BUFFALO — In other years, Syracuse moved into the NCAA Tournament after surviving the gauntlet that was the Big East regular season. The rivalries, the nightly battles, the flying elbows and menacing growls, all culminating in a New York gathering at the Garden for the Big East Tournament, where legends were made.
Once again, Syracuse heads into the land of brackets as a contender, a No. 3 seed in the South Region, heavily favored to get past Western Michigan on Thursday afternoon at First Niagara Center. Once again, coach Jim Boeheim’s club hits the court with its long-armed 2-3 zone and enough talent for a prolonged stay in the tournament.
This time, though, the Orange have not prepped for this journey having navigated through the rough Big East waters. Syracuse just completed its first year in the ACC, thriving amid the rolling hills, trading grit for grassy campuses.
“You’re hearing everyone saying how you’re going from physical, Big East basketball to more up-and-down ACC basketball,’’ senior C.J. Fair said Wednesday. “I think the physicality of the ACC was underrated. You got some teams that have similar styles, like Virginia has a similar style to Pittsburgh. You play against Duke, they’re more up and down. It’s just you get a taste of everything in the ACC, not just one style.’’
For a long while, it looked as if Syracuse (27-5) was going to dominate the ACC, putting together a school-record 25-game win streak to start the season, winning in overtime against Duke and in the closing seconds over Pittsburgh and North Carolina State to remain unbeaten. Ever since a stunning loss to Boston College on Feb. 19, Syracuse hasn’t been the same, losing five of its last seven games, including getting bounced by N.C. State in its first game of the ACC Tournament. Suddenly, Syracuse is not a trendy pick to stay around for a long while.
“You can come into this tournament and you can be playing great,’’ said Boeheim, who is 25-5 in his opening games of the NCAA Tournament. “We won two Big East tournaments and lost in the first round of the NCAA tournament twice. We won the national championship, we got beat in the Big East Tournament by quite a bit. Last year we got beat by a lot in the Big East Tournament and went to the Final Four. There’s just not much relationship to that stuff. People want to look at that, I just don’t see it. There’s no way to really tell.’’
Last season, Syracuse got out of the gate so fast it nearly took off, going 18-1 to raise all sorts of expectations — which were dashed when the Orange went 5-7 down the stretch of the regular season. A run to the championship game in the Big East Tournament — before a loss to Louisville — sparked Syracuse’s resurgence and the fire burned all the way to the Final Four until a loss to Michigan in the national semifinals.
“We know what it takes to get there,’’ said Fair, who leads Syracuse in scoring at 16.7 points a game. “It’s not an easy road, but it’s fun.’’
This Syracuse team is not nearly as experienced as last year’s squad, especially in the backcourt with freshman sensation Tyler Ennis and sophomore shooter Trevor Cooney. When they struggle, it is on offense where the Orange are suspect.
Western Michigan (23-9), the champions of the MAC, is in the NCAA Tournament for the first time since 2004, and in order to pull the upset the Broncos will need an inside-outside game from guard David Brown (19.4 ppg) and 6-foot-11 center Shayne Whittington (16.3 points, 9.1 rebounds per game). Given the proximity to this site and the Syracuse campus, the Broncos will enter a hostile environment.
“We were told it’s going to be a road game,’’ Whittington said. “I know it’s going to be very orange in the arena when we play.’’