It was supposed to be a good year for the University of Syracuse; the football program just landed a NFL quality coach in Doug Marrone after Greg Robinson ran the program into the ground. The one time Syracuse High School legend Greg Paulus who was the Gatorade National high school player of the year his senior year left Syracuse to pursue a basketball career at Duke University. After finishing a remarkable 4-year college basketball career, he came back home to Syracuse to use his last year of college eligibility as a quarterback for the football program.
While Paulus is not exactly the same quarterback that showed so much promise coming out of high school, it's his leadership and communication skills that earned him the starting job. While the team is currently 3-5 they still look a lot better than they have in years. The defense is forcing turnovers and playing hard, and the offense had a major downfield threat in Mike Williams until this week.
Just when things were looking good especially for Williams who even while being on a 3-5 team was name one of the top 10 finalists for the Biletnikoff Award that goes to nations top wide receiver. But without warning early this week Williams quit the team and the University without any real explanation. While he may have had good reasons for leaving, the loss of Williams is huge for the Orange who plays 13th ranked Pittsburgh this weekend. While the football team season seems to be heading downhill quickly the basketball team is starting off the same way.
Ranked 25th in the preseason polls the Orange basketball team was hoping to bounce back from their loss in the sweet sixteen to Oklahoma while trying to reach the national championship. Coach Jim Boeheim knew it would be a good but challenging year for his young team. This year the Orange are trying to get over the loss of three starters from last Eric Devendorf, Paul Harris, and the electric Johnny Flynn who lead the team to one college basketball greatest games last year in a win over Uconn that went into 6 overtimes.
Even with the key departures the Orange were excited about finally having Wes Johnson who sat out last year after transferring from Iowa State. They also returned three point specialist Andy Rautins, and big time rebounders Arinze Onuaku and Rick Jackson. Given the height and skills of 4 out of the 5 starters, last nights exhibition game between cross-town Division 2 Le Moyne Dolphins should have been a walk in the park but it wasn't.
From the beginning of the game the Orange were out played by a team that came in ready to play. Syracuse coach Boeheim knew coming into the game that they needed to work on man-to-man defense and the Dolphins proved that last night beating the Orange 82-79 even with Johnson scoring 34 points. The Dolphins used dribble penetration and cuts to get open at will against the taller slower Orange. The Orange who are known to rely on the zone defense during a majority of their games figured last night would be a good night to work on other defenses, well we all now know there is no other defense. If they think they had a hard time playing man to man against a division 2 school wait until they start Big east conference play. While the Big East may be a joke when it comes to college football, Big East basketball is the SEC of college football. Top to bottom the conference is loaded with at least 6 teams that have a chance every year of winning the national championship.
Hopefully the Orange can look at last night's loss and never play man defense again unless they are up by 20 points with 1 minute left. The zone is what makes them a top 25 team without the zone they play defense like a deer in headlights. Last nights game showed why exhibition games are important it lets you work on all of weaknesses before the season starts. The Orange basketball team should be fine this year, given the talent they should finish within the top 25 and make it back to March Madness next year. While the football program needs to now regroup and think of other ways to score, the wildcat offense my not be a bad idea against a Pittsburgh defense that likes to commit early on run plays so misdirection could work but not for a whole game. Not saying the Orange could win but if they can stop one of the best running backs in the country Dion Lewis a freshman from near by Albany NY they could have a chance.
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