Syracuse Again Facing Great Expectations

In places like Cortland and Skaneateles and Weedsport, burghs that dot the landscape of central New York with equal parts of parochial charm and single-minded stubbornness, expectations are born. These are the folks who help put 33,000 in the Carrier Dome when Syracuse plays a game that is important, and 25,000 when it plays a game that is not. During the winter, Orange basketball is not the only game in town, it is the only game in many towns.

Here it is not like at Georgetown or Villanova or Boston College, where Big East basketball programs jostle for interest in a crowd of professional interests. It is no more like St. John’s -- which sits roughly at the epicenter of nine professional franchises that seem newsworthy year round -- than its downtown is like New York City. Here the fans and the media go steady with the Orangemen. The relationship is forever tempestuous and forever demanding.

“I don’t think there’s any place in the conference like this,” Syracuse Coach Jim Boeheim said. “The media people who are here, they have the impression that we’re supposed to win every game. Our fans, I think, are like fans everywhere. They want us to win. They’re going to get upset when we lose a game, they’re going to call the radio shows.”

Which brings us to 1990 and the two-lottery-pick, three-NBA-players version of the Orange. The theme is not new: Boeheim brings in big talent, predictions run wild, Syracuse falls short, Boeheim gets blistered. It is observed in these parts more keenly than anywhere else that Syracuse has been but once to the Final Four in Boeheim’s 14 seasons. Though it may be unfair, much more has been asked.

So this fall the Orangemen began play with Derrick Coleman (the best player in the country), Billy Owens (what? the fourth- or fifth-best, maybe?), Stephen Thompson (a splendid college player who will get a chance to play in the NBA) and LeRon Ellis (a high school All-American and transfer from Kentucky). Had they gotten Kenny Anderson to be their point guard, the rest of the Big East might have defaulted on the season.

Instead, what has sprung from this anticipation is a tumultuous regular season that ended with Sunday’s 89-87 overtime win against Georgetown, clinching the No. 1 seed for the conference tournament that begins Thursday night at Madison Square Garden. Syracuse will open play Friday night against the winner of Thursday’s Pittsburgh-Boston College game.

The Orangemen come in as the most dangerous team in the tournament--and the most fragile.

“It hasn’t been easy all year,” said Thompson, a 6-foot-4 senior who has averaged 18 points a game. “We’ve had to work hard at things, we’ve had to mature. Hopefully, we can carry ourselves from here.”

Here is what they have lugged through the winter:

The Point Guard Affair: Boeheim made Thompson, a courageous and clever player with superb skills in traffic, his point guard. The Orangemen coasted through a soft early-season schedule before losing three of their first six Big East games, including a 93-74 embarrassment, at home, to Villanova, which mortified the partisans. Boeheim turned the ball over to freshman Michael Edwards of Voorhees, N.J.--no Anderson, but no Thompson, either. Syracuse won six in a row and won 10 of its last 12 games. But

“I had to change my entire game halfway through the season,” Thompson said. “Not even halfway, it was more than that because I had spent my whole summer and fall preparing to play point guard.”

And the weight of the season was placed on the shoulders of Edwards, a 5-11 (maybe), 160-pound (no way) imp with potential, quickness and awe. “I look around me and I see a bunch of guys who are going to be in the NBA,” Edwards said. “They’re all going to be millionaires someday, so I’m thinking I better keep them happy.”

Ellis’ Adjustment: When he came from Kentucky, Ellis was expected to play a solid center and free Coleman to terrorize the country at power forward. Instead, Ellis has adapted slowly to Syracuse’s system. It’s not easy being option No. 5 in the offense. “He’s never been in that position in his life,” Boeheim said.

After getting 16 points a game in the Southeastern Conference last year, Ellis has averaged only 7.9 points and 4.6 rebounds, which are timid numbers.

Coleman-Owens; Owens-Coleman: Pumping Coleman for national Player of the Year is a hobby in Syracuse this winter. “Anybody who thinks he isn’t a candidate is an absolute moron,” Boeheim said Sunday, a frontal assault on Sports Illustrated, which named only Oregon State’s Gary Payton, Michigan’s Rumeal Robinson, LSU’s Chris Jackson and La Salle’s Lionel Simmons as possibilities.

“I think I’m the best player in the country,” Coleman said humbly. “At least as far as being able to do a lot of different things in the game.”

Undeniably, he has been terrific and will be a good pro. But can he go one step higher, and take a team and carry it through the postseason like Magic Johnson or Darrell Griffith or Danny Manning? He has one more chance.

Owens, the 6-foot-9 sophomore swingman also was shuffled around, from shooting guard back to small forward, in the Edwards exchange. He can be either devastating or silent, and is a source of wonder. On Jan. 27, he carved up Georgetown for a career-high 36 points. Then on Sunday, he went scoreless for more than 17 minutes of the first half, as Syracuse struggled. Zone defenses, which prevent his slashing drives from the wing, quiet him for minutes on end.

But it is in just such situations that Owens, like his team, acts most unpredictably. Owens scored 21 points in the final 27 minutes Sunday, as Syracuse turned from lethargic into spectacular. The Orangemen averted a loss which, against a Georgetown team with no coach, would have been devastating.

“If we had lost (to Georgetown),” Owens said, “I wouldn’t be talking to anybody right now.” As it is, the Orange come to New York as survivors, as No. 1. “I guess,” Owens said, “that means pressure on us.”

Nothing new. After all, the natives are always restless.