PROVIDENCE, R.I. – A coach doesn’t win over 900 games, as Jim Boeheim has, in just one fashion. Along the way there are wins of all kinds, including ones that are a little unusual. There are also ones without big-time stars, although those tend to be less frequent. Wednesday night’s 72-66 win by Syracuse at Providence was both of those.
It certainly wasn’t the Orange’s best offensive outing of the season. They struggled for a lot of the night, especially from deep as they were just 3-21 on three-pointers. Syracuse isn’t a team likely to light it up from long range as it is, but even for this team that was a bad game. A lot of it came from normally reliable players like Brandon Triche (2-10 from the field, including 0-4 from long range) and James Southerland (5-16, 1-8).
“I’ve never seen James and Brandon get the kind of looks they got all night long,” said Boeheim.
For much of the night, Syracuse took advantage of a number of extra chances at the offensive end. The Orange came into the game leading the Big East in offensive rebounding, and they helped that cause out on Wednesday as their 41-27 rebounding edge included 18 offensive rebounds. C.J. Fair led the charge there, hauling down 11 boards including six at the offensive end to go with 23 points.
“We have the ability to rebound the ball better than many teams,” said Triche. “That’s what the main message was at the half, I think we were down two rebounds. One of the biggest reasons we won against South Florida was rebounding, so we focused on that in the second half and were able to rebound the ball.”
The offensive rebounding was a big part of the rally and pull-away in the second half. Although there was plenty of time left when it happened, Fair’s dunk off a miss with 4:40 left seemed like a dagger, as that put the Orange up 58-53 and led to an immediate Providence timeout. Syracuse had their biggest lead up to that point and momentum, and that it was a stickback was a back-breaker for Providence.
Syracuse used the zone well at the defensive end for a lot of the evening, but their difficulty shooting the ball kept them from the lead for a while. Providence led by as many as nine in the first half, though the Orange scored the last six points of the half to get within a possession at 33-30. Syracuse had 19-17 rebounding edge, but Providence was 6-10 from long range in the first half and rode that to the lead.
This Syracuse team is good, but not a juggernaut. They might be a little overrated being in the top 10 of both polls. The only likely NCAA Tournament team they knocked off in non-conference was San Diego State. There are plenty of good, even very good, players on this team, but no one strikes you as a first-team All-American. This team is still good enough to contend in a Big East that isn’t as loaded at the top as it’s been in some recent years.
This team is not as deep or as experienced as last year’s team, the latter of which can be seen from Wednesday’s box score – five players played at least 38 minutes, and everyone else played no more than three minutes. Nine players average double-digit minutes, but the non-conference slate skews those numbers at this point in the season so it is a little deceptive.
Boeheim said he’s trying to get players like sophomore Trevor Cooney into the mix with some minutes, but he and others are not doing well in the minutes they’re out there and he wants to win more than he wants to get minutes for some players. The only note in the box score for any of the two- or three-minute players on Wednesday was the turnover that Jerami Grant committed.
“I don’t like what we’re doing, or how we’re playing,” said Boeheim.
Boeheim has won plenty of games with All-Americans and future NBA lottery picks. This year he’ll win with players a notch or two down from that. The key is that Syracuse is still winning the games under him, and that won’t change.
