If you ask Jim Boeheim, Wednesday night’s win over Connecticut is just the beginning. He knows Syracuse’s 72-67 victory over the Huskies was just the start of a daunting gauntlet for the No. 2 Orange.

‘I think this starts our toughest stretch,’ Boeheim said following the win. ‘I think Louisville is a very good team and we have them, Villanova at Providence – we have a lot of tough games left. Hopefully that will help us to get better, but we’ve got a very difficult stretch of games ahead of us. Probably the toughest of all this year.’

Syracuse enters the final third, and arguably most challenging portion, of its Big East schedule Sunday as it hosts Louisville at the Carrier Dome at 1 p.m. Syracuse will face two Top 10 teams and play three road games in its final stretch.

Syracuse (24-1, 11-1 Big East) will win the conference regular-season championship outright if it wins its last six games. SU would join Connecticut’s 1995-96 squad as the only Big East squad to go 17-1 in conference play if it did such.

‘This is one of our toughest stretches coming up, so we have to take it one game at a time and try and dominate every opponent,’ senior center Arinze Onuaku said. ‘We know everybody is trying to play us and they’re going to give us their best shot. Going into a stretch like this, we have to play hard and play smart and come out with a win.’

If Wednesday night’s victory over Connecticut is any indication of the remaining six Big East games for Syracuse, it’s going to be a dogfight in SU’s quest to win the league’s regular-season title. Connecticut, currently tied for 11th in the conference, gave Syracuse fits throughout, and the squads were tied with 37 seconds left.

For the first time (in a win) all season, Syracuse wasn’t protecting a lead. It instead had to find ways to grab it. Behind clutch free-throw shooting and a pair of plays that led to UConn fouls, Syracuse found a way to pull ahead and never relinquished that edge. The win gave the Orange 10 straight Big East victories, just two shy of the program’s all-time record spanning the 2003-05 seasons.

While the Orange blew a 16-point lead, the players seemed to value the experience of having to grind out a late game like this.

‘I don’t think we like to get ourselves in that position, but I think it’s good for us,’ shooting guard Andy Rautins said. ‘I think it’s good for us to play with the pressure on like that and be in a late-game situation where you’re tired and you have to be smart with the ball and make plays, and that’s what we did. We stuck together, and hopefully that will serve us well down the road.’

In its final six games, Syracuse will face Louisville, No. 4 Villanova and St. John’s at home, while heading to No. 7 Georgetown, Providence and Louisville (for the final game at Freedom Hall). Though Syracuse is already 2-0 against these teams, both wins came at the Carrier Dome.

Playing two Top 10 teams is no easy task, and neither is winning at Providence or Louisville. The Friars scored 100 against the Orange last year in Providence, and Louisville won both of its games against SU a year ago.

The Cardinals (15-9, 6-5 Big East) can be especially tricky because of their relentless full-court press. In last year’s Big East final, the Cardinals pushed Syracuse to its physical limit with pressure after seven overtime periods the previous two days.

But this year, Syracuse appears ready to be pushed all 94 feet of the court.

‘We faced (the press) a little against Marquette. They pressed us and caught us off guard,’ sophomore forward Kris Joseph said. ‘That’s Louisville’s bread-and-butter. Just like our zone, they press. We’re ready for that, and we’re going to watch film and we’re going to prepare for that the next couple practices.’

Less than a month remains until the postseason begins for Syracuse. Until then, Syracuse has six games to position itself for excellence in the postseason. It won’t be an easy stretch, and SU’s players realize other teams will be gunning for them. That’s what happens when you’re No. 2 in the country.

‘You try to take it one game at a time – you really don’t want to think about all the games that’s coming up,’ junior forward Rick Jackson said. ‘Like Coach always said, all the games are going to be big games. Just because we’re playing so good right now, you’re going to get your best out of guys, so you have to buckle down and play your game.’

mrehalt@syr.edu

Published on February 11, 2010 at 12:00 pm