Slip Sliding Away
An 18-0 start to the season seems like a distant memory today to Syracuse coach Jim Boeheim and his troops.
Syracuse knew it was up against it when they took the floor at Louisville this past Saturday.
The Cardinals paid tribute to its last national championship, honoring the 25th anniversary of its 1986 national championship with several of its prominent players returning, including Hall of Fame coach Denny Crum.
Through it all the Orange couldn't quite erase a 20-point second-half deficit when it fell, 73-69.
Senior forward Rick Jackson, who entered the game averaging 13.1 points and 11.4 rebounds, managed just seven points and seven boards against the Cardinals.
"It's tough when you're down (20) on the road to come all the way back," Boeheim said. "We made a great effort and got our offense going and did some good things on the defensive end, but you can't get that far behind.”
Syracuse enters tonight’s fray just 2-6 SU and ATS in its last eight games.
Not So Melo
Freshman center Fab Melo, who had started in each of the Orange’s games this season, didn’t play in Syracuse’s loss to Louisville on Saturday.
According to Boeheim. Melo, who has been struggling all season, was held out of Saturday’s game after missing practice on Thursday.
Boeheim refused to offer an explanation for Melo’s absence at practice; or if Melo’s absence had been excused. The big man said he was struggling with family issues.
“I had some personal problems with my family,’’ Melo, a native of Brazil, said. “My head wasn’t for practice. So that’s why I didn’t practice.’’
Melo is averaging just 2.0 points and 1.8 rebounds per game. Baye Moussa Keita, a 6-foot-10 freshman, replaced Melo in the starting lineup. Keita had one point and seven rebounds against the Cardinals.
Melo said he would return to practice on Sunday, but his status for tonight’s games against West Virginia remains in doubt.
“He’s done playing,’’ said Boeheim, “for now.’’
Consistently Inconsistent
After averaging 58 points in its previous six games, West Virginia jettisoned past that figure midway through the second half in Saturday’s up-and-down 82-71 victory over DePaul.
It marked the first time in over a month, and only the second time in the last 16 games, that the Mountaineers scored more than 80 points in a game.
After its highest first-half output of the season (47 points), the WVU offense sputtered after halftime and didn't put away DePaul until the final minutes of the contest.
Mountaineers head coach Bob Huggins blamed that on some of his players not helping complete plays on the offensive end.
"We don't do a very good job of getting easy baskets," he said. "We're just so undersized.”
Consequently, DePaul converted 62.5 percent of its field goal tries in the second half. It is the third straight game the Mountaineers have allowed an opponent to shoot better than 60 percent in the second half.
“Sixty two and a half percent we gave up in the second half,” said Huggins. “I don’t know what we’re doing. It’s not that they’re tired because we subbed. They didn’t play major minutes, but it’s like I told them in there, I’m not very happy about it.”
A loss to the Demons would have sent West Virginia tumbling to 11th place in the conference. Instead, the Mountaineers improved to sixth, a half game ahead of Syracuse.
West Virginia has now allowed 71 points in back-to-back games after opponents averaged 55 points in the five games before that.
Coaches Conundrum
Since 1990…
• Bob Huggins is 7-17-1 ATS when playing with revenge against an opponent off a loss.
• Jim Boeheim is 10-18-1 ATS as a conference home favorite off back-to-back losses.
In This Series
The Mountaineers are 5-16 SU and 8-13 ATS in head-to-head games versus the Orange since entering the Big East in 1996.
Inside those numbers against Syracuse, WVA is 1-6 SU and ATS when playing off a conference win and 2-15 SU and 4-13 ATS when West Virginia owns a winning record.
West Virginia has lost 11 of its last 12 to Syracuse and has won only once in the Dome in 1996. The Mountaineers’ only victory against the Orange since 2001 came in Morgantown in 2008, which was Huggins’ first season at WVU.
In setting the table for tonight’s game, Huggins said, “I would imagine they are not in a very good mood. I would think old Coach Boeheim had something to say to them on the plane ride back. They’re really, really talented.”
Tape Measure
According to college basketball statistics, here is a breakdown of how each team ranks among 345 others in three pivotal stat categories this season:
Offensive FG Percentage –
Syracuse 46.8 – No. 35
West Virginia 43.9 – No. 146
Defensive FG Percentage –
Syracuse 39.3 – No. 19
West Virginia 40.6 – No. 51
Rebound Margin –
Syracuse +3.3 - No. 65
West Virginia +3.0 - No. 75
Chew On This
How deep is the Big East, you ask?
Syracuse has slipped to 11th in the Big East standings with a 7-6 record and was in the peculiar position of being ranked one spot ahead of its conference position in the national polls (10th) prior to its new standings in the rankings this week.
