Somebody tell Scoop Jardine he’s at a pressure-packed Carrier Dome, not his old Philadelphia playgrounds. Chewing gum and playing loose, Jardine’s peripheral vision burst the Syracuse crowd into a frenzy.

He knifed into the lane, looked one way, passed the other and – for the second time in three days – Kris Joseph flushed the easy lay-up. Georgetown burnt a panic timeout. The packed student section boomed, ‘Scoooop!’ Jardine pointed to Rick Jackson on the bench. And the two Philadelphia natives sprung into the air to bump hips.

Suddenly, a 14-0 deficit was a 50- 37 lead.

After an early scare, No. 4 Syracuse cruised past No. 7 Georgetown, 73-56. Jardine and Joseph, Syracuse’s impromptu super-subs, were electric. Joseph scored 15 points and Jardine added nine with four assists to key the Orange in possibly its most marquee win to date.

The two further showed just how deep Syracuse really is. When the starters sunk SU into an early deficit, Jardine and Joseph gave the Orange the lightning-in-a-bottle lift it needed.

A rivalry was renewed Monday night. Thirty years after John Thompson II declared Manley Field House officially closed, Syracuse and Georgetown recharged an ageless rivalry. Only it never broiled into the last-second game many anticipated. After weathering an early blizzard of 3-pointers from Georgetown, SU settled down and coasted.

Early on, it seemed John Thompson III knew the antidote to Syracuse’s 2-3 zone. The Hoyas ripped the ball around the perimeter at warp speed, quickly finding the open man to suck life out of the Carrier Dome early. But Syracuse was patient. The Orange used a balanced attack to climb back. Scoop Jardine’s deep 3 woke up a muted crowd to make it 14-5, and SU never looked back. By the 10-minute mark, Syracuse was riding its usual defense-to-offense formula of success. The athletic Jardine and Joseph caught Georgetown cement-footed on the fastbreak all game.

Jardine’s jumper-steal-floater flurry midway through the first half sparked the rally. Joseph added nine first-half points. By halftime, Syracuse had a 34-29 lead. And by game’s end, the Orange had outscored the Hoyas, 73-42, after falling behind, 14-0 to start the game.

Sitting in the first row, former Syracuse forward Derrick Coleman fist-pumped exclamation points to Jardine and Joseph’s highlight-reel plays all game. Waving a white towel, Coleman summoned a student section that was smattered with oversized cardboard heads of Wes Johnson and Bernie Fine among others. Nearly creeping onto the hardwood.

Tonight’s game was so much like Syracuse-Georgetown games of old.

thdunne@syr.edu

Published on January 24, 2010 at 12:00 pm