Between the 16 Big East schools, there have been 17 basketball games this week. Syracuse didn’t play in any of them.

When the Orange hosts Colgate on Saturday at 7 p.m., it will be SU’s first game in a week. After playing eight games and two exhibitions in 33 days, the week off gave the Syracuse players some much-desired time to rest, get healthy and catch up on school work.

‘The weather lately has been killing our team,’ junior forward Terrence Roberts said. ‘I’ve been sick. Some of the other guys have been sick. The week off has helped us get our health together and catch up with missing school work because it’s finals this week and next week.’

The routine sounds no different than most Syracuse students, except the players also had a 6-2 team to worry about. While the record is formidable, the Orange hasn’t played as well as the numbers read. SU is unranked in both the Associated Press and ESPN/USA Today Top 25 polls, and it slipped from the latter despite winning its last two games. A poor performance against Manhattan on Nov. 30 (SU needed overtime to outlast the Jaspers, 87-82) and a Nov. 22 loss to Bucknell have made the Orange suspect to pollsters.

It also makes this week and next week’s practice slates – after Saturday, SU doesn’t play again until Dec. 18 – so important.

‘We really didn’t get to practice on a lot of the things we’d like to, and we’re hoping this practice time will be beneficial for us,’ Syracuse head coach Jim Boeheim said. ‘It’s always tough when you get this final exam period, because they’re getting ready for tests and papers, so these two weeks will be difficult from that point of view.

‘That’s why we don’t schedule a lot of games here, but hopefully that practice time will help us work on a couple of things.’

The couple of things are actually a lot of things. Boeheim recited a list of basic fundamentals the Orange needs to work on, from rebounding to ball-handling to shooting. He said there’s never a time when the Orange works on only one area and, while the season is still early, the goal is simply to improve.

Freshman guard Eric Devendorf said nothing’s surprised him more in his freshman season than how hard everyone works. Devendorf thought that with the rigors of the schedule, some players might take days off, but he’s impressed with the team’s work ethic.

As Boeheim noted, though, exam time makes the practices difficult. Devendorf said the mandatory study tables set aside for athletes have helped in the process, but the crunch is tough for any student, much less basketball players. It’s why Boeheim spends these weeks focusing on practices rather than games.

‘We have a lot going on,’ Boeheim said. ‘We’ve had more than enough game experience that the practice experience should help us.’

Other schools haven’t taken that approach. With a number of good college basketball matchups during the past week, some SU players couldn’t help but watch games in their spare time.

Boeheim talked about the upsets in college basketball – Northern Iowa beating Iowa and Indiana State beating Indiana on Tuesday – and how the competitiveness among all teams in college basketball is peaking. Devendorf watched his home-state team, Michigan State, beat Boston College on Tuesday. Roberts watched Duke beat Pennsylvania on Thursday, and while he’s excited for No. 1 Duke visiting No. 2 Texas on Saturday, Roberts joked about the nature of December scheduling of top-ranked teams.

‘Cupcakes,’ Roberts said, not saying whether Saturday’s date with Colgate was in the back of his mind. ‘This is cupcake month for some teams.’

Published on December 9, 2005 at 12:00 pm