Orange and Onuaku Bull-ish on South Florida

The much anticipated season of American Gladiators (known in some circles as Big East conference play) began earnestly this week.

Did it ever, as the Georgetown Hoyas, behind super frosh Greg Monroe, marched into Connecticut and promptly hammered the previously undefeated Huskies.

The Hoyas’ reward for knocking off the No. 2 team in the nation was being clawed at home yesterday at the hands of manchild DeJuan Blair and the Pittsburgh Panthers.

Welcome to the Big East.

Prior to the season, the conventional wisdom was that the muscle of the league would have spent most of the conference portion of their schedules trading haymakers.

The teams riding the caboose of the conference, such as St. Johns and South Florida, were expected to be layups.

Think again.

Notre Dame found out the hard way on Saturday when they lost to the Johnnies, and Syracuse almost learned the same lesson Friday night when they were taken to the wire at South Florida.

So even though the Orange boarded their flight back to New York with an ugly 59-54 win in tow, what made this victory so difficult?

First of all, injuries did play a part.

Paul Harris sat out of the game after injuring his finger in the Big East opener this week vs. Seton Hall and Eric Devendorf hurt his hip very early in the game after colliding with South Florida’s Mobolaji Ajayi.

This isn’t to make an excuse for the team, but when one of their best players doesn’t play and another is hampered almost from the opening tip, they’re going to struggle some.

Injuries aside, there were several other areas in which Syracuse has shown a disturbing season long trend.

The Orange, averaging 16 turnovers per game this season, coughed it up 15 times to the Bulls. They simply must take better care of the ball. Give a team like Pittsburgh or UConn all those extra possessions, and Syracuse will be hard-pressed to win the game.

Another way they can make life easier on themselves is to hit their free throws.

For the season, Syracuse is making only 64.6 percent from the line.  The shots from the stripe have been anything but charity.

In their defense though, that statistic is a bit misleading due to the performance of two players.

Arinze Onuaku and Kris Joseph each are making less than 50 percent of their free throws. Without those two players, Syracuse is shooting 71 percent - a decent figure.

That being said, the Orange, thanks mostly to Onuaku’s one for nine performance, made only seven of 18 shots. If for only a few more made free throws, they wouldn’t have needed Devendorf’s two clutch freebies to salt the game away.

Syracuse built a 35-19 halftime lead in large part due to Onuaku’s play early on.

He dominated the Bulls in the paint scoring at will and controlling the offensive glass.

Onuaku finished the game with 13 points and 10 boards, but because of his struggles at the line, it isn’t clearly represented just how much he managed to dominate the Bull’s front line. And when one considers that he did this without Harris, a rebounding machine in his own right, Onuaku’s performance is even more impressive.

Yet in the second half, the Orange seemed to go away from the big man after having so much success in the first half.

Syracuse’s 2-3 zone was also a huge factor in the win.

The Bulls launched 23 shots from behind the arc, converting only four of them.  Dominique Jones was responsible for the four makes, all of which came in the second half.

Speaking of three-point shots, Andy Rautins was on fire again. The sharp shooter sank four of his eight attempts and Syracuse needed every one of them.

How hot has Rautins been? When you make 50 percent of your threes for the game and you actually lower your average from the past two games (16 of 26), you know you’re in the zone. Rautins has now made 20 of his last 34 shots, or, an astounding 58.8 percent.

True freshman Kris Joseph started in place of the injured Harris and the young frosh showed why he’s been a constant presence for the Orange all season.

While his stats for the game weren’t overwhelming (seven points including three of three on free throws and three rebounds in 28 minutes), Joseph seems to have a knack for being in the right place at the right time.

Joseph is the type of player Jim Boeheim loves to recruit.  He’s long, athletic, and can run.

Depending on roster turnover at the end of the year, seeing Joseph in the starting lineup next season should come as a shock to no one.

And then there’s Jonny Flynn.

While the sophomore point guard only had three assists on the night and did miss a couple of important free throws, it was Flynn who nailed a huge jump shot to put the Orange up five with just less than two minutes to play.

Syracuse, while not playing the prettiest of games, did what they had to do (including out-rebounding South Florida 44-33) to earn the win.

Survive and advance is usually a phrase reserved for March Madness. Forgive the Big East if they start using it now.

Until the next episode of American Gladiators.