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Just When You Thought It Was Safe To Naysay...

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Looking back, this is exactly how we should have expected it to happen, right? This is how we do things. We lose to South Florida. We beat Georgetown. We melt down against Pitt. We put ourselves on the precipice of disaster and then we fight tooth and nail to earn our way back in. Syracuse basketball...not for the faint of heart.

And so, with the 87-72 win over Marquette, even the most ardent naysayer (i.e. me) has to agree that the Orange have a shot again at making the NCAA Tournament. At first glance, 19-12 (9-9) doesn't cut it, especially when put against last season which was better overall and in the conference. But this year the RPI is on our side, and now we have two wins over ranked opponents as well.

As for the game itself, Jonny Flynn and Donte Greene both scored 21 points but the only points anyone wants to talk about were the two scored by Kristof! "I'm The" Ongenaet "Bitch" on a breakaway dunk that was both absurd and inspiring. Take a gander:



And so, the field is set for the Big East Tournament and the Orange finally know who they will have to get through to earn that all-important next win. As the 9 seed, the Orange will take on 8 seed Villanova on Wednesday at 12 PM EST for the right to play #1 Georgetown. If the Orange can rattle off both wins, they will have sealed their case for the NCAAs. But let's not get ahead of ourselves here.

The Orange lost to the Cats at home 81-71 in the infamous "I didn't try" Paul Harris game. They rebounded when they visited Nova in Philly a few weeks later and and won 83-73 behind Paul Harris' career-high 28 points. Villanova has been streaky as hell. all season but they do have key wins over Pittsburgh and UConn. But at 19-11 (9-9), they're in a similar situation as the Orange. Expect this one to be a good old Big East dogfight.