Scoop Jardine saw the repeating theme again Saturday. In Syracuse’s 84-80 overtime win over Rutgers, Jardine and the Orange survived despite allowing their highest first-half point total of the season.

The lackluster defensive performance reminded Jardine of a trend that goes hand in hand with SU’s recent 10-game struggles. And it reminded him of another similar lackluster performance — the team’s first matchup with Villanova in the Carrier Dome on Jan. 22.

‘Teams seem to shoot well against us,’ Jardine said after SU’s win Saturday. ‘We have to do a better job of making them take tougher shots.’

Syracuse (22-6, 9-6 Big East) heads to Villanova on Monday for a rematch with the Wildcats (21-6, 9-5) at 7 p.m. in the Wells Fargo Center. Those reminders will lead to lessons Jardine hopes will help the Orange fix what happened last time when Villanova came to the Dome and shot the lights out.

This time, the significance of the matchup is more concrete with only three regular-season games remaining for the Orange. Syracuse sits in seventh place in the Big East standings. Two games in the loss column separate SU from Notre Dame, the second-place team. One game in the loss column separates it from Marquette, the No. 11 team in the conference.

‘Dog eat dog in this league,’ SU junior forward Kris Joseph said. ‘No team is going to be an easy team to beat. It’s going to be a dog fight to the end.’

Joseph and the Orange saw that the last time they faced Villanova in January, when the Wildcats surprised SU with a potent shooting attack uncharacteristic of the team.

Specifically, Syracuse was exposed in the first half. Villanova made a season-best 11 3-pointers in the game. Eight of those came in the first 20 minutes as the Wildcats used that 61.5 percent 3-point shooting effort to build an 11-point halftime lead.

The 3-point shooting barrage was led by two players — guards Maalik Wayns and Corey Fisher — not known for their prowess from beyond the arc. At one point, the Wildcats made 7-of-9 from 3-point territory.

‘They were hitting a lot of contested 3s,’ SU guard Dion Waiters said after that game. ‘Sometimes, you just can’t do anything about it but continue to play defense. If you run at them, they can go by you because they’re so good at penetrating.

‘But in the second half, we made an adjustment.’

But the second-half adjustments weren’t enough. Against Villanova, Seton Hall and Louisville, Syracuse dug itself into too deep of a halftime hole to come all the way back. Jeremy Hazell led Seton Hall to a huge win in the Dome. Louisville relied on the 3 during a backbreaking 21-4 run to end the first half. Even against West Virginia on Monday, the Orange escaped despite an impressive shooting display by Casey Mitchell.

On Saturday against Rutgers, SU’s defense allowed the Scarlet Knights to climb back from an eight-point first-half deficit and take a lead into the break. The 44 points were the most given up in the first half this season for Syracuse.

Luckily, a hot shooting half of its own kept the Orange from crumbling like it has recently. But SU head coach Jim Boeheim knows it’s something that can’t continue.

‘We went back to playing defense like we had been — letting the shooter shoot the ball and letting the guard get penetration into the lane,’ Boeheim said. ‘If we didn’t play very well on offense in the first half, we would’ve been really down. … We allowed them to shoot over 50 percent from the field and 55 percent from behind the 3-point line.’

Syracuse clamped down in the second half, though, allowing Rutgers to score only 12 points through the half’s first 13:28. SU survived a defensive breakdown later in the half with senior forward Rick Jackson on the bench in foul trouble.

Heading to Villanova, the concern will be a complete defensive effort spanning both halves. It is a complete defensive effort that was missing Saturday and in a litany of other recent games. Defensive effort Boeheim saw in the second half Saturday and wants to see going forward.

‘The second half, there was a little more effort,’ Boeheim said. ‘Keeping guys in front of us, getting back and rebounding the ball.’

bplogiur@syr.edu

Published on February 20, 2011 at 12:00 pm