Syracuse Basketball Vs Pittsburgh Part Two Today At The Pete
By Neil Adler
We will witness Act 2 of this rivalry today at 1 pm when the Syracuse basketball team travels to Pittsburgh to try and get to nine wins in conference.
The Syracuse basketball squad goes for a regular-season sweep of Pittsburgh when it visits the Panthers on Saturday afternoon.
Entering this clash, the Orange (16-9, 8-4 in conference competition) has won five straight, while climbing to fourth place in the ACC standings.
Pittsburgh (13-11, 2-9), meanwhile, snapped an eight-game losing streak when it bested Boston College, 83-72, this past Wednesday night to climb out of the Atlantic Coast Conference basement.
Although the Panthers have had a rough overall season to date, in head coach Kevin Stallings’ first go-round at the helm, I’ll remind you that they just defeated the Eagles by 11 points on the road, while the ‘Cuse got crushed by 15 at BC on New Year’s Day.
However, I think we can all agree that this is a different Syracuse outfit. Over the last three weeks, the Orange has triumphed over two top 10 teams, and also picked up a pair of successes outside of Central New York.
In all fairness, Pittsburgh isn’t playing terribly these days. Besides the setback that the Panthers
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gave to the Eagles, Pittsburgh performed admirably in recent contests with now-No. 8 North Carolina and now-No. 18 Duke. The Panthers lost both battles, each on the road, and by a mere two points to the Tar Heels, and by just eight to the Blue Devils.
When Pittsburgh and Syracuse faced off on Jan. 7, SU raced out to a 34-8 first-half lead and cruised to a 77-66 victory at the Carrier Dome. The ‘Cuse connected on a lights-out, 14-of-27 from downtown, with graduate transfers Andrew White III and John Gillon scoring 21 and 20 points, respectively.
Given the Panthers’ struggles in the 2016-17 campaign, their record at the Petersen Events Center is only 9-4 at this juncture. Regardless, emerging victorious at Pittsburgh is seemingly always a daunting task for the Orange, which is 2-7 on the road and at neutral-sites.
Statistically speaking, these two schools are fairly evenly matched, other than SU allowing about seven fewer points per game and snatching around five more steals. If the ‘Cuse can hold its own on the boards, limit its turnovers, get some easy buckets in transition, and continue to shoot well, head coach Jim Boeheim & Co. can certainly notch another road triumph.
But it won’t prove easy. The 2-3 zone has to lock down on Pittsburgh seniors Michael Young and Jamel Artis, two of the premier scorers in the ACC.
These former Big East foes don’t like each other all that much, and I guarantee the crowd at the Pete will try to raise the roof off and help propel the Panthers to a win.
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Syracuse has to stay poised, and fight like it did the last five times out. Our boys’ determination, grit and toughness have gotten the Orange back into the NCAA Tournament conversation. Let’s keep the momentum going – and that Big Dance talk on an upward trajectory.