When Syracuse won its national championship in 2003, it was freshman freak Carmelo Anthony leading a team that had some quality players to support its star.
In the title game, the Orange beat a balanced Kansas team. The roles will be reversed tonight in a South Regional semifinal when Syracuse brings its steady starters against Oklahoma and sophomore stud Blake Griffin, who is a virtual lock to be the national player of the year.
“This Syracuse team doesn’t have a Carmelo Anthony-type player,” CBS studio analyst Greg Anthony said. “But this team has incredible balance. They have done a great job of playing inside-outside basketball, with Paul Harris, Eric Devendorf and Jonny Flynn, through the first two rounds of the tournament.”
Facing top-level talent is something Syracuse should be used to playing in the Big East.
“Look, they beat UConn — and if you beat UConn, you can beat anybody. That’s the bottom line,” Anthony said.
Syracuse better hope that is true — if the Orange gets past Oklahoma, a likely matchup with top-seeded North Carolina awaits. The Tar Heels play Gonzaga in the South Region’s other semifinal.
“This is a very dangerous team with the talent to reach the Final Four,” Anthony said. “And Flynn has been a great decision-maker for this team. I like their chemistry.”
Anthony was the point guard for UNLV’s 1990 national-championship squad and knows what kind of effect a floor general like Flynn can have on a game of this magnitude.
“When you have a great ball handler who can fill it up offensively, that can be pretty comparable to having a player like Griffin,” Anthony said. “When your best player is your point guard, he is going to have the ball more . . . It’s easier to take the bigs out of the game than it is to take the guards of it.”
Syracuse already dodged one future NBA lottery pick when it beat James Harden and Arizona State, 78-67, to advance to this Sweet 16 matchup against the Sooners in Memphis. But Harden, the Pac-10’s player of the year, became a shrinking violet in the team’s biggest game of the season, scoring 10 points on 10 shots.
Don’t expect Griffin, who scored 61 points in the first two rounds of the NCAA Tournament against Morgan State and Michigan, to provide a similar disappearing act.
“Unless you’ve played against him, it’s so hard to prepare for Griffin,” Anthony said. “He’s so much quicker and explosive than what you can game-plan for. When you have that much physical ability, it’s hard to prepare for it.”