SYRACUSE — Jim Boeheim is cruising toward the 900th victory of his impressive coaching career at Syracuse, and he’s made a point in his 36 years at the helm of making sure he has veterans on the roster each season.
This year is better than most with fifth-year graduate student Scoop Jardine and senior Kris Joseph.
“They’ve been winners,” Boeheim said. “They’re the first group that’s won two undisputed league championships. They’ve just had tremendous careers. They’ve been great players and great leaders.”
And a big reason why the second-ranked Orange (29-1, 16-1 Big East), who have clinched the Big East title, have been ranked in the top five nationally all season. Jardine and Joseph will play their final home game in the Carrier Dome on Saturday against No. 19 Louisville (22-8, 10-7).
“Just winning the game is the main thing, really,” said Joseph, who’s been on the floor for 114 wins in his Syracuse career, the most in school history. “It’s definitely hard to believe (it’s over). I just want to go out winning my last home game, get a win for the team.”
Ditto for Jardine.
“We just talked about it. I’m right behind him,” Jardine said. “I think I’ll be No. 2. That’s special. That’s something that you’ll never forget.”
Jardine grew up in Philadelphia, where his mom and grandmother made sure he steered clear of trouble.
But during his freshman year Jardine was caught using another student’s meal card. He was placed on probation and nearly expelled.
Jardine put that behind him, redshirted as a sophomore to heal a shin problem, then joined Joseph as the first two players off the bench in 2009-10 as he began to mature.
He figures he’ll be fighting back tears come Saturday, when a crowd of more than 30,000 will bid farewell.
“It’s going to be emotional, five years coming to this point,” Jardine said. “The most important thing about me and my senior day — that’s to win against Louisville. We’ve got a chance to beat them two times in the season. To beat them twice in a season would be something special.”
Jardine, one of 11 finalists for the Bob Cousy Award and the only point guard on the list from the Big East, has been playing at a high level throughout the conference schedule. In wins over Providence and Pittsburgh, he had 22 points, 21 assists and only three turnovers. And he’s performed admirably at crunch time in the Orange’s close games.
“Scoop has made an incredible improvement over the time he first came here,” said Boeheim, who has 885 wins, 400 in the Big East. “His jump shot, what it was and what it is today, his decision making.
“Over the last two years, he’s probably leading the league in assist-to-turnover ratio, and people are still talking about turnovers. That’s not factual,” Boeheim said. “The word should be out there. The facts are he’s one of the best guards in the league, in the country, in assist-to-turnover ratio. He’s the best 3-point shooting guy on our team in the Big East. Nobody even knows that.”
Jardine, who’s averaging 8.9 points and five assists, has hit 18 of 50 (36 percent) from beyond the arc this season in conference, a tick better than Joseph’s total of 24 of 70 (34.3 percent). Joseph leads the Orange in scoring at 14.2 points per game and has elevated his level of play late in the season.
“He’s come up big lately,” Boeheim said of Joseph, a finalist for the Naismith Award, given annually to the top player in the nation. “I think he’s starting to be more aggressive in every game. We need him to be aggressive and to be there for us. He’s huge. The two guys that are going to take us anywhere are the two seniors. I’ve said that from day one. That’s the way it’s going to be.”
Since losing at Notre Dame in late January, Syracuse has won nine straight. Among those triumphs were a three-point overtime win over Georgetown, two-point victories over West Virginia and Connecticut, and a one-point squeaker at Louisville, which snapped a seven-game losing streak to the Cardinals.
The Cardinals would like nothing better than to exact revenge against Syracuse on a special day for the Orange’s two leaders, and they’ll be motivated. Louisville lost at home to South Florida, 58-51 on Wednesday night, the final home game for seniors Chris Smith, Kyle Kuric and Jared Swopshire.
Syracuse’s C.J. Fair has other ideas.
“It (a win) is something we owe to our seniors,” Fair said. “We just want to end the season strong going into the postseason.”