Hubert Davis only knows 47 words and seven of them are "Syracuse doesn't have a go-to guy." For all our sakes, lets hope that he watched the Syracuse Orange defeat the Georgetown Hoyas 64-61 in overtime Wednesday night so that he is aware of what Kris Joseph is capable of.
Joseph exploded for a career-high 29 points and hit the game-winning shot in overtime to propel the Orange over the hated Hoyas. He was simply on fire all night, adding five rebounds and three steals to his stat sheet. KrisJo was everything we hoped he'd be on this evening and let's all pray to God that he keeps this up.
Not to be forgotten is Fabricio Melo. The Brazilian waxed the Hoyas for eleven points, seven rebounds and six blocks. Fab has developed a swagger that's been missing from the Syracuse front-court for some time, even wagging a Mutumbo-like finger at once point.
Dion Waiters scored nine points, grabbed five boards and dished three assists. Scoop scored three, dished eight assists and had a typical "NO/YES/NO/YES/NO" Scoop Jardine evening (the play at the end of regulation was Classic Scoopid). C.J. Fair added five points but had a relatively off-night.
Six Orange scored and only six played double-digit minutes. Now, I'm not saying that the dirty little secret of Syracuse Basketball is that we don't actually play our depth and usually only play 6-7 guys, but...we kinda do. Clearly, Rak and MCDubz almost only get significant time in blowouts and James Southerland is a non-factor more often than he's a factor. BMK is in the doghouse these days.
When it matters most, we're a 6-7 player rotation. Hear that, Ron Morris?
The Orange looked like they were in deep trouble in the first-half as the Hoyas abused us on rebounds and slowed the game just enough to take away our transition. Not to mention they dared to try and out-zone us. While it seems to take forever for SU to adjust, they finally did and then it turned into another classic SU-G'town battle. Of course the game went to overtime because...of course it did.
And of course, we have to recognize that the win gives Jim Boeheim his 880th career coaching victory, moving him past North Carolina legend Dean Smith for third on the NCAA’s Division I list. Mazel Tov!
One last note on the refs. Maybe I'm biased cause we won but I thought it was one of the most well-refereed games I've seen in the Big East in a long time. They let'm play. They called fair and smart fouls and kept the dumb ones to a minimum. I think we're just so used to horrible officiating to the point where we get pissed off when refs DON'T make bad calls, so it's hard to appreciate. However, no coincidence that Tim Higgins and Jim Burr were far away from the Dome tonight.
The Orange now continue Hell Week with another Dome tilt against UConn on Saturday before heading to the dreaded confines of the YUM! to face Louisville. They overcame a tough start against a quality opponent and watched as their go-to guy emerged and took over. Great win and great addition to the rivalry.