Rosemont, Ill.- Scoop Jardine slammed his hands against the hoop’s support beam. The sophomore guard had just fouled Will Walker on a layup that increased DePaul’s lead to 31-15, and Walker was headed to the line in an attempt to complete the 3-point play.

This was the Georgetown game again. The opponent, this time DePaul, was making the big shots and big plays early, while Syracuse lacked any rhythm offensively. A double-digit deficit early in the first half stared the Orange in the face.

Though the Orange would ultimately defeat DePaul, 59-57, Syracuse struggled in the first half for the second straight game, falling behind by double digits. Syracuse trailed by a season-high 18 points in the first half, one game after trailing Georgetown 14-0 mere minutes into the contest.

‘It’s always tough to play games like this,’ Jardine said. ‘(DePaul) didn’t have anything to lose. They made some terrific plays down the stretch. … I just give my guys a lot of credit for grinding it out and staying with it.’

In Monday night’s win versus Georgetown, the Hoyas came out sizzling from deep, hitting their first five shots to take a 14-0 lead. The key for Georgetown was passing the ball around the zone to find the open guy as the Orange zone struggled to extend to the Hoyas’ shooters.

While DePaul did open the game with a 3-point shot by Mike Stovall and hit several 3-points shots while building its 33-15 lead, the Blue Demons instead were able to pound the ball inside the Orange’s 2-3 zone.

After taking the early 3-0 lead, DePaul scored three of its next six buckets inside the paint. Krys Faber, a 6-foot-11 center, bullied his way around the inside, scoring easy layups over Rick Jackson and Kris Joseph. Before the game was even five minutes old, DePaul had a 16-6 lead that translated to a 35-31 lead at half.

‘I don’t know (why we struggled again), we come out pretty jacked up and at a high level,’ shooting guard Andy Rautins said. ‘They get good looks at the basket and we have to limit their good looks, get a hand out and wall up inside – just come out more aggressive, bottom line.’

Offensively, Syracuse displayed much of the same traits that plagued it early against Georgetown: turnovers and lack of execution. The Orange turned the ball over on its first two possessions, including a traveling call in the lane. Even the normally poised Andy Rautins had a bad turnover, throwing the ball right into the outstretched hands of a DePaul defender, which led to a layup to build the lead to 31-15.

When Syracuse wasn’t turning the ball over, it was failing to hit shots. Rautins was cold from long range, missing his first three shots behind the arc. There were several missed layups as well, along with missed open jumpers. At the end of the half, with a chance to cut the lead to two, Joseph traveled and Jardine missed a layup on consecutive possessions. The fluidity of Syracuse’s offense was absent.

‘We didn’t do a good job. They gave us some jump shots and we took them,’ Syracuse head coach Jim Boeheim said. ‘We had one of those games where we didn’t shoot very well. Andy hasn’t gone 2-for-10 since he was a freshman probably, but we should be able to get offensive rebounds in those situations and we just weren’t aggressive, I didn’t think, the whole game.’

Though both games ended up with Syracuse overcoming the early deficits, Boeheim scoffed at the notion that these games were similar. While Georgetown built a 14-0 lead, Syracuse erased that lead rather quickly. Saturday, meanwhile, took a game-long effort to erase another poor first-half performance.

‘It was like night and day,’ Boeheim said. ‘Georgetown’s comeback took five minutes – this took 38 minutes. No comparison. We played well against Georgetown: We had a bad five minutes and we played 35 great minutes. Tonight we played two great minutes. That’s usually not enough to win.’

mrehalt@syr.edu

Published on January 30, 2010 at 12:00 pm