NEW YORK – For the second straight year, Syracuse’s early-season tournament ended in the same fashion: the Orange celebrating jubilantly on the court and placing championship T-shirts over its jerseys, while the defending national champions walk away empty-handed. With No. 24 Syracuse’s 87-71 win over No. 6 North Carolina Friday night at Madison Square Garden, the Orange has now won two consecutive championships in the opening part of its schedule over the defending national champions. Last year in Kansas City, Mo., Syracuse defeated Kansas, the 2008 champions. ‘It’s big,’ Andy Rautins said. ‘It doesn’t mean anything for us rankings-wise. It’s just a good quality win for us and we want to continue to get better day in and day out and we can’t be satisfied. We have a big game coming up against Cornell and we can’t take anybody lightly and if we play bad they can come out and beat us.’ Last season, Syracuse played in the O’Reilly Auto Parts CBE Classic and upset No. 17 Florida in the semifinals before toppling the No. 22 Jayhawks in overtime of the tournament championship game. Syracuse entered the tournament unranked, but upset two ranked teams and gave the defending national champions their first loss since the previous season. This year, the Orange dismantled No. 13 California in the semifinals before trashing No. 6 North Carolina in the finals. After entering the season with so many questions about replacing the trio of Jonny Flynn, Eric Devendorf and Paul Harris, the Orange has answered any concerns there might have been about this team early on. ‘It means a lot,’ Rick Jackson said. ‘For us to just show people what type of team we can be. It’s just a lot to go out there and win these types of games.’ Still, Jim Boeheim seemed to not place that much emphasis in the wins over the defending national champions. After UNC lost key players such as Ty Lawson, Wayne Ellington and Tyler Hansbrough from its 34-4 team last season, Boeheim made sure to remind the media about that. ‘You have to understand that (North Carolina) is not the national championship team,’ Boeheim said. ‘If that team is here, it would be a whole different story. They have practically, completely, a whole new team.’

RAUTINS EARNS ALL-TOURNAMENT HONORS

In addition to tournament MVP Wes Johnson, Syracuse senior shooting guard Andy Rautins was selected to the All-Tournament Team following Syracuse’s 87-71 win over North Carolina. Rautins scored 11 points, had seven rebounds, seven assists and seven steals in SU’s win Friday night. ‘It’s just fun to be honest with you,’ Rautins said. ‘There’s no better feeling for a basketball player than tonight’s game. I mean if you love the game, you love everything about tonight, just playing in the Garden, home away from home. Rautins scored eight points in Thursday’s win over California, but had a much greater impact in Friday’s game. He hit his first 3-pointer of the night to give Syracuse an 11-2 lead, and finished 3-of-8 from beyond the arc. On one play, he pulled up for a 3-pointer in a 1-on-3 situation and connected on the shot to give Syracuse a 25-20 lead. His offensive performance, in combination with Johnson’s, was a key reason Syracuse improved to 4-0 on the season.

THIS AND THAT

Syracuse shot 54.4 percent from the field and 55.7 percent for the tournament. …North Carolina out-rebounded Syracuse 42 to 37, but Syracuse won the points in the paint battle 46 to 28. …Syracuse had 23 points off turnovers. …Syracuse played a rotation of eight players in the game. …Syracuse hit 4-of-10 free throws

mrehalt@syr.edu

-Asst. Sports Editor Conor Orr contributed reporting to this article

Published on November 24, 2009 at 12:00 pm