CINCINNATI – Jim Boeheim is puzzled. Players should wither away at this point of the game, should coil under such pressure. At least sometimes.

Midway through the second half of Cincinnati’s game on Sunday, Bearcats freshman Lance Stephenson snatched a missed shot above the rim with one hand and threw it down for an arena-erupting dunk. Clenching his fists, he screamed into the baseline camera.

Moments later, Syracuse’s best player picked up his fourth foul. Suddenly, the No. 3 team in the country was in a six-point hole. Oh well. No big deal.

‘We’re on the road, and nothing seems to bother these guys,’ Boeheim said. ‘They just make a couple stops, make a couple plays and all of a sudden we’re right back in the game.’

Again. Unfazed on the road, Syracuse (23-1, 10-1 Big East) surged past Cincinnati (14-9, 5-6) in front of a crowd of 11,045 here at Fifth Third Arena, 71-54. A hobbled Wes Johnson missed most of the second half, but (again) it never mattered. Powered by poise, Syracuse’s stifling 2-3 zone eroded a tight game into a blowout.

As Eminem’s ‘Lose Yourself’ boomed in the background, a few final beads of sweat trickled down Andy Rautins’ temples after the game. He signed a few autographs and repeated what has become a company line by now.

These road games are won with defense, won with ignorance to pressure.

‘This is a tough place to play. They’re 11-1 at home,’ Rautins said. ‘But this team time and time again shows what we are. We never panicked, stayed calm, stayed within ourselves and made plays.’

Rautins did the silencing and Kris Joseph did the finishing.

With a game-high 20 points, Rautins drilled 3-pointers throughout the game to answer Cincinnati’s flashflood runs. After going 6-of-24 from 3-point range in his last three games, Rautins refined his mechanics at practice. Stopped drifting. Held his follow through. And the results were golden. Rautins drilled four 3-pointers. Another slump, overcome.

Each numbing trey lowered the decibel level.

‘If I get a good look at the basket, I’m going to take it,’ Rautins said. ‘It’s what I do.’

Joseph, meanwhile, hit the two biggest shots of the day. His first 3 broke the Bearcats’ final lead with 9:37 left and his second one – with a palm in his face – gave SU an insurmountable 10-point lead with 4:42 to go.

It’s confidence. Not overconfidence, Joseph assures. But just enough bravo to catch and release big shots at big moments – even if he had only made four deep balls prior to Sunday.

‘We can’t worry,’ Joseph said. ‘That’s been our bread and butter all year. It’s just to stay poised as a team and not let anything rattle us on the road. If you crumble under pressure on the road, there’s no chance that you’ll win.’

Whereas Syracuse eventually solved Cincinnati’s badgering man-to-man ‘D,’ the younger Bearcats never decoded SU’s zone. Guards denied the high post. All five shifted in unison. When Cincinnati needed offense late, the Bearcats were forced to settle with a bombs-away offense – hardly their forte. In the Big East, Cincy ranks dead last in 3-point shooting.

Syracuse’s length in general was overwhelming. Passing windows closed in an instant. As a result, SU has forced opponents to launch an average of almost 25 3-pointers per game.

As Boeheim joked afterward, ‘size matters.’

‘We’ve made some changes,’ Boeheim said. ‘We trap more. We slide a little different. Because we saw early that we wouldn’t have much success with their man-to-man, we probably devoted more time to our zone than we might ordinarily.’

So Deonta Vaughn had no answer. The Cincinnati senior could only pass, wait, pass, wait, pass and wait. Nothing ever developed. Before he knew it, the shot clock was waning and the fans were booing. Cincinnati was forced to launch 19 treys. They made five.

Standing in the corner of his court after the game in street clothes, Vaughn peered around the key. Baffled and frustrated, he struggled to find words. Syracuse’s zone is unique to any he has seen.

‘They’re long and they read the passing lanes real well,’ said Vaughn, who was 0-of-6 behind the arc. ‘When you play against a team whose shortest player is 6-3, it’s kind of hard. It’s tough to get good shots off them.

‘They’re one of the best defensive teams in the nation and, to me, the No. 1 team in the nation.’

thdunne@syr.edu

Published on February 7, 2010 at 12:00 pm