Syracuse over Georgetown

Another unexpected win for one of my teams. I think Jay Bilas put it pretty well when he said "I bet Jim Boeheim didn't expect to be playing his senior walk-ons in the final minute of a victory." A loss, maybe, but Syracuse winning 72-58 is a real surprise.

This was a good old-fashioned Big East game, as befits the one meeting this year between the teams who won eight of the first ten Big East titles. The early history of the conference was all about Syracuse vs. Georgetown (with occasional contributions from Villanova and St. John's), and Jim Boeheim vs. John Thompson. It's a new Thompson on the sidelines, without the signature towel, but in most other respects, this could've been a game from the 80's: it was a high-intensity game, with a few ugly moments (technicals called on both teams, official warnings to the fans not to throw stuff), and a lot of fairly brutal basketball. In classic Big East form, the officials seemed disinclined to call fouls in the lane, unless firearms were involved, so the post play was just a tiny bit physical.

Congratulations are due to the Syracuse seniors, who really played well last night. Particularly Terrence Roberts, who was in visible pain at the best of times-- he tore the meniscus in his knee a while back, and has kept playing. It's really an impressive display of guts for him to be out there, particularly in a game as rough as this one. Demetris Nichols also continued to play well-- after a quiet first half, he ended up with 22, including a ridiculous falling-away three-pointer with the shot clock running out that helped key the run that buried the Hoyas.

Other thoughts:

- Jim Boeheim is that most improbable of things, an underrated Hall of Fame coach. This win is Syracuse's 21st on the season, meaning that Boeheim has won 21 or more games in 29 of his 31 years as a head coach. Now, granted, he racks up five or ten wins a season against really weak competition in New York state in November and December, but you don't achieve that kind of consistency without being able to coach a little bit.

The thing that people really forget about Boeheim is that for the most part, he's not doing this with a team loaded with high-school all-Americans. Yeah, he gets some top players, most notably in winning a title with Carmelo Anthony, but he also develops a lot of great players out of overlooked talent. Look at the rest of that championship team-- Hakim Warrick and Gerry McNamara weren't on anybody's list of top recruits, and yet they played a key role in the title run. Look at their past final four teams-- yeah, you had great talents like Derrick Coleman in there, but then there are guys like Sherman Douglas, who nobody wanted. John Wallace did superhuman things in '96, but they also got key contributions from a bunch of "who?" players-- Jason Cipolla, anyone?

He's always done a remarkable job with developing talent, and Demetris Nichols is another great example. He was a total flake for his first two years-- a shooting guard who couldn't shoot-- and now he's leading the Big East in scoring. It would look like a fluke if it weren't part of a pattern, and Boeheim doesn't get enough credit for this.

- Boeheim's ability to develop players sadly hasn't included the ability to get total head cases to stop being total head cases, so I fear we're doomed to another two years of Eric Devendorf being a total knucklehead. Honestly, for every clutch play he makes, he does two boneheaded things. They only list him with five turnovers, which is a total gift-- they must've assigned some of his TO's to other players, and some of the shots he takes are as good as a turnover.

- Speaking of goofy-looking white guards, does Andy Rautins have some range, or what? He hit a couple of three-pointers from just inside the sideline, and barely moved the net. Unfortunately, he's probably due for an 0-8 outing, but I'll enjoy the 4-8 games as long as they last.

- I frequently joke about Darryl Watkins having flippers at the end of his arms-- he struggles to catch the ball more than any Div. I player I can remember-- but for all that, he's been a rock in the middle this year. In his goofy-looking, foul-prone way, he's really anchored that defense, and deserves a little credit. So, good work, Darryl.

- Speaking of the defense, that 2-3 zone just never stops working. Watching Georgetown try to score brought back bad memories of Sunday night's IM loss, because their failure mode against the 2-3 was the same as our failure mode against the 2-3. I should probably do a "Basic Concepts" basketball post on zone defense...

Anyway, the win probably seals up an NCAA bid for Syracuse. They move to 10-5 in the Big East, 21-8 overall, and they have wins over Georgetown and Marquette, both good teams. They're playing as well as they have all season, despite huge injury problems, and have won five in a row. Their final regular-season game will be Saturday vs. Villanova, and then there's the Big East tournament, but it's hard to imagine that they can screw it up from here.