Syracuse Wears Gatorskin Boots

OK, that headline made no sense, but whatever. Syracuse scored a huge early season win tonight, defeating Florida on a neutral court in Kansas City in the semi-final of CBE Classic -- sponsored by O'Reilly Auto Parts. They play Kansas tomorrow night in the finals. Right now Syracuse fans should hope Florida puts together a respectable season so this win looks as good in March as it does now.

Here are a few idiotic observations from the game:

- Paul Harris had 18 and 11, but he's the ultimate wild card. You don't know if he's going to turn it over or dunk on someone.

- Great job by the crowd tonight - all 13 people that were there. I swear I heard two guys in the third row discussing whose turn it was to buy nachos.

- I would have liked to have seen more man to man tonight, the way this team is built I believe its their most effective defense -- however a win is a win and if they beat teams playing triangle and two all night, I'm good with that too. Just win games baby.

- If you don't love Kris Joseph's game, you don't love basketball. He reminds me of a more athletic Ryan Blackwell.....and he's only a few games into his college career.

- Florida looked like they learned their 2-3 zone from watching Syracuse tapes - of last year's team. Their D sucked.

- Andy Rautins found his stroke, they will need that as the season progresses.

- No playing time for Mookie Jones tonight. I like his game and think he'll play more once SU gets to the softer part of their schedule. It will be interesting to see if Boeheim reaches a comfort level with him once Big East play starts.

- Even with Mookie on the pine, right now the team is legitimately 8 players deep. It's been a while since that happened, and it's nice.

- Is it me, or does the O'Reilly Autoparts logo look like something that should be competing with Big Tom Callahan's company?

Big one tomorrow against Kansas, let's go Orange.