Nobody had a better view of Ryan Wittman’s performance than Andy Rautins. He had the daunting task of guarding Cornell’s best player in man-on-man for most of the game.

After 30 minutes spent desperately fighting through screens and helplessly watching 25-foot 3-pointers swish through the hoop, Rautins had the exact same thought as everybody else in the Carrier Dome Wednesday night.

‘That kid was on fire,’ Rautins sighed.

Indeed he was. For the first 33 minutes of Syracuse’s gritty 88-78 win over Cornell, it seemed like Wittman could single-handedly lead the Big Red to an impressive upset. Time and time again, Wittman came down the floor and coolly hit a seemingly impossible shot to keep his team close.

Wittman, the Ivy League’s leading scorer, finished the game with a career-high 33 points on 12-of-28 shooting, including nine 3’s.

But it wasn’t enough. Just when it appeared Cornell was primed to make a final push back into it, Rautins clamped down.

In the final 6:44, Rautins led an impressive defensive charge and held Wittman to just two more points – a meaningless floater in the closing seconds. His effort ensured Cornell would never cut the deficit below five points and gave Syracuse its eighth-straight victory to start the season.

‘We did a better job of locating him and fighting through screens,’ Rautins said. ‘We didn’t switch as much as we did in the first half. We forced him to his left and got good stops.’

It was Wittman’s night from the opening tip. He hit his first 3 less than a minute into the game to give Cornell a quick 3-0 lead and would never look back. The Big Red ran its entire offense around Wittman, constantly setting screens to give the 6-foot-6 forward open looks.

For the entire first half, Syracuse looked confused and seemed to lose Wittman around the forest of picks. He had 16 points by halftime on 6-of-11 shooting and was the primary reason Cornell managed to build an early 16-point lead.

‘In the first half, we were all over the place losing shooters,’ Rautins said. ‘You can’t do that with a kid like Wittman out there shooting the ball the way he did.’

With about seven minutes remaining in the game, Wittman went on his most impressive run of the night. He hit consecutive 3’s from well beyond the arc in the span of 40 seconds to make the score 70-65. The two shots silenced the crowd, which had been particularly loud since Syracuse built its lead to double-digits for the first time all night a few moments ago.

Right then, Rautins resolved to hold it there.

And that’s exactly what he did. From that point on, Rautins’ defensive intensity picked up harder than it had all game. He stayed right on Wittman, no matter how far he stood away from the basket, and refused to settle for switches off the constant barrage of Cornell screens.

Wittman missed his next four shots, including three 3’s. He struggled to catch the ball, relying on his teammates to take big shots that would not connect. Whenever the ball was in his hands, Rautins made sure Wittman either passed the ball or settled for a heavily contested jumper.

‘They started jumping out on ball screens and down screens,’ Wittman said. ‘After you start hitting shots like that, teams are going to do that.’

Even when he got open, the shots stopped falling. In the game’s final minute, Wittman appeared to lose his legs and missed two open 3’s. After the game, Cornell head coach Steve Donahue said he thought his star was tired down the stretch. Wittman played 39 minutes in the game.

Rautins had a lot to do with that fatigue. Other players tried their luck at Wittman to no avail early on. Only Rautins found a way to hold him in check.

‘Andy did a good job,’ SU head coach Jim Boeheim said. ‘He was the one guy who tried to stay with him and make him work for it.’

jediamon@syr.edu

Published on December 3, 2008 at 12:00 pm