Boeheim blasts Jardine, guard finishes scoreless again; Waiters spurs active 2-3 zone in 1st half
Jim Boeheim didn’t waste any time telling the assembled group of reporters what he thought of Scoop Jardine’s performance in Syracuse’s 78-58 victory over Cornell Tuesday.
Midway into listening to a question that focused on a positive of Jardine’s game — seven assists — Boeheim interrupted.
‘He was horrible,’ Boeheim said. ‘He couldn’t be any worse than he played tonight.’
Four games after a career night against Detroit on Nov. 16, Jardine was absent from the scoring column against Cornell. He shot 0-for-5 from the floor Tuesday, including 0-for-4 from beyond the 3-point arc.
During the four games since his breakout performance against Detroit, Jardine has shot just 9-for-42 (21.4 percent) from the field. And that’s why Boeheim doesn’t want to hear about his assist total. Standing behind the podium with a taped-up left ring finger, Boeheim said he could have done the same.
‘I could get seven assists in a game with a bad finger,’ he said. ‘He was nowhere in the game tonight.’
And Jardine doesn’t shy away from his coach’s criticism. He knows play like Tuesday’s won’t cut it against better teams and against Big East teams.
Play like his four turnovers, which Boeheim called ‘horrible.’ Like poor shot selection, which was so poor that Boeheim said he couldn’t ‘even describe it.’
One instance that caught Boeheim’s eye was when Jardine dribbled back to take a 3-pointer that clanked off the rim.
It’s play that, overall, needs to get better.
‘Coach is going to get the best out of all his players,’ Jardine said. ‘He called out my number, and there isn’t anything wrong with that. I haven’t been playing great. But the one thing I’m never going to stop doing is playing hard.’
Boeheim was so miffed at one errant Jardine pass just two minutes into the game that he subbed in Dion Waiters at the next whistle. And that overall feeling lasted until Boeheim took the podium after the game.
‘Two games in a row,’ Boeheim said, ‘he had horrible turnovers and horrible shot selection.’
Tale of two halves for SU’s 2-3 zone
Dion Waiters wouldn’t go as far as saying Syracuse’s 2-3 zone in the first half was the best zone SU has played all year.
Waiters preferred to touch on the activeness of the zone. He harped on the hectic aspect he and the zone brought to the game in the first half. To the freshman, that was the reason SU ran away with the game.
‘You have just got to be active up top. That’s starts with us up top being active,’ Waiters said. ‘A lot of times it is our guards’ job to get our hands up. Get a lot of deflections. Get a lot of breaks going. When we get a break going, it is going to be hard to stop.’
Cornell didn’t have a chance in stopping SU’s break in the first half, and it was because it couldn’t crack the lively zone offensively. The Orange zone allowed only 17 first-half points for Cornell, a season low for an SU opponent. The strength of it was at the front with the guards. When Waiters entered the game at the 17:29 mark, he and Scoop Jardine pestered Cornell’s guards.
In the 10 minutes after Waiters entered the game, SU went on a 22-4 run to take a 29-7 lead. The game was effectively over, as Waiters, Jardine and even SU reserve guard Mookie Jones shined in the zone. SU had 10 fastbreak points and 12 points off turnovers in the first half to go along with 12 assists and six steals. Three of those steals were by Waiters.
The Big Red couldn’t find gaps in the zone. Cornell also couldn’t shoot over it, finishing 1-of-12 from 3-point range in the first half.
But halftime was the line of demarcation for the defense in Boeheim’s eyes. Overall, he was displeased with the defense. The second-half effort was a fail. It was reflected in Cornell shooting 41 percent from the field, outscoring SU 41-40 in the final 20 minutes.
The zone was busted.
Said Boeheim: ‘In the second half, there was nothing good about our defense.’
Fair dunk SportsCenter-worthy
The exclamation point of SU’s victory came with 7:02 remaining in the contest. After a Rick Jackson steal, he provided an outlet pass to freshman forward C.J. Fair.
And Fair provided the highlight of the night, giving SU a 62-42 lead with a thunderous, one-handed dunk that posterized Cornell’s Drew Ferry.
In the SU locker room after the game, SU players debated where it would land on the SportsCenter Top 10 list later that night.
‘One,’ Jardine said, before reconsidering. ‘No. Three.’
Joseph went so far as to hum the SportsCenter entry music when he was asked about the dunk. But he put it lower than Jardine.
‘Probably No. 5,’ he said. ‘Because you never know. There are NBA games, and then you have the hockey highlights. But I definitely give him top five.’
Published on November 30, 2010 at 12:00 pm
