Syracuse Vanquishes West Virginia

Even using an evil villian from the Superman movies was not enough to help West Virgina overcome Syracuse

The Syracuse Orange broke a two game losing streak with a solid win versus the West Virginia Mountainers tonight, winning 62-53.  While the performance was far from perfect, SU's 2-3 zone was more active and aggressive than it's been in quite some time and the offense was bouyed by another tremendous outing from sophomore guard Brandon Triche. 

That was enough to carry the Orange to their 21st victory of the year and continued Jim Boeheim's historically strong record against West Virginia golf windshirt model and head coach Bob Huggins.  However, the Hall of Fame coach took a strong exception to the fact that local reporters Mike Waters and Donna Ditota of the Syracuse Post Standard had the gall to mention that Rick Pitino has won 6 of the last 7 games against him.

That rant aside, the story of the game -- and what could be the story of the season -- is the emergence of Brandon Triche.  It's hard to believe that we are watching the same player that went 5 games earlier this season without making a three because right now he's playing like a guy that's about to break into the top level of Big East guards.  With Kris Joseph and Scoop Jardine still struggling offensively, the success of the rest of the season could very well rest on Triche's broad shoulders.

And while it's easy to rip on teams and players when things are going bad -- it's really, really fun to watch a player like Triche develop.  College basketball is filled with a lot of guys who never realized their potential and those players are remembered for far too long after they are gone.  Everyone still knows who DeShaun Williams and Josh Wright are.  What people should also remember years from now is that guys like Rick Jackson and Brandon Triche came into a program without a ton of hype, worked their asses off and are now thriving in the best basketball conference in the country.  It's really fun to watch it happen before our very eyes.

Some other quick thoughts on the game:

- Kris Joseph was far more active defensively tonight than he's been recently. 

- C.J Fair is fearless and active.  You can see not much bothers him out there.

- Rick Jackson had a bounce back "Rick Jackson" game.  He brought the hard hat and the lunch bucket and battled down low.  No word on whether or not there were any cat calls on lunch break - we'll assume not.

- That was the best I've seen this team move and share the basketball in weeks.

- How do guys that starred in Super Hero movies 30 years ago have any eligibility left?

- I think Joe Mazzulla has been at West Virginia longer than Carl Krauser was at Pitt.