Rick Jackson Goes Out a Winner, Syracuse Flattens DePaul

Rick Jackson dunked more on DePaul than a cop in a donut shop

Photo: Rochester Democrat and Chronicle

On senior night in the Carrier Dome, the Syracuse Orange did to the DePaul Blue Demons what a baby does to a diaper, destroying an overmatched program that should be playing in Conference USA 107-59.  The game was a blow out almost from the start, with the Orange quickly running out to a 20 point lead and it ended with more than 4 minutes of playing time for Brandon Reese. 

In between Rick Jackson dunked -- a lot -- and every other player wearing Orange made a ton of shots.  Even Fab Melo got into the action, scoring a  career high 10 points, besting everyone's favorite Orangeman Mookie Jones, who tallied 9.  If you missed the game, here it is in 30 seconds - DePaul is the bird.



For Syracuse fans it was a bit of sweet revenge from the 2006 thrashing DePaul gave the Orange. That night everything the Blue Demons threw up went in. Yesterday, it was just the opposite.  Syracuse barely missed and could have scored 140 if Boeheim had played the starters more. Of course in 2006, Syracuse bounced back to win the Big East tournament.  This year DePaul will be lucky to stay in NYC long enough to get a couple of dogs and drink at Gray's Papaya.

I haven't figured out exactly what DePaul brings to the Big East table - other than allowing Marquette to take a bus to one game a year. They concluded a miserable season with a pathetic display against SU. Let's put it this way, if DePaul's performance was a first pitch, it would have been this:



When one team plays as well as Syracuse did and the other plays as poorly as DePaul -- especially when DePaul has a talent deficit the size of the national debt when compared to the rest of the Big East, you aren't going to learn much about either team. So there's no real point in doing any detailed break down of what we saw. It was however a great way to send out Rick Jackson, a player who came to Syracuse as a raw freshman and as Cuse Country points out, greatly evolved throughout his career.

Thanks to the Seton Hall win over St. John's earlier this week, the Orange now have a an extra day off before beginning play Thursday in the Big East tournament. After the performance they had yesterday, SU certainly earned it.