Things went Georgetown's way early, but then Andy Rautins and Syracuse routed the Hoyas. (AP)

No. 4 Syracuse 73, No 7 Georgetown 56. I suspected Syracuse would spoil JT3′s first shot at getting his 200th win. Give me three reasons to not be infatuated with the Orange right now. Sure, free-throw shooting is one. … Are you struggling to come up with No. 2? Syracuse now has its best started since the 2004-05 season. (That’s the year Vermont upset the Orange thanks to T.J. Sorrentine and Taylor Coppenrath.) Let’s list off reasons to love this team. (I could’ve made this its own post.) 1) Wesley Johnson. I’d want him on my NBA team. We’re talking future All-Star here, I’m pretty sure. Johnson gets from the wing to the cup faster than Hakim Warrick used to, and we remember how long he was. 2) The zone defense that learns to how to recover more quickly than a Wolverine wound. 3) Brandon Triche’s improvement as a player. 4) Andy Rautins’ improving confidence with each game. 5) Kris Joseph being a stud and getting hardly and pub. I could go on. Georgetown has issues, sure, but Syracue made it look like a team that would struggle to make an at-large case last night. As suspected, Greg Monroe was a non-factor. When he can’t get involved, Austin Freeman and Chris Wright are left on an island beyond 20 feet. Lastly, this win put Boeheim ahead by one in the race with Jim Calhoun. It’s 819-818, currently.

No. 2 Kansas 84, Missouri 65. Cole Aldrich just gets better and better. I remember being so big on this kid when he was a mere role player in the 2008 Tournament for the Jayhawks. The toothless one had 12 points, 16 rebounds and seven blocks. He is getting damn good. If Bill Self and get some offense, somehow, through him and take less pressure off Sherron Collins, Kansas is an even better team than Syracuse. I never pin a team’s reputation on a really, really good win or a really, really bad loss. That should be the case here, guys and gals. This is truly an anomaly: Missouri turned the ball over 19 less times (23 to 4) than Kansas, yet managed to lose by 19 points. Shooting 28 percent from the field and getting out-rebounded by 25 can make the turnover battle a non-issue.

Notable:

Western Carolina 100, College of Charleston 90. No floor-storming for C of C here. Then again, they were on the road, so that’d be weird. Western Carolina improves to 16-4. Catamounts are holding serve.