Tough Gators Provide Chance for Syracuse to Silence Distraction Doubts
D.A. | Dec 02, 2011 | Comments 3
Even though it’s only December, this is no ordinary early season basketball game for Syracuse. With the media circus surrounding this team in recent weeks, and planned protests outside the Dome tonight, there are precious few patches of normalcy for a program that’s been thrown into chaos. The showdown with #10 Florida is an opportunity to focus only on the game itself.
- Follow The Fizz on Twitter for updates courtside from tonight’s game
Yes the Orange played a game Tuesday, but the story ended up being far more about Jim Boeheim’s wild postgame press conference than the 36-point win over Eastern Michigan. But the Gators are a legitimate upper echelon team, who will provide the Orange a stiff test. SU can’t afford a sluggish first half like it suffered twice at MSG.
A matchup like this is always a big game for the Orange, but it holds extra significance tonight. For at least a few hours, Syracuse can remind everyone of national title aspirations and not the Bernie Fine scandal. A loss would mean The Per’fesser’s club would be subjected to the whispers its distracted by the recent news blitz.
A bad performance tonight and concerns about SU’s focus would grow louder. Kris Joseph and company claim the Fine saga isn’t a distraction, and stand behind coach Boeheim completely. A win would go a long way toward convincing everyone of that.
The Orange will also continue to answer some basketball questions. How will Boeheim use his rotation in the first huge home game of the season? Will Dion Waiters continue to get crunch time minutes? Can Fab Melo continue his stellar play against a strong opponent?
Syracuse must capitalize on a rare opportunity to take the focus off the scandal, and place it back on basketball. A big performance under the microscope tonight would make a statement that this team can handle the adversity. Let’s see what Boeheim’s squad is made of.
Posted: Alex Plavin
The key to this game besides perimeter d will be to weather the gators early storm. Fla is a first half team who squaners blowouts in the 2nd half at times, which is pretty much the opposite as the orange game right (except earlier game when they came out and scored over 50 first. Half) I believe if by half time the score is close su will get the w n if su hasa lead expect a blowout fr the orange
Let’s all get serious! Does anyone out there believe that Syracuse will go through the season undefeated? The story every year is the same. Can Syracuse survive an early season test against a top ten opponent? Syracuse doesn’t play outside of New York until February and should be the favorite to win the National Champioship With their non conference foe’s made up of cream puff’s.
Lets all remember that Syracuse won the National Championship in 2003 with 3-5 losses. Win or lose tonight won’t make a differance on the remainder of the season. Syracuse will still end up with a 35-3 over-all record and going into the South Region of the NCAA Tournament as the #1 seed.
For years, ESPN has led the charge against SU and it’s basketball program.
For all of the people who have written and posted an article on the accusations of child molestation against Bernie Fine,I say before we all make fools of ourselves lets wait to see if any of them are true.
But for anyone who wants Coach Boehiem fired are just plain idiots.
Where is Dr.Gross on this matter? When the rape case against the Duke Lacrosse Team was making the national news and as we all know(by ESPN news reports) everyone involved was guilty,Dr. Gross came out and made a strong statement that Syracuse University wasn’t going to let any of the players from Duke transfer to Syracuse. I repeat where is he now????
Please remember that when Nancy Cantor was the chancellor at the University of Illinois,she almost ruined the athletic program there and now is doing the same here at Syracuse. She hired Dr.Gross who came here and fired Coach Pasqualoni and the football program hasn’t been the same since.
If anyone else is going to lose their jobs because of the pressure the press is putting on the University by comparing SU to Penn State,it should be Nancy and Daryl not COACH BOEHIEM.
Coach Boehiem,standing by and defending a frien that you’ve had for 50 years is not a bad thing. I would have done the same thing if it were ever presented to me.
Oh! one other thing,I hope you kick Florida’s ass to night. GOOD LUCK.
GO CUSE!
no one is saying undefeated, but theres know reason SU shouldnt dominate, theyre as deep and as talented as anyone in the country, can see them go undefeated through out of conferense play, and only see 2-3 teams they might not win against during conference play. They prolly wont go undefeated but I dont see any team on the schedule they cant beat, an no one was saying they are going to. The hardest challenge I beleive will be marquette, just from there style of play and they are waaay better this year, i do think is the year we take down pitino tho, they are not as good from 3 this year and su thrive against the press.