Syracuse will get its chance to beat two preseason conference favorites in two nights when it plays UNC tonight.
The Tar Heels will have less than 24 hours to turn around and beat a team that looked nothing like the squad that was picked to finish six the Big East when it rolled over an injury-riddled Cal team.
Without knowing how each team won last night, the match up is intriguing based on program name alone. But combine the Orange’s hot streak, power play inside and (maybe?) depth on the bench with UNC’s turnover woes and lack of killer instinct and you’ve got a game that could see the Tar Heels lose by double digits. Seriously.
It’d be great if tonight’s main event could live up to the kind of game that went down the last time these two played. It was almost 22 years ago to the day. Nov. 21, 1987: Carolina 96, Syracuse 93 (OT).
Who’s the best player on the floor? I still say it’s Carolina’s Ed Davis. Scoop Jardine went for a career-best 22 last night, and Wesley Johnson leads the team in points and rebounds. Same goes for Deon Thompson, above, and his role with the Tar Heels. Jardine is better oil for his offense than UNC’s Larry Drew II, who has some glaring weaknesses at the point. Following Ty Lawson will do that to you.
Boeheim deflected platitudes after his team run up 95 against the 13th-ranked team in the country.
“I think that we can still be better offensively,” he said. “Losing our three leading scorers from last year, we still have a long way to go.”
Big picture? Sure. But there’s no way Boeheim isn’t yapping his wife’s ears off after the way his team has opened up the season following the nationally embarrassing exhibition loss to Le Moyne. I think we can all agree on this: Just give us a competitive, watchable game after the anticlimactic display during last night’s doubleheader. If it gets close in the final minutes, you could see the Heels take it because Syracuse cannot shoot free throws; it shoots 57.5 percent as a team.
Plenty of future pros in a pro’s building tonight, and that’s always great for television.
