Don’t Call It JV Game to Their Faces

The Final Four has a subdivision this year: the Tedious Two.

Mississippi State and Syracuse, happy to be here but not particularly pleased with their undercard billing, play the game before “the Game” here today, and there’s nothing anybody can do about it.

Except wonder if, maybe, poll-rankings and pundit pronouncements aside, one of these defense-oriented teams can pull off the biggest title-game upset since Villanova knocked off Georgetown in 1985.

“We knew coming into this game that Kentucky-UMass was going to be billed as the championship before the championship,” said high-scoring Mississippi State forward Dontae’ Jones. “But we don’t worry about what the outside people think about the game.

“If people want to look at it as the JV game, we’ll take it like that. It’s still the Final Four, and we still have a chance to play for the championship.”

Kentucky has its glorious history, glamour Coach Rick Pitino and its waves of talent; UMass has the No. 1 ranking, younger glamour Coach John Calipari, consensus player of the year Marcus Camby and the symbiotic guard duo of Carmelo Travieso and Edgar Padilla.

Mississippi State? The Bulldogs, 26-7, have a basketball history limited by their state’s racial intolerance for most of the century, sarcastic Coach Richard Williams, a rugged man-to-man defense, shot-blocker Erick Dampier and two outside shooters, Jones and Darryl Wilson.

Syracuse? The 28-8 Orangemen have a tradition of perceived big-game failures, much-maligned Coach Jim Boeheim, a tricky 2-3 zone, and the inside-outside game of forward John Wallace, who returned for his senior year after discovering that the NBA didn’t want him as much as he wanted to play in it.

These teams have spawned a campaign to reseed the four semifinalists so that the Final Four brackets don’t come out lopsided in favor of one game.

This is the surprise-survivor side of the NCAA tournament, two teams on the best rolls of their season--actually, many seasons--riding hot shooters and chilling defenses.

And, yes, a few of these teams’ players are getting a little cranky about the Kentucky-UMass media obsession.

“We’re only an underdog in you guys’ eyes,” Wallace said. “Within our locker room, within our realm, we know what we’re capable of doing. We should have even had a better season than we did have. We lost to, like, three or four teams that we shouldn’t have lost to.”

Syracuse, which has won nine of its last 10, lost by 12 to West Virginia, by 19 to Georgetown, by 18 to Connecticut, and finished fourth in the Big East. Syracuse was the West Regional’s fourth-seeded team.

Mississippi State, which has won 10 of its last 11, lost by 12 points to Arkansas, by seven to Mississippi and by five to Vanderbilt. The Bulldogs were the fifth-seeded team in the Southeast Regional.

But anybody who wants to overlook these teams also has to ignore the Orangemen’s steel nerves in its overtime victory over Georgia in the West Regional semifinal, and in beating Kansas two days later; or forget about the Bulldogs’ strafing of Kentucky in the Southeastern Conference tournament final and methodical thumping of top-seeded UConn and second-seeded Cincinnati in the Southeast Regional.

“I think anybody that has any idea at all about college basketball knows that it’s not a JV game,” Williams said, after Jones’ statement was relayed to him.

“We’re certainly not the marquee matchup. You have the Nos. 1 and 2 teams in the country playing the other game. I’m anxious to see what happens, I want to see that game.

“But, I think both we and Syracuse deserve to be here. And Dontae’ . . . he doesn’t know what he’s saying sometimes. He’s perpetual motion with his jaws.”

Boeheim, acting far more relaxed than his flinty reputation would seemingly allow, freely admitted that his team caught more than a few breaks on its way into the school’s second Final Four during his 20-year tenure. The Orangemen lost to Indiana in the 1987 title game.

“It seems like somebody sneaks in there most of the time,” Boeheim said, relishing his status as an overachiever after years of criticism for perceived underachieving. “And this year, we kind of snuck in.

“I thought we had a slim chance going into the tournament, but things had to break right for us.”

Were it not for Wallace’s 20-footer in overtime, which beat Georgia, or for the Jayhawks’ incredible cold shooting streak and fumbling at the end of the regional final, Boeheim and the Orangemen would be back in Syracuse.

So Boeheim brushes off thoughts that this is one of his best coaching jobs.

“I don’t subscribe to the theory that some years coaches do a better coaching job than they do other years,” he said. “The bottom line is, some teams might listen better, some teams might execute better.

“Last year’s team took a timeout we didn’t have [late in a two-point overtime loss to Arkansas in a Midwest Regional second-round game] or we might have been in the Final Four last year. . . .

“If John Wallace doesn’t make the jump shot against Georgia, did I do a great coaching job this year? Nobody would have said yes. Nobody would have said really anything.”

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX / INFOGRAPHIC)

Scouting Report GAME 1: MISSISSIPPI STATE vs. SYRACUSE

MISSISSIPPI STATE: THE STARTERS

00 Darryl Wilson

3 Marrcus Bullard

32 Dontae’ Jones

20 Russell Walters

25 Erick Dampler

MISSISSIPPI STATE ROSTERS / STATISTICS

*--*

No., Player Pts. FG% FT% Reb Ast. 00 Darryl Wilson 18.6 .451 .797 4.4 2.9 3 Marcus Bullard 12.2 .461 .654 3.8 5.1 15 Whit Hughes 2.6 .385 .782 2.4 1.5 20 Russell Walters 5.1 .504 .635 5.5 0.5 21 McKie Edmonson 1.6 .500 100 0.1 0.1 22 Bart Hyche 3.6 .447 .840 6.8 0.9 23 David Rula 2.0 .400 .500 0.0 0.0 25 Erick Dampier 14.6 .549 .602 9.2 2.2 32 Dontae’ Jones 14.6 .478 .738 6.8 2.3 33 Bubba Wilson 1.2 .571 .667 1.3 0.2 42 Tyrone Washington 1.9 .404 .600 2.1 0.1 44 Jay Walton 0.8 100 .800 0.4 0.3

*--*

THE STARTERS

3 Lazarus Sims

35 Jason Cipolla

30 Todd Burgan

44 John Wallace

4 Otis Hill

SYRACUSE ROSTERS / STATISTICS

*--*

No., Player Pts. FG% FT% Reb Ast. 3 Lazarus Sims 6.2 .432 .741 3.7 7.4 4 Otis Hill 12.8 .575 .681 5.4 0.5 5 Donovan McNabb 0.8 .167 100 0.5 0.7 10 David Patrick 0.9 .400 .579 0.6 1.0 11 Elimu Nelson 1.1 .600 .500 0.5 0.5 30 Todd Burgan 11.7 .410 .621 6.8 2.3 32 J.B. Reafsnyder 5.7 .482 .691 3.4 0.7 33 Bobby Lazor 2.1 .438 .583 1.8 0.3 35 Jason Cipolla 7.7 .385 .655 2.0 1.3 40 Elvir Ovcina 2.5 .435 .500 1.9 0.2 42 Marius Janulis 6.5 .458 .846 2.2 1.5 44 John Wallace 22.1 .488 .757 8.8 2.4 50 Jim Hayes 0.0 .000 .000 0.9 0.1

*--*

STATISTICAL COMPARISON

*--*

MSU Syr Record 26-7 28-8 Home 10-3 15-1 Away 7-4 5-5 Neutral 9-0 8-2 Margin under 5 6-2 7-2 Margin 10 plus 13-2 17-4 Overtime 2-0 1-1 *Starters scoring 64.7 60.4 *Bench scoring 9.1 16.1 Avg. Pts. 73.8 76.5 Opp. Avg. Pts. 65.2 68.4 FG Pct. .479 .465 Opp. FG Pct. .383 .408 3-Pt. FG Pct. .385 .357 FT Pct. .709 .702 Total Reb.-Game 35.7 35.1 Assists-Game 15.2 17.4 Turnovers-Game 17.0 15.2 Steals-Game 6.6 7.8 Blocks-Game 5.2 4.3

*--*

* based on usual starting five

* About Mississippi State: The Bulldogs are built on basics--a give-no-ground--and no easy layups--man-to-man defense, a mobile big man in the middle, creative scorers on the perimeter and, in point guard Marcus Bullard, a cagey ballhandler. They hold teams down with their defense, anchored by 6-foot-11 center Erick Dampier, then knock you out with spurts of offense spurred by forward Dontae’ Jones or guard Darryl Wilson. Dating back to its 84-73 upset of Kentucky in the SEC tournament final, none of Mississippi State’s last five opponents have shot better than 35% from the field.

* About Syracuse: With its tall guards and active wing players playing a 2-3 matchup zone, Syracuse has taken away opponents’ inside game and limited tournament foes to 23-of-103 shooting on three-point attempts. Nobody yet has found a way to shoot the Orangemen out of the zone. Meanwhile, Syracuse’s inside tag team of John Wallace, averaging 20.3 points in the tournament, and Otis Hill, who has scored at least 15 points in every tournament game, wears down defenses with athleticism and strength. If teams sag in, Jason Cipolla and Lazarus Sims can step back and make the three-pointer.

* Key to the Game: The early lead. If Mississippi State’s Jones or Wilson can score over the Syracuse zone early, it will be almost impossible for the Orangemen to play catch-up against the Bulldog defense, which does not surrender big offensive runs. Matched against Dampier inside, Syracuse doesn’t have the kind of creative offensive player that might give the Bulldogs trouble. But if Jones or Wilson can’t hurt the zone--and if Syracuse can make some jump shots of its own--Mississippi State is not the kind of team that can make up a deficit easily.