Syracuse avoids letdown against Cornell
November 24, 2009
SYRACUSE, N.Y. (AP)—Jim Boeheim breathed a big sigh of relief. After two bigvictories last week at Madison Square Garden had vaulted Syracuse into thenational rankings, he was happy his Orange had no letdown against Cornell.
Freshman guard Brandon Triche scored a season-high 21 points, Andy Rautinsadded 18 and No. 10 Syracuse beat the two-time defending Ivy League champion BigRed 88-73 on Tuesday night.
“This was a tough game to come back from New York and play this team,”Boeheim said after his 804th career victory tied him with Eddie Sutton forseventh all-time in Division I. “They’re going to be in the NCAA tournament.”
It was the 32nd straight win in the series for Syracuse (5-0), but theOrange didn’t settle it until Triche keyed a 17-5 spurt to start the secondhalf. He hit a 3 and converted a three-point play, Rautins hit one of his five3s, and Rick Jackson added another three-point play to boost the Syracuse leadfrom six points at halftime to 59-41 with 13:27 left.
“I hit a few shots in a row, so I figured I was in a great rhythm,” saidTriche, whose baseline drive and reverse layup put the Orange up 53-41. “Weknew coming into this game there wasn’t going to be as many fans, it wouldn’t beas packed with everyone going home for Thanksgiving.”
Unranked a week ago (Syracuse was 30th in the balloting), the Orangecatapulted into the Top 25 after beating then-No. 13 California and then-No. 6North Carolina by an average score of 91-72 in the 2K Sports Classic. They had amore difficult time early with the Big Red (2-2), who beat Alabama andMassachusetts on the road before losing at home Friday night to Seton Hall.
Chris Wroblewski led Cornell with 20 points, Ryan Wittman had 19, and JeffFoote 12.
Wes Johnson had 15 points and 10 rebounds and Kris Joseph added 13 pointsfor Syracuse, which won easily despite a subpar game from big men Arinze Onuakuand Jackson. They each scored seven points, but Onuaku only had one rebound in19 minutes.
Wittman had a career-high 33 points against Syracuse a year ago, includingnine 3s, but he had trouble finding any open looks against the Orange’saggressive zone and finished 3 of 10 from long range.
“Their defense is better this year,” Wittman said. “They’ve got a lot oflength. They can make it difficult. I might have rushed my first couple ofshots, but after that we got some looks. We just didn’t knock them down.”
Syracuse held its first four opponents to 24.1 percent shooting on 3s, butCornell hit 9 of 19 in the first half, with Wroblewski hitting 5 of 6. Hefinished with a career-high six 3s, but only one came after the break as the BigRed shot just 22.2 percent (4 of 18) from beyond the arc in the second half andthat sealed their fate.
“The defense paid more attention,” Wroblewski said. “They’re really longand athletic, and they did a great job of rushing my shot in the second half.”
A year ago, Cornell led by as many as 16 in the first half and held afive-point advantage at halftime before falling 88-78. And its patient attackand long-range accuracy kept the Big Red close in this one for a while.
Cornell trailed 42-36 at the half, but the Orange limited the Big Red tojust a 3 by Wroblewski and a follow by Foote to open a 17-point lead in theopening 7 minutes of the second.
“When you go against zone so long, you can get lazy,” Cornell coach SteveDonahue said. “That’s part of the reason Syracuse is so good at it. Not manypeople do it. We executed as well as we can in the first half, got open looks,got the ball inside. The second half they start getting in a rhythm in what wewere doing. They did a great job stepping in passing lanes. We had a chance tomake open shots to weather the storm and we don’t.”
During the decisive spurt, Wroblewski missed two 3s and failed to convert ascoop in the lane as the shot clock expired, Louis Dale missed another 3, andthe Big Red committed six of their 10 turnovers in the period.
“There were stretches during the game where we had multiple turnovers,”Wittman said. “Syracuse is such a great transition team you can’t do that andexpect to stay in the game. Those turnovers lead to two points almost everytime.”