Syracuse Is a Case of Loss and Found

Say, that is some streak Syracuse is on.

The week started in upstate New York with talk of where to hold the postseason snowball fight after the Orangeman raced to a school-record 19-0 start and No. 4 national ranking.

You would have thought Syracuse could have picked the final score for Sunday’s Carrier Dome game against UCLA, the wayward Westwooders.

Coach Jim Boeheim tried to calm the masses.

“We’re really not going to make comparisons to any team,” he said about where his Orangemen stack up in lore. “At the end of the year, maybe we can do that.”

The experts opined that Syracuse would be wise to lose a game before the NCAA tournament, sort of a pressure-valve release tactic.

No team since Bob Knight’s 1976 Indiana Hoosiers has finished a season unbeaten so, the theory goes, why bother?

In 1991, Nevada Las Vegas made it to the national semifinals without a loss before Duke juked the Rebels, 79-77, Coach Jerry Tarkanian later acknowledging his team would have been better off getting knocked off its high horse before the NCAAs.

Thus, tournament bracketologists embraced Syracuse’s two-point home loss to Seton Hall on Monday.

But then came Thursday’s 13-point loss at Louisville.

The new streak stands at two.

Is it now possible that UCLA, with its season-saving victory over USC on Wednesday night, heads to New York as the team with momentum?

Naaaaaaaaah.

Syracuse can take the hit.

“We’ve played 21 games and won 19,” Boeheim said after the Louisville loss. “We’re a pretty good basketball team.”

And UCLA, at the moment, is not.

The defeats might have damaged Syracuse’s tenuous hold on one of four top tournament seedings--most have the Orangemen as the No. 1 team in the South regional--except that the schools vying for the spot, Ohio State and Michigan State, also lost this week.

The setbacks will more likely ignite Syracuse, because this is no smoke-and-mirrors unit. Rather, it has the look of one of Boeheim’s best, ranking favorably with the 1987 and 1996 squads that lost in the NCAA title games.

It has five returning starters from last year’s 21-win squad and is Boeheim’s most balanced team in years.

“Oh, no question,” Boeheim says. “It’s the best depth we’ve had, the best quickness and best size we’ve had in a long, long time. I mean since ‘89, ’90. It’s been 10 years since we’ve had this kind of depth and talent.”

Balance? Syracuse’s top six players average between eight and 14 points.

The Orangemen are led by three seniors--point guard Jason Hart, 6-foot-9 center Etan Thomas and forward Ryan Blackwell--and boast a possible future pro in junior forward Damone Brown and three talented wing players in sophomores Preston Shumpert and Tony Bland and freshman DeShaun Williams.

Thomas is the budding star, the team’s leader in scoring average and blocked shots.

But he’s more than that.

“There’s no category for attention given, or attention taken, by the other team,” Boeheim says of Thomas. “He not only blocks a lot of shots, but he probably changes more shots than most centers because he goes after everything. . . . He’s what you hope for in a coach. He’s gotten better, literally, almost every game he’s played.”

Funny, you can’t say that about centers at some schools.

Boeheim, at 55, is a better coach, seemingly a man more comfortable in his skin. He was long perceived as a whiner but has been grounded by marriage to second wife Juli and the arrival of 20-month-old son James III and new-born twins Jack and Jamie.

Boeheim has spent 38 years at Syracuse as a player and coach, compiled a 568-195 record and won 20 or more games in a season 22 times.

He can make it 23 against UCLA.

GO SEE CAL

The Pacific 10 school making the most impressive charge toward an NCAA tournament berth is California, heretofore considered an afterthought in the conference race.

But after last week’s sweep of UCLA and USC, and Thursday night’s home victory against Oregon State, Ben Braun’s Bears are 14-8 and 5-5 in the Pac-10. Cal has a solid RPI of 47.

Cal can stake an NCAA claim by splitting its last eight Pac-10 games, and can immensely better itself with a home win today against Oregon.

Cal’s season is a surprise because only one starter, forward Sean Lampley, returned from last season’s National Invitation Tournament championship team.

Braun, one of the Pac-10’s top-drawer coaches, knows his guys are not wearing blinders.

“Our players are not ignorant to the standings,” Braun said. “They’re not ignorant to March Madness. They know that’s out there. But I think we need to understand those goals are within grasp only if we play from game to game, only if we take the next game at hand, and we don’t start saying we need ‘X’ amount of games.”

Allow us, though, to peek ahead: The Pac-10’s final NCAA berth may be decided March 2, when UCLA plays at Cal.

BITE YOUR TONGUE

Check out these quotes from St. John’s Coach Mike Jarvis:

“This is about America. This is about an individual’s rights. This is not a communist country. There’s no Gestapo here. . . . I hope that none of you feel the same way I have the last two days, as if someone had come into my house and raped me.”

Was Jarvis referring to:

A) A brutal hate crime in his neighborhood?

B) An NCAA inquiry involving a St. John’s player?

Answer: B.

Jarvis’ made the comments after standout point guard Erick Barkley came under NCAA scrutiny for possibly violating the NCAA’s extra-benefit rule when he swapped cars of relative equal value with a longtime friend who happens to be a summer league coach.

Barkley sat out two games before he was cleared of wrongdoing, and the mess only underscores the NCAA’s often-ludicrous meddling in gray-area matters.

The incident so incensed Barkley, a sophomore, he will now reportedly declare early for the NBA draft.

But for Jarvis to compare the tactics of the NCAA to Nazi perpetrators and rape is an affront to real victims of heinous crimes.

Jarvis apologized for his remarks--gee, what were his options, John Rocker?--but suspects there are snipers on rooftops trying to take down his budding program.

Jarvis: “Maybe someone is afraid of St. John’s and where we’re going.”

Duke Coach Mike Krzyzewski, Jarvis’ close friend, couldn’t defend Jarvis’ choice of words in the Barkley matter, but he used the incident to once again call for a national governing body in his sport.

“A lot of people who govern our sport do not have empathy for social economic background for youngsters playing our sport,” Krzyzewski said. “The word empathy is not there. There needs to be some changes made.”

LOSERS STAY HOME

Some Big East coaches are grumbling about the conference’s new tournament format. With Virginia Tech becoming the 14th full-time member of the conference next year, the Big East will be divided into two seven-school divisions. But only 12 of the 14 schools will advance to the postseason tournament, the winner of which receives an automatic NCAA tournament bid.

“It’s going to be tough for those two teams, whoever they may be,” Seton Hall Coach Tommy Amaker says. “I’m just hoping Seton Hall’s not one of them.”

Note: Seton Hall won’t be one of them. Not only did the Pirates beat Syracuse this week, they have secured one of the nation’s top recruiting classes.

LOOSE ENDS

One perk coaches offer recruits is booking a game in the player’s hometown. Arizona recently played at Louisiana State as a payback to Eugene Edgerson, a New Orleans native. Problem? Edgerson, a redshirt, didn’t play and leg-weary Arizona got hammered, 86-60.

The next superstar at Stanford is . . . freshman forward Justin Davis. How do we know? It says so in the school’s game notes. Davis’ bio: “Has elected to redshirt this year. . . . The next great player in Stanford basketball history.”

USC forward Brian Scalabrine, on Stanford forward Mark Madsen: “He’s the best defensive player I’ve ever played against. . . . He’s a strong guy, with the best feet and the best hands. If basketball is about feet and hand coordination, then he’s Michael Jordan.”

One noted team conspicuously missing this week from one CBS Sportsline’s projections of the 64-team NCAA field. Yep, UCLA. . . . Early No. 1 seeding projections: Midwest: Cincinnati. With a sub regional stop in Cleveland, the regional finals at Auburn Hills, Mich., and the Final Four at Indianapolis, Bearcat fans may only have to save for gas money. East: Duke. This would keep the Blue Devils home for the first round at Winston-Salem, N.C. West: Stanford. South: Despite two losses, Syracuse is still the pick for now. Syracuse cannot be placed in the East because the school is hosting the regional final.

Utah Coach Rick Majerus was actually concerned Hanno Mottola’s thumb and elbow injuries might cost the Utes an NCAA bid. At 18-4 after Thursday’s 18-point victory over San Diego State, we doubt that highly.

Word is Arizona forward Richard Jefferson might be back for the March 2-4 swing at Oregon State and Oregon and, more important, the March 9 Pac-10 showdown against Stanford in Tucson. Jefferson broke his foot Jan. 8 at Stanford.

UCLA at SYRACUSE

Sunday

10 a.m. PST

Channel 2