Sweet Sixteen

Tonight the Orange play once again in the sweet sixteen. John says you don't need to be pretty to get invited to the sweet sixteen. Lucky for us, because last Saturday's win over Cal was about as ugly as it can get.  Thirty-nine percent from the field; sixteen missed foul shots; unforced errors; and another AWOL evening for Brandon Triche. He hit his first shot of the night - a pretty deep three - and then couldn't hit another shot all game. He was on the court for 40 minutes, and went one for eight. Fortunately, CJ Fair has assumed the role of senior leadership, and has not only steadied the offense, but has occasionally given Cuse that go-to guy for those times when the rest of the offense becomes stagnant. I said occasionally, because there seemed to be a long stretch in the second half when no one, including Fair, could do much of anything. But an ugly win is still a win, and the Orange have once again been asked to the sweet sixteen.

 

In years past, they have done well playing out west. For example, in 96, they had to play in New Mexico, and then in Denver, before moving on the final four. And they were a decent road team at times this year, so when I heard they were playing in San Jose, I didn't think much of that. However, it turns out that Cuse was the only top seed (4 or higher) who had to travel out of region in order to play the opening rounds. What's up with that? Especially in light of the fact that several of the top seeds, who weren't asked to travel cross-country, got sent home early.  Nice that one of those teams was Georgetown, and come to think of it, that means that after humiliating the Orange in the final Big East regular season game, Georgetown lost two in a row, first to Cuse in the Garden, and then to Florida Gulf Coast in the opening round. Couldn't happen to a nicer team.

 

We all know that when they're playing well, the Orange can beat anyone in the country. But they haven't played well for forty minutes in a long long time (not counting Montana, because after all, there’s no one left in their bracket who resembles Montana), and then the question becomes how badly will they play and for how long, during those stretches when they can't seem to buy a basket? They squeaked through a couple games in the Big East tourney by having strong first halves, and then managing to hang on when their offense went cold in the second half. Of course, that recipe didn't cook up so well against Louisville.  In light of that, it's hard to imagine them getting much further in this tournament, but who knows?

 

And really, the sweet sixteen is a decent outcome for this team. We shouldn't complain when year after year, the team not only gets to the tourney, but gets to play in the second weekend. Still, they're tantalizingly close, and we all know that if any two guys could hit their shots in the same game -- think of how far they got when only Southerland was drilling all his threes in the Garden -- they could be playing a week from now. So ugly or not, Go Orange!