Wes Johnson weaved through an obstacle course of outstretched legs and duffel bags in the cramped Notre Dame visitor’s locker room.

It was 30 minutes after an exhausting victory, yet relief was still a plane ride away as the shoebox-sized confines of the locker room packed with steam from the shower. The Joyce Center’s visitor locker room morphed into a makeshift sauna.

Still, Johnson had to smile despite the conditions. After five days, three cities and three grueling wins, Syracuse was headed back to the Carrier Dome to unpack its bags and defend its home court for a change. The road trip was over, and the Orange emerged stronger than it was before.

‘We’re going home,’ Johnson said, ‘and you know the crowd is going to be even more into it now after we got three big road wins.’

After registering three consecutive in-conference road wins for the first time since 1984, the No. 5 Orange (18-1, 5-1 Big East) are back in town for a pair of conference matchups against Marquette (11-7, 2-4 Big East) and Georgetown (14-3, 5-2 Big East). The Golden Eagles tip off the home series on Saturday at 2 p.m. inside the Carrier Dome.

‘It’s big for our team,’ senior guard Andy Rautins said. ‘For us to come out 3-0 and get those victories, I think it’s big for our confidence heading into the home stretch.’

For the Orange, the story was much different before the departure from Central New York. The team had recently lost its first and only game of the season – a forgettable performance in which it was physically dominated by Pittsburgh – and questions arose about its legitimacy among the top five of the NCAA’s elite.

After the Panthers strong-armed the Orange frontcourt around the basket and pestered SU’s guards with a barrage of jump shots and drives, the postgame conversation sounded grim.

‘We have to be more physical,’ SU head coach Jim Boeheim said following the loss. ‘Like I said, we really haven’t played physical teams. If you look at the teams we have played, the only team that was a little physical with us was probably St. Bonaventure, and we struggled with them. But they are physical and they bothered us.’

Two home wins later over Memphis and South Florida, the Orange still suffered a bruised ego. But in those five days and in those three cities, SU was able to take control of perception surrounding the team and steer it back on course. Nearly every concern raised in the Pitt loss was calmed in wins over Rutgers, West Virginia and Notre Dame.

The physical nature of SU’s frontcourt shined through, out-rebounding all three of its opponents while the backcourt continued to grow both in maturity and in statistical output. In essence, SU developed into a different team, a stronger team on the road.

‘It hurt when we finally got our first loss, it hurts,’ Johnson said. ‘I think after we lost that game we just watched a lot of film and had some tough days of practice and we don’t like that feeling, and we just go out and try not to have that feeling anymore.’

Perhaps that was the reason Johnson was all smiles leaving the locker room in South Bend on Monday. Because the team had won five straight, the nagging feeling of its first loss is finally in the rearview mirror.

But maybe there’s something more. Ask Johnson’s teammates about the lessons they’ve learned in this three-game road trip and they’ll all attest that SU is better and stronger as a team than when it left.

But maybe, after all of those days on the road, Johnson is smiling because he believes he’ll be able to show the home crowd firsthand on Saturday.

‘Man, it says a lot,’ Johnson said. ‘You come off a loss at home against Pitt, and coming on this road trip getting these three big wins, I just think it speaks a lot of us and says what kind of team we are.’

ctorr@syr.edu

Published on January 21, 2010 at 12:00 pm