Don't Forget Syracuse

Syracuse 89, #18 Florida 83
After a couple of straight seasons without a Tournament appearance, and with so many great teams in the Big East, Syracuse is surprisingly under the radar. But they announced themselves tonight with a very impressive win on a neutral floor over a Florida team that had looked very good so far this season. For one thing, I don't think enough people realize yet how good Jonny Flynn is, because he was overshadowed by the likes of Derrick Rose and Michael Beasley last year. And he basically never sat down for a moment last season, having to do everything with a thin roster. This year the team is much deeper, including adding back Eric Devendorf, who missed most of last season with injury. Throw in a good scorer in Paul Harris and the huge inside presence of 275 pound Arinze Onuaku, and that's a heck of a team. And like I said, they're deeper than they were last year, so their star players are fresher late in games than they were last season. Florida played well in this game, but Syracuse was just better. Syracuse still has a few more good opponents to go before the Big East starts, beginning with Kansas or Washington tomorrow night. They get Virginia on Friday night, and then head to Memphis just before Christmas. All of these games are so important, because as good as Syracuse is, the Big East is just so competitive. As for Florida, as I said, they played well. When you shoot 48% from the field, and have 19 assists to only 11 turnovers, you usually win. Syracuse just played really well, and shot even better from the field, and that was the difference. So don't be discouraged, Florida fans. Your team still looks like a Tournament team to me.

#8 Notre Dame 88, Indiana 50
A pretty dominant performance from Notre Dame. It's hard to focus on one guy, because everybody played well. That said, Indiana isn't exactly the greatest competition, so you have to take this with a bit of a grain of salt. We'll learn more about the Irish as the Maui Invitational continues. The Irish play Texas tomorrow, and either UNC, Oregon or Alabama on Wednesday night. Those two tests will tell us whether Notre Dame is a serious Final Four contender, or whether they're headed for another season in the 4-6 seed range. As for Indiana, I have to say that I was pretty disappointed in the way they played. We all know that they're vastly undermanned. Kevin Pritchard is a nice freshman, and should be a good Big Ten player someday. And I like the Eastern Michigan transfer Devan Dumes, but that's about it. Still, if Indiana hung tough in this one I would have considered it a very encouraging performance. But that's not what they did here. Notre Dame outhustled them and outworked them, and Indiana played bad team defense and did a bad job of distribution on the offensive end. These are things that Tom Crean teams aren't supposed to do. That said, we can't expect Crean to just waive a wand and make the last few years go away, and it will take a while for him to enforce his will on these kids. Needless to say, it's going to be a long year in Bloomington.

#21 Miami (Fl) 80, San Diego 45
This performance by Miami wasn't just impressive because of the final score, but because they did it without getting anything from Jack McClinton, who didn't score his first bucket from the field until the final seven minutes of the game, when Miami was already up by more than 20 points. The stars here were actually three seniors off the bench: Jimmy Graham, Lance Hurdle and Brian Asbury, all of whom scored in double digits. To be fair, a fourth star was San Diego's atrocious shooting, which was the key to a 20-0 run for Miami that broke this game open early in the second half. But the fact that Miami looked this good, just after I wrote about how much they needed to prove that they were more than McClinton, has to be very encouraging for Canes fans. The next test for Miami: the Buckeyes of Ohio State come to town for a game on December 2nd.