Scoop Takes Over Dirty Jersey, The Fizz Chats with Jardine After Another SU Win
D.A. | Feb 20, 2012 | Comments 5
With all that ice water in his veins, Scoop Jardine almost went into anemic shock yesterday. The senior guard led SU past a young and pesky Rutgers squad to secure Syracuse’s seventh straight win. Some critics believe not having a single go to guy will hurt this team. But the formula just keeps working. Despite the criticism #11 gets, he was stone-cold in the final minutes against RU and sent the Scarlet faithful packing for the Greasetrucks.
The Fizz caught up with Scoop postgame about the win. Jardine doesn’t care about the doubters.
“This is why I am who I am. I’m not trying to be cocky, but confident. I work on my game just for these moments. I can take criticism, I’ve been taking it my whole career, and it helped me for these moments. It allows me to make winning plays for this team.”
This isn’t the first time recently Scoop led his team to victory. Against UConn he also went off late. Everyone points to Dion Waiters or Kris Joseph as guys who should have the rock with the game on the line. But SU proves it’s simply a question of what the game dictates. Scoop wasn’t hesitant to pull the trigger on some deep jumpers against RU.
The timing for Jardine’s late game heroics was perfect. With Dion and K-Jo struggling to find their shots from the field yesterday, it was vital Scoop took over. Scoop also set up high-flyin’ C.J. Fair for a set of nasty alley oops.
“You know that guy who always makes the right play, at the right time, at the right moment? That’s CJ. He’s always in the best position to make a bucket. If he keeps playing like this, we have a really great chance of winning the National Championship”
The beautiful thing about this team is the different game plan each night. Scoop was 0-for-8 from the field against Louisville last week, and decided to just dish that game. Yesterday, he had the hot hand and looked to score. That inconsistency could be alarming. But SU feeds off this style of play. Each player’s role can change from game to game, but the Orange expect that.
“Coach gives us the freedom at the end of games. We have guys that make plays at the right moment. We don’t have just one guy, we have four or five guys. We get criticized sometimes because we don’t have that one superstar, but I’d rather be on a team like this where any guy can make a
play at any given time.”
Granted, Syracuse was sluggish for a second straight game offensively. But this team never looked uncomfortable. SU was cool, calm and composed, led by a steady Scoop in the 2nd half. Georgetown and Louisville went ice cold from the floor, which is a testament to SU’s defense. Scoop’s turnovers are down (3:1 assist/TO ratio in his last 11 games), and he’s taking over in crunch time.
Once again the depth of Syracuse elevates this team. Hopefully, Jardine and his boys will be talking about it all off-season, after the nets are cut down in New Orleans.
Posted: Kevin Fitzgerald
[...] Jardine Dabbled in a bit of Philosophy The Sunny Side The Dark Side This, That, and the Other Fizz Talks to Scoop After Win Over Rutgers Top 5 Dunks of the Year Video of C.J. Fair's Reverse Alley-Opp [...]
Good article but it’s double posted for some reason. I think one of this team’s strengths is that it isn’t completely dependent on one player scoring X number of points. Look at Ohio State’s recent struggles and they seem to align perfectly with William Buford’s struggles. Remember the 2005 team? Against UVM, Hakim and Gerry struggled and SU had no real answers. D.Nic wasn’t ready to step forward and neither was anyone else. The beauty of this team is that if Scoop isn’t hitting his shots, he’s not forcing them, he’s passing. The same is true of Kris. SU has so many options that it can truly take what the opposing team gives them, although Dion needs to get going better. It would also be nice to see James starting hitting some perimeter shots, and Kris has to learn the pull up jumper or he can expect to be stripped more in the tournament. This is crunch time guys. A win on Wednesday and the last two games mean nothing for Big East seeding purposes. Of course winning them would be nice, but UConn will be tough because they will likely be playing to save their season, if not more. If UConn misses the NCAAs this year, I bet Calhoun is done, Drummond, Lamb, Oriakhi and anyone else with an ounce of NBA potential goes pro or transfers. Then Kevin Ollie has to completely rebuild a program with the knowledge that there is no 2013 NCAA tournament for UConn.
Finally a SU blog article who knows about college basketball!!! everything I have been reading has been nitpick this, negative that, and complete nonsense. People seem to forget how this part of the big east season goes every year, with players looking ahead to tourney, the grind of the big east, and getting everyteams best possible game of the season being atop of the big east with the number 2 in country target pasted all over theyre back. People forget all these things, and the facts that its always tough to play on the road especially since whereever they go its sold out( with other teams this is a huge point driven in. Just look at the 09-10 (that people think was better then the current team, but i dont agree) during this stretch they struggled to win games, squeaking by an awful depaul and uconn team, almost losing to wvu as well, and losing to ul twice (a ul team not as good as this years)The team is 27-1 and all most do is nitpick. Except for maybe one or two games SU has been in complete controll and would have to have given the game away for them to lose. I think the close games help us in the long run more then hurt us, this give boehiem reasons to call out his team to improve (which people may take as him thinking this team has problems and not being elite but in reality its just him trying to get his players attention because he know this team is one of his best and has a great shot to win it all)It also has allowed for differnt players to emerge that could be key for SU during the tourney, teams have started to hone in on waiters, krisjo, and melo making it difficult for them but also allowing fair and jardine to breakthrough and be sensational, melo has drastically improved offensivley as well becoming a consistent dble figure scorer. People are now saying the deepest team in the country now has a depth weakness as well, when it seems stupid to notion that and dont realize that beoheim basis who he plays the most on the flow/matchup a certain game presents, they would argue that triche wont be trusted to play in crunch time, and then hes huge in crunch time vs ul, said the same with scoop and then hes amazing (which he has been most of the season in limited mins except maybe two games) they say southerland wont get any mins if hes off from three and then he plays critical mins doing other thing then shooting. face the facts this team has 8 guys who are a threat to go for double figure on a given night saying that your worried about the depth of this team is ridiculous. The people who are nitpicking this team like crazy, shows what little they know about the sport. The one item I would like to see improve tho is dion waiters play when teams d hone in on him,he somtimes forces the issue instead of letting the game come to him,he is drawin so much attn lately that if he dishesafter his drives (unless open) he can create so many open shots instead of forcingcontested shot, when he is on his complete a game this team looks unbeatable, he has singlehandedly put this team on huge runs by creating to’s and scoring if he gets back on track su should have no worries
I love that this team finds ways to get wins. CJ Fair’s stock is rising and Waiters’ falling. Dion is having a hard time right now and seems to refuse to be a role player..too much life Eric Devendorf(can be great but tried to create his own shot) and that could start to divide players. Not sure if he is trying to draw fouls by driving but he seems to be struggling big time. Heck, even at the line, he is missing free throws. JB needs not be concerned about this kid and leave Triche in there longer. Joseph is still trying to push it and force the issue to. His cross-over and ability to only go right has is allowing the other team to easily bait him into doing this. CJ and Melo are flat out playing great. Making free throws and being there when this team needs them. Go cuse
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