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.

Find Notre Dame’s Marksmen

The Irish are downright lethal from behind the three-point arc, as they lead the conference at a rate of 41.5 percent. Kyle McAlarney, Ryan Ayers, and Tory Jackson all shoot threes at better than 42 percent.

McAlarney is the most dangerous of the three, converting 48 percent of his triples. And it isn’t likely Jim Boeheim and Syracuse have forgotten McAlarney’s performance against the Orange last season.

In the only meeting between the two schools, McAlarney torched Syracuse to the tune of 30 points, including 9-of-11 on threes, in a 94-87 Irish victory.

For the game, Notre Dame made 14 of their 25 triples, including 11 from McAlarney, Ayers, and Jackson.

So when the Orange play zone, they must get out on the shooters. And when they play man defense, they’ll need stick to their men and help out on picks. If Notre Dame gets it going from three, Syracuse could be in for another loss.

Force the tempo

Syracuse should look to push the ball and score in transition every opportunity they get. The Orange is a deeper team and they have better athletes than the Irish.

Notre Dame’s starters average 71 of their 82 points per game. With such little production from the bench, forcing the Irish into an up-and-down pace should play to Syracuse’s advantage. Speaking of Notre Dame’s bench…

Make the Irish use their bench

Only Luke Zeller (18.3 mpg) and Jonathan Peoples (13.8 mpg) average double figures in minutes. Combined, the two score a mere nine points per contest. So the onus for production falls to the Irish starting five.

Whether through foul trouble or speeding up the tempo, Syracuse must make the Irish bench contribute more than they typically do.

Hit their free throws

This has been a sore spot all season long for the Orange as they shoot only 63 percent from the charity stripe. If Harangody and the Irish shooters are clicking offensively, points will be at a premium and Syracuse will need as many as possible.

If Syracuse has the lead during the last few minutes though, their three best ball handlers (Flynn, Devendorf, and Harris) all shoot better than 71 percent at the line so they should be able to make enough to put the game away.

Defend home court

This is the second of an extremely difficult four game stretch for the Orange. As competitive as the Big East is this season, holding serve at home is vital.

If Syracuse loses this game, they have a short turnaround before venturing to Pittsburgh for a meeting with the Panthers Monday night. Given how well Pitt is playing, there’s a very real possibility of a three-game losing streak when Louisville pays a visit to the Carrier Dome on Jan 25.

The good news for Syracuse is that they are expecting the largest on-campus turn-out in the country for this game. The Syracuse Post-Standard is reporting that as of noon on Friday, over 29,000 tickets have been sold.

The similarities between these two teams are strikingly similar. They both have bruising big men who can score in the post and they both have multiple three-point shooters that can short-circuit a scoreboard.

In what has the potential to be a high scoring affair, this one will be decided by the team that does a better job of exploiting their opponents’ weaknesses.

And in a game that both teams very much need, expect this one to come down to the last few possessions.

Prediction: Syracuse 84, Notre Dame 82