Syracuse vs. Gonzaga: Second Round

Another dominating performance by the Syracuse Orange absolutely eviscerating the Gonzaga Bulldogs from the opening tip.

We completely took Gus Johnson out of both of our games this weekend. We didn’t even get one “haHA!” out him I don’t think. He did have one dynamite drop-in calling Rick Jackson “The Ruler.” But I don’t think anyone but Bill and I noticed. Though Juice might be chuckling now. Gus will get another chance as he is broadcasting the West Regional.

There were a few tense moments early in the game when Rick Jackson picked up his second foul. Stupidly Boeheim left him in the game and after failing to block out and allowing an offensive rebound Jackson committed his third foul with 9 minutes left in the first half.

Luckily DeShonte Riley came in and filled the void on defense. His offense though was another matter entirely. On his first three touches he airballed a 3, traveled and got the ball stripped. It was funny because as soon as he came in Billy lamented the fact that SU had no interior presence on offense. Riley did eventually pull his head out of his ass and made a sweet pass to set up a Brandon Triche layup.

But we didn’t need Riley because we were shooting so well from the outside. Wes Johnson’s hand obviously isn’t hurting anymore he hit 11 of 16 overall and 4 of 6 from 3-point range. It seems quite likely his hand injury and his shooting slump were related.

Rautins added 24 points on 5 of 9 from downtown. I love that little white guy.




I hope we get Onuaku back but if the rest of the team plays that way we may not need him.

There will be tougher opponents, there will be teams with better big men, there will be teams with better perimeter D and there will be nights when the team doesn’t shoot that well, but when Syracuse plays the way they did against Gonzaga, no one, except maybe Kentucky.

It also helped that Gonzaga made only 3 for 21 3-pointers. After the game Boeheim basically said you can’t beat the zone shooting that poorly and if you do you will lose.



Up next, another set of Bulldogs, the Butler Bulldogs. That game starts at 7:07 pm on Thursday night which works out well for me since I'll be able to watch the entire thing before going to work.

But it doesn't work out quite as well for some people in Syracuse. Anyone who bought tickets to the Sweet 16 in Syracuse has either two choices: miss the Syracuse game, or don't go to the Dome until it's over. A few years ago the NCAA abolished the rule preventing host teams from playing at the same time as the games they are hosting. This is not just a screw-the-fans thing. I have a feeling the first game Thursday night (West Virginia vs. Washington) will be mostly empty until the crowd files in for Kentucky-Cornell. Unless SU students can sell their tickets to Cornell students.

One more note from Skypeing with Billy: The hardest part is getting our TVs lined up so we are reacting to the same things at the same time. I paused my TV and got it right in line with Billy's and told him we were in sync. Like always. Two seconds later the ubiquitous commercial promoting the 60 Minutes story on the Bryan Brothers came on and said "they're always in sync." Billy and I cracked up, Al got a little nervous.