Bench production

It’s no surprise that depth is a concern for Syracuse, yet the Orange will need more bench production than it has gotten so far this season.

On Tuesday, only three players – Rick Jackson, Scoop Jardine and Kristof Ongenaet – came off the bench for Syracuse and combined to play just 17 minutes and produce two points. Junior Eric Devendorf and freshman Donte Greene each played the entire game Tuesday.

Overall, SU got just 12 points off the bench in its first two games – 10 of those coming from Jackson.

‘It was one of those games where they were going with their five best players, and we were going with our five best players,’ Syracuse head coach Jim Boeheim said of St. Joseph’s.

Fatigue may not show up for a while this early in the season, but there’s little doubt the SU starting five won’t be able to play an entire campaign at this pace without wearing down.

Turnovers

Donte Greene didn’t have to be asked twice after the Siena game about what SU needs to improve on offense.

‘Definitely cutting down turnovers,’ Greene said. ‘No offense to Siena, they’re a tough team, but not 20 turnovers – that’s unnecessary.’

Indeed, the young Orange has committed its fair share of turnovers. After turning it over 21 times in its preseason opener against St. Rose, Syracuse gave the ball away 23 times against Siena Monday and 17 more times against St. Joe’s Tuesday.

Youth is a convenient excuse, but Paul Harris and Eric Devendorf have combined to commit 19 of SU’s 40 turnovers over the first two games.

‘We’re still making some bad turnovers, and that’s going to happen,’ Boeheim said. ‘We make some unbelievable plays, and we make some unbelievably horrendous plays.’

Avoid slow second-half starts

In each of its first two games, Syracuse held a double-digit lead early in the second half.

In both cases, runs by Siena and St. Joe’s, spurned by turnovers and a lack of transition defense by Syracuse, forced SU to play in closer contests than it needed to.

Against Siena, it was a 14-4 Saints run that cut a 14-point halftime lead to four less than four minutes into the half, thanks in part to three turnovers by Jonny Flynn.

The following night, a 15-3 run by St. Joe’s erased a 12-point cushion Syracuse held with 17 minutes remaining.

‘We got them down 12 in the second half, they came back,’ Boeheim said of the St. Joe’s game. ‘We got them down six, they came back. We got them down again, they came back. That’s a terrific basketball game.’

But perhaps not as terrific as the game had to be.

-John Clayton, asst. sports editor

Published on November 16, 2007 at 12:00 pm