Creature Vs. Creature: Syracuse Looks To Make Irish Luck Run Out

There’s an old adage that humility is the greatest teacher.

If that’s the truly the case, then the Syracuse Orange earned their degrees Wednesday night against Georgetown.

The Hoyas humbled their longtime conference rival with an 88-74 pounding at the Verizon Center in Washington DC.

But like great closers in baseball, Syracuse (16-2, 4-1) must have a very short memory because Saturday afternoon, the Notre Dame Fighting Irish (12-4, 3-2) pay a visit to upstate New York for (stop me if you’ve heard this before or if you’re just plain tired of hearing it) another clash between Big East giants.

Syracuse struggled to no avail to stop the Georgetown’s three-point shooting. The Hoyas sank 12 of 21 attempts against the Orange.

And whether Syracuse played zone or man defense was of no significance. The Hoyas kept taking—and making—threes.

Another defensive failure to locate shooters against the Irish, and Syracuse will lose by a lot more than 14.

Because if there’s one thing Notre Dame does better than every other team in the league, it’s make triples.

The Orange (16-2, 4-1) will be looking to regain their swagger while Notre Dame, which won’t have played since Monday, is coming off an overtime loss at Louisville.

So by the end of the day on Saturday, one of these teams will be staring at back-to-back losses.

Here’s what Syracuse needs to do in order to make sure that doesn’t happen to them.

Make Luke Harangody play defense

To say the Orange must stop Harangody is a bit foolish, given that he leads the conference in scoring (24.8 ppg) and is second in rebounding (12.7 rpg). Simply put, not many teams, if any, are going to stop the skilled junior.

So while Harangody is more than likely to get his, what Syracuse must do is make him feel it on the defensive end. That means a steady diet of touches for Arinze Onuaku, one of the few players in the league as big and strong as Harangody.

In addition, Onuaku, Rick Jackson, and Paul Harris must attack the offensive glass with reckless abandon. If Harangody, who averages 34 minutes per game, is going to secure rebounds for the Irish, make him earn them.

The harder he has to work defensively, the more apt he is to slow down offensively due to Notre Dame’s thin bench.

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