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Syracuse vs. DePaul: This Time It's For The Double-Bye

By Sean Keeley
via <a href="http://media.syracuse.com/post-standard/photo/9345737-standard.jpg">media.syracuse.com</a>
via media.syracuse.com

Seton Hall taketh and Seton Hall giveth.

The same team that sent Syracuse to the top of everyone's Pretenders list a month ago might just be the same team to send Syracuse into the double-bye round of the Big East Tournament. The Pirates upset St. John's 84-70 last night, ensuring that they did not clinch the double-bye.

Now, if the Orange defeat DePaul on Saturday, it will be them getting that much-needed extra rest instead of the Johnnies.

St. John's and Syracuse are 11-6 in the conference but the Orange hold the tiebreaker for higher seeding because of a 76-59 rout of the Red Storm on Jan. 12. So, if SU beats last-place DePaul on Saturday, SU will earn the final double-bye in the Big East Tournament that begins Tuesday.

We can debate the merits of the double-bye til the cows come home, but the fact is the Orange could use as much rest as possible. SU found out first-hand what happens to a team without depth when one of its stars go down. If the double-bye means SU's players get just one more day of rest, that might be worth it.

"We have a lot of guys hurt," Boeheim said. "Hopefully, this time off will help, but you never know. You've still got to practice. You've still got to go hard in practice. It's hard to get healthy during the season.

"We'll try to get everybody treatments and try to get everybody as healthy as we can, but there's going to be some degree of banged-up guys at this stage."

Plus, considering the week-long break before the DePaul game, there's no reason the Orange shouldn't be fresh as daises by the time they eventually do play in the BET (and beyond).

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