Beware The Big Red Machine

by Sean Keeley on Nov 23, 2009 5:08 PM EST Comment 12 comments

To paraphrase Chris Rock, before this week, nobody was callin' our ass. Then the 2K Sports Classic got a hold of us, cleaned us up, wiped the crust out of our eyes, gave us a tic-tac...now everybody wants to f*** us.

The praise is far and wide for Syracuse basketball this week. Everyone's doing their best to make up for all those previous weeks when they didn't really bother to notice. The Orange even move all the way up the Coaches Poll to No. 10 and make their debut in the AP at No. 9, receiving one first-place vote in the process (anyone want to fess up?).

But of course, with any kind of meteoric rise comes trouble. Andy Katz pens what I imagine is many folks' opinion, which is "It's November, let's chill the F out."Even Boeheim agrees.

"There are a lot of good teams," Boeheim said. "We're trying to be one of them. It's just impossible in college basketball right now to tell. There are so many teams we just don't know about yet."

The other part of all this that the Orange are now a known quantity. Stories about them and their players are all over the place. The SU zone from last week has been analyzed and broken down all weekend. The secret is out. And that makes us vulnerable. Especially when facing off against a team like pesky Cornell like they will tomorrow night.

The Big Red might have lost to Seton Hall on Friday but don't take them for another cupcake. The Big Red are coming off an NCAA Tournament season and went down to Alabama and beat the Tide.

Just like the Cal game, Cornell brings the threat of good outside shooting. SU already knows well what F Ryan Wittman is capable of:

Cornell boasts a bevy of top-notch shooters, especially forward Ryan Wittman. The 6-foot-4 senior torched Syracuse for 33 points in last year’s meeting. He made nine out of 19 shots from 3-point range, while Cornell shot 13-for-29 (45 percent) as a team from beyond the arc.

In four games, Syracuse has yet to allow an opponent to shoot better than 40 percent from the field or 30 percent from 3-point range.

Wittman is currently averaging 17 points and shooting 41 percent from 3-point range. Donna Ditota went into enemy territory to track down Wittman and find out more about his shooting ability:

Cornell Senior Forward Ryan Whittman

Make sure you swing by the indefatigable Cornell Basketball Blog where you can find everything you could possibly want to know about Big Red basketball and then some. You don't want to be unprepared.

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The praise is far and wide

For Wes Johnson, apparently. That’s 3 people writing the exact same article. Kinda crazy. But whatever, if everyone wants to ignore Scoop, and Andy’s leadership and the crazy aggressive 2-3 Zone, I’m cool with that. Hopefully the team will be in the spotlight all season and the writers will get to those topics too.

Go Tartans!

by voteprime on Nov 23, 2009 5:22 PM EST reply actions 0 recs

Andy Rautins

will quietly be the MVP this season. I’m sure that’s fine with him.

Troy Nunes Is An Absolute Magician - The Syracuse blog that cares.

by Sean Keeley on Nov 23, 2009 5:39 PM EST up reply actions 1 recs

I hope to god we don’t fall into the trap game trap tomorrow night. However, if we come away with a win it should be another good win for us, and there’s no way you can say Cornell isn’t a bad team

That being said, I need the Orange to beat the Red because you might recall my prom date plays for their women’s team. I have the greatest sign ever prepared for tomorrow night as well, but barely any students are gonna be left here in Syracuse to see it. I gotta post it once it’s completed tomorrow

by RyanMcD29 on Nov 23, 2009 6:01 PM EST reply actions 0 recs

my bust with grammar

it should be “there’s no way you can say Cornell is a bad team”. Joan Deppa will kill me for that

by RyanMcD29 on Nov 23, 2009 11:47 PM EST up reply actions 0 recs

Yes, Cornell is that good.

There I said it. I’m pretty sure Boeheim knows this (and somehow I bet their basketball team is looking to avenge their lacrosse team). I wouldn’t call this a “cupcake” game at all; the Ivy League can field surprisingly good teams from time to time. We just need to be aggressive with the zone like we were against Cal.

by adselver15 on Nov 23, 2009 11:11 PM EST reply actions 0 recs

It would certainly be a change of pace if their basketball team was looking to avenge the lacrosse team. I don’t think our basketball team knows we have a lacrosse team.

by Orange22 on Nov 23, 2009 11:18 PM EST up reply actions 0 recs

The Cornell Basketball Blog

provides enough coverage that you would think it was covering 10 teams at once…they are quite comprehensive over there.

by Jameson_Fleming on Nov 23, 2009 11:37 PM EST reply actions 0 recs

And they had this post up

on their site within ten minutes of my posting.

Troy Nunes Is An Absolute Magician - The Syracuse blog that cares.

by Sean Keeley on Nov 24, 2009 12:06 AM EST up reply actions 0 recs

I applaud their effort

but it annoys me that they post everything in full instead of snippets and linking back to our sites. My Cornell season preview they posted in full taking away probably a couple hundred hits from Bleacher Report.

by Jameson_Fleming on Nov 24, 2009 12:51 AM EST up reply actions 0 recs

its Ivy League Douchery at its finest. This is the same school that cracked the EU’s satellite codes and published it like it was some sort of liberating victory when in reality it was an unethical ‘look how great we are’ move that squandered millions of dollars of investments for the nations of Europe. Really Dick move.

by ryanwk628 on Nov 24, 2009 10:11 AM EST up reply actions 0 recs