WASHINGTON – This was G-rated compared with the hell Andy Rautins endures every summer with Team Canada.

Playing in Costa Rica and Puerto Rico, Rautins sees it all. Down under, rules don’t apply. He’s mugged nearly every possession. Brawls and bench-clearings are the norm. And fans blast players with debris. Not insults.

‘You were happy to get out of some of those gyms alive,’ said Leo Rautins, Andy’s dad and the head coach of Team Canada.

So come on, Georgetown. Try harder than a ‘Where’s Snooki?’ sign next time. Likening the hair-gelled Rautins to a character on the Jersey Shore won’t work.

While leading SU over Georgetown, 75-71, Rautins gave the sign a thumb’s up and laughed about it with his dad afterward. Somewhere between those ‘Who’s your daddy?!’ and ‘Rautins is a b&%$#!’ chants, the senior put the game on his shoulders.

The season-long spokesman of unselfishness took over. He needed to. Foul trouble created a scoring vacuum. Thursday night reaffirmed that Rautins is the one that’ll make a good Syracuse team great. A tournament team, a championship team. Clearly, the Orange has all the pieces needed for a title run. But as the Louisville loss revealed, the offense is vulnerable to robotic, Tiger-apology lifelessness in the half court. Rautins is the player that can shake SU out of a pass-and-stand trance.

Constantly finding new ways to get open, he scored a season-high 26 points. So the faux-hawk, it’ll stay. The fist pumps, they’ll continue. And the backbreaking 3s, those are playing on repeat. Rautins embraces the bull’s-eye on his back.

‘He tells me some of the stuff they say and he’s just cracking up,’ Leo said. ‘Sometimes I wonder what people are thinking.’

Every game is the same half-annoying, half-fun drill for Rautins. A defender pins to his hip. Talks smack. And sometimes – um, accidentally – trips him to the floor. Georgetown’s Jason Clark and Chris Wright shared the parasite role Thursday.

Rautins sifted through his options and became the aggressor.

One, he creates his own space. With John Thompson III screaming at officials, ‘Watch the push-off! Watch the push-off!’ Rautins slyly brushed away defenders to break free.

Two, he takes defenders off the dribble. With a quick first step, Rautins made Georgetown’s jumpy guards pay by penetrating and getting to the foul line.

And three, Rautins is a master at reading screens. Syracuse turned the Verizon Center into a maze of picks, creating just enough breathing room for him to heat up. And this game, he wasn’t hesitant to pull the trigger in transition. His five 3-pointers blindsided Georgetown.

After practically every game this season, Rautins has touted the wholesomeness of this Syracuse team. Unlike recent years, players rarely take bad shots. Unlike recent years, players are disciplined on defense.

But to take the next step – to spar with Kentucky and Kansas – Syracuse needs this Andy Rautins. Needs a player that refuses to go through the motions in crunch time. Rautins is far more than a sniper. He has spent four years shedding that stereotype. This year he has been the team’s best shooter, best passer and best defender.

‘He’s the key to our whole team – defensively, offensively, whatever you want to say,’ head coach Jim Boeheim said. ‘He makes plays. Obviously he’s a tremendous shooter, but he makes plays.

‘This is the best he has shot and looked to score this year.’

Previously destined for a life overseas, Rautins is a legitimate NBA prospect. Pro scouts on press row have been enamored by Rautins’ overall development. They say he does the little things others don’t. Things that go unnoticed by the naked eye.

Yet in this March Madness appetizer against Georgetown, Rautins’ best trait was obvious. With Arinze Onuaku and Rick Jackson out, Rautins turned up the thermostat.

‘Just trying to stay aggressive and compensate for some of the scoring down there,’ Rautins said. ‘Fortunately, they were able to find me in transition and get some easy shots.’

Slammed by obstacles – frontcourt foul trouble, Wes Johnson’s recovery, point guards getting outplayed, the Erin Andrews distraction factor – Rautins fired away without last-second, ‘Should I pass?’ reservation. He willed SU’s offense. Every champion, even the radically unselfish ones, needs someone like that. Someone capable of shutting up an entire student section.

Leo knows when his son is in the zone, when the 3s drop naturally, when it seems there is absolutely nothing the defense can do to stop him. There are telltale signs only Dad sees.

‘I can’t give away the secrets,’ Leo said, ‘because you never know who will read this.’

Good thing. To go the distance, Syracuse will need more outbursts in the future.

thdunne@syr.edu

Published on February 20, 2010 at 12:00 pm