Garden State

For many of us in Syracuse, this is the best time of year. Winter is almost over (we think), and the Syracuse University men’s basketball team is in the Big East Tournament at Madison Square Garden. It’s time to wear orange and hit the sports bar, take two-hour lunches that coincide with SU games, and get ready to fill out those NCAA Tournament brackets (for entertainment purposes only, of course).

There’s a little extra juice this March. The Orange, with a five-game winning streak to close the regular season, is playing as well as any team in the conference. That has SU fans dreaming of one of those magical Big East Tournament runs that energize our city.

Who can forget 2009 and the “Six In The City” six-overtime win over Connecticut followed by an OT win over West Virginia? Or the improbable run to the tournament title in 2006, when Gerry McNamara couldn’t miss and the Orange won four games by a total of eight points?

The Orange’s 18-0 start and 5-0 finish, which included road wins at Villanova and Georgetown, has SU fans thinking this year’s team can make the kind of run needed to win the Big East and NCAA tournaments.

“We want to win the {NCAA} title,” Orange guard Scoop Jardine said after SU dismantled DePaul 107-59 Saturday, March 5, at the Carrier Dome. “We got to the Sweet 16 last year and our motto coming into this year was ‘Unfinished Business.’ The only way we can finish our business is to go to the Final Four and win the national championship,” Jardine continued. “That’s my goal and that’s everybody’s goal in here.”

But first things first, and that means the Big East Tournament. Hall of Fame coach and ESPN analyst Bob Knight said last month that the Big East Tournament would be more difficult to win than the NCAA Tournament this year, and he may be right.

When the regular season ended Saturday, the Big East had eight of its 16 teams in the Top 20 of both the Associated Press and ESPN/USA Today polls. Two of those teams, Connecticut and Villanova, finished ninth and 10th in the Big East and would have to win five consecutive games this week to win the Big East Tournament. Aside from DePaul and South Florida, every team in the Big East is capable of getting hot and rattling off a few wins this week.

“We’ve seen what happened this year,” West Virginia senior guard Joe Mazzulla said when the Mountaineers visited Syracuse last month. “Rutgers beat Villanova, Seton Hall came in here {the Carrier Dome} and beat Syracuse. On any given night, any team can beat the other team. So anything can happen {in the tournament}.”

By finishing fourth in the Big East with a 12-6 record, SU (25-6 overall) received a double bye and won’t play its first tournament game until Thursday, March 10, at 2 p.m. The winner of No. 12-seed Seton Hall and No. 13 Rutgers will play No. 5 St. John’s in the second round, and the winner of that game will face SU.

Garden Party 

A St. John’s-Syracuse game would have the Garden rocking. St. John’s plays its home games there, and under first-year coach Steve Lavin the Red Storm is 12-3 at home with wins over Duke, Pittsburgh and other top teams.

The Garden is Syracuse’s home away from home, and the large SU alumni base in the city means there are always thousands of Orange fans in the house. In their only meeting this year, SU thumped St. John’s 76-59 on Jan. 12 at the Garden.

“It’d be a fight, a fight to the last minute,” SU forward Rick Jackson said of a potential game with St. John’s. “They’ve got a bunch of seniors who don’t want to lose, and we don’t want to lose.”

This is only the third year that the Big East has included all 16 teams in the tournament, with the No. 5 through No. 8 seeds getting single byes and the top four seeds receiving double byes.

The good news for SU is that a double-bye team has won the tournament in each of the first two years: No. 1 seed Louisville defeated Syracuse in the title game in 2009, and No. 3 seed West Virginia topped Georgetown in last year’s championship game. The bad news is that double-bye teams are 3-8 in their first games of the tournament.

For Syracuse, the double bye means more time to rest and heal nagging injuries. Thanks to the schedule makers and SU’s strong finish that secured a top-four seed, the Orange will have played only two games in 11 days before Thursday’s game. So even if SU has to play three games in three days in the Big East Tournament, the Orange shouldn’t be too spent for the NCAA Tournament.

“These past two weeks have been good for us,” SU coach Jim Boeheim said. “We’ll get a couple more days in of practice before we get to New York. I think that will help us as well.”

One month ago, SU was in the middle of the conference pack and looking at a Tuesday game in the Big East Tournament. But the Orange rebounded from a 2-6 stretch with five consecutive wins punctuated by Saturday’s romp over DePaul that boosted everyone’s confidence.

The Orange’s 48-point laugher against the Blue Demons is the largest margin of victory in Big East history. SU notched season-highs in points (107), field goals (45) and shooting percentage (71.4), the third-best percentage in school history.

Every player on the roster played as SU’s bench tallied 55 points. Sophomore forward James Southerland, freshman center Fab Melo and even sophomore guard Mookie Jones played well and their frame of mind could be important if they’re needed to contribute in the tournament.

“The last five {games} we have really pulled it together defensively and hopefully are getting better offensively, as well,” Boeheim said. “To get from 7-6 to 12-6 in this league is a tremendous accomplishment for these players.”

Now the fun really starts. The Orange is confident, healthy and, as Jackson said, playing its best basketball of the season. “We’re going to MSG {Madison Square Garden} and we always play great there,” Jardine said. “It’s going to be a hard Big East Tournament, but we put ourselves in a good position to only win three games and that’s our focus.”

Thanks for the memories, Ricky: Jackson, SU’s only senior, scored 14 points and grabbed seven rebounds in 27 minutes in his final game at the Dome against DePaul. The crowd of 28,086 gave Jackson several rousing ovations on Senior Day, including a final standing ovation when he exited the game for the final time with 3:32 remaining.

“I want to thank the fans, coaches and my family for supporting me,” Jackson said after the game. “I hope we can go further than last year and close out this year on a good note.”

The 6-foot-9 Jackson evolved from a freshman who averaged 3.7 points per game into SU’s most valuable player and All-Big East Second Team pick with 17 double-doubles this season. On March 7 he was named Big East Defensive Player of the Year.

“He gives you everything he’s got, every game. He doesn’t ever come up short,” Boeheim said. “There’s a lot to be said for that. He never takes a game off, ever. Never has.”

Under the big top: It’s well-known that Syracuse University men’s basketball gets us through our harsh winters, and oft times the antics off the court are just as compelling as those on the court. Freshman Fab Melo (left) appears to be having trouble taking direction during the March 5 DePaul game, while Dion Waiters (No. 3) plays some nifty defense against Georgetown. This fan (above, left) has the feeling that Villanova is about to choke, when it was SU who ultimately lost, and banner man (from the Georgetown) game just doesn’t care.

Caption Contest

These referees seem to be having a mighty fine time during the Syracuse University men’s basketball game against Rutgers on Feb. 19. Readers, we invite you to write a caption for this jocular moment, with the winning entry earning a prize package courtesy of the Syracuse New Times. E-mail your entry to editorial@syracusenewtimes.com, with “caption contest” as the subject line.

Deadline for entries is Friday, March 18.