Heading into the Big East Conference opener, head coach Jim Boeheim said the Orange were much tougher than many of his other 31 ball clubs that he has coached in his tenure at SU. Wednesday night's victory over St. John's proved that assertion as the Orange out-muscled the Red Storm on the inside in the form of a 258 pound beast.That beast was Arinze Onuaku who converted 11 of his 15 field goals for a career-high 23 points and added 13 rebounds for his fourth career double-double. Onuaku's 23 points are the most by an SU center since Etan Thomas recorded that same total against Florida Atlantic on November 22, 1999. The redshirt sophomore is second in the Big East in shooting percentage, converting field goals at a 67.6 percent success rate.
In the first half though, Donte Green carried the offensive load for the young Orange. Green dropped in 17 first-half points, including three 3-pointers in a run that enabled Syracuse to jump all over St. John's by a score of 19-6 in the early stage of the game. About mid-way through the first half, Syracuse extended its lead to as much as 14 points, but a three minute scoring drought allowed St. John's to pull to within a deuce, 30-28. But a three from the electric point guard Jonny Flynn gave the Orange a seven point advantage heading into the break.
The Orange would find itself in a battle for much of the second half due to foul trouble. At the 16:24 mark, Green picked up his fourth personal foul and found himself sitting on the bench for over nine minutes. Once again, the Red Storm took advantage, closing the gap to a basket (50-48) with twelve minutes remaining. From that point in the game, Onuaku muscled his way in the paint, using both hands to score 10 of his 17 second-half points. In a continuing pattern this season, the Orange outscored their opponent in the paint, SU ending up with a 34-26 advantage over St. John's.
I thought Arinze played an excellent ball game and would like to see the Orange give him the ball more. At times Onuaku was tentative, looking to give the ball up instead of taking his man one-on-one. With his size and strength, Onuaku is difficult to handle down low for many teams and is a legitimate scoring threat on the block. SU hasn't had anyone at the center position with the offensive skills of Onuaku since Otis Hill graduated in 1997. Onuaku can use both hands which makes him that much tougher to guard. The only problem of course is his free throw shooting, as he was 1-of-4 from the line tonight. But Syracuse struggled as a team from the charity stripe, shooting 54.8 percent (17-of-31) which was one reason why the Red Storm were able to hang around in the second half. Another concern was the lack of rebounding for the Orange, as they were beaten on the glass by St. John's 42 to 36. If Syracuse wants to compete with the big boys like Georgetown, Connecticut, and Pittsburgh, the Orange must rebound the basketball better.
But when you have players like Donte Green, you can get away with a few things. Before leaving the game with foul trouble, the leading scorer for the Orange looked smooth hitting turn around jumpers and connecting from long range to spark the offense. The highlight of the game came late in the second session as Green tried to take the rim off with a two-handed flush off a lob pass from Antonio "Scoop" Jardine. The dunk pushed the Orange lead to 11 with just over three minutes remaining. Green finished with 22 points on the night while fellow freshman Jonny Flynn added 14 despite a poor shooting performance (3-for-10) and added seven assists. After being named Big East Player of the Week for his 19 point, 15 rebound performance against Northeastern, Paul Harris added eight points to go along with seven assists, matching his career-high.
The game was the 2,500th contest played by the Orange basketball team. Even though there were only 17,487 people there to watch, they made ten times as much noise than the 20,000+ crowd that was at the Northeastern game. Hats off to the fans for raising some hell and the people in section 311 (311 Heaven) deserve a lot of the credit as they started a number of chants throughout the night. Syracuse improves to 11-3 on the year and takes on the South Florida Bulls (9-4) this Saturday at noon in the Carrier Dome.
