle the whole game.”

Syracuse emerged from the conference battle to escape from the KFC Yum! Center with a 52-51 victory over Louisville. With the one-point win, SU snapped a seven-game losing streak against the Cardinals dating back to Feb. 18, 2006.

Both teams struggled mightily on offense and finished the game shooting less than 35 percent.

“It was just a struggle for both teams offensively, and you can either give the defenses credit or say it was a bad offensive game,” Boeheim said. “We’re going to look on the bright side and say it was a real defensive struggle tonight.”

The Orange struggled early on, failing to reach the 10-point plateau until Kris Joseph hit a jumper with 8:24 left to play in the first half.

But Louisville was equally inept on offense, and Joseph’s bucket cut SU’s deficit to 13-11.

Brandon Triche said Syracuse’s offensive inefficiency was largely a result of its inability to crack the Cardinals’ matchup zone with its pick-and-roll sets. Louisville’s defense stifled the Orange and UL went into halftime with a 24-22 lead.

Box score Syracuse Player

Fair Melo Triche Joseph Waiters Southerland Keita Jardine

AST

0 0 2 1 3 1 0 5

REB

5 6 5 6 5 4 1 5

PTS

13 11 8 7 7 4 2 0

“The pick-and-roll, we usually use that a lot against man-to-man, but it wasn’t working against the zone,” the junior guard said. “We could have just penetrated by ourselves and found guys open and penetrated again once they

“It was just a struggle for both teams offensively, and you can either give the defenses credit or say it was a bad offensive game. We’re going to look on the bright side and say it was a real defensive struggle tonight.”

Jim Boeheim

SU head coach

were flying at us. But we didn’t do that. We could have fixed that, but we didn’t.”

Each team endured more tough stretches after the break. After SU took a 36-35 lead with less than 14 minutes remaining in the second half, both teams went scoreless for three minutes.

The Orange picked up some momentum with a 6-0 run capped by a C.J. Fair slam, but Louisville countered with its own 16-4 run to take a five-point lead with less than four minutes to go.

“They went on their run,” Joseph said. “They were at home. You got to expect it. They hadn’t made it yet.”

And in a game marked by offensive struggles, it seemed the Cardinals had dealt the Orange a knockout blow with that late scoring burst.

But Louisville failed to score over the final 3:38, and Fair put SU out in front for good with an uncontested layup with 2:11 to go. Syracuse made the necessary stops down the stretch to protect its lead and close out the victory.

“We knew we needed stops,” Triche said. “We just planned on trying to get one stop at a time. … We missed some shots, so it wasn’t like we just got hot. We just made sure we stopped those guys from scoring.”

—Compiled by Andrew Tredinnick, asst. copy editor, adtredin@syr.edu

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Head to head

Big East standings

statistics 75.9 60.6 47.1% 38.6%

69.7% 35.5

16.1 10.5 9.9

Points per game Points allowed per game Field-goal percentage Opponents’ field-goal percentage Free-throw percentage Rebounds per game Assists per game Turnovers per game Steals per game

providence from page 5

Syracuse showed its ultimate capabilities. But the Orange’s inconsistency continued. SU followed two strong performances with a puzzling defeat to Villanova on Monday.

“We left some games on the table, we all know that,” Hillsman said. “There’s some games if we could have closed out and finished we would probably have two or three more wins at this point. But obviously, when you look forward, you gotta understand what you need to do to close out games and win, and that’s what I’m

15

70.0 62.1 42.9

37.8 68.2

38.4 14.0 14.2 9.2

excited about.

“I think that we’re playing well right now, we’re not playing bad, so obviously this is our chance to win some games and move forward.”

After foraging to find its identity for most of the season, Hillsman feels his team is playing as well as it has all yearlong. And heading into the Big East tournament, SU has nothing to lose.

“Well, obviously just going to these tournaments, they can make or break you,” Hillsman said. “… Obviously this tournament is huge for us, and it’s huge for us if we come out, if we play with confidence and if we understand what’s at stake,” adtredin@syr.edu

1 2 3 3 3 6 7 8

8 marquette 10 georgetown 11 notre dame 12 south florida 12 cincinnati 12 louisville 15 seton hall 16 syracuse 29-1 (16-1)

24-6 (13-4)

22-6 (12-5)

20-10 (12-5)

19-11 (12-5)

21-9 (11-6)

22-8 (10-7)

19-10 (8-9)

west virginia 18-12 (8-9)

connecticut 17-12 (7-10)

st. john’s 13-17 (6-11)

pittsburgh 16-14 (5-12)

rutgers 13-17 (5-12)

villanova 12-17 (5-12)

providence 15-15 (4-13)

depaul 11-18 (2-15)