Wrapping up SyracuseWritten by: Todd RosiakSyracuse, N.Y. -- Donte' Greene has made a name for himself this season because of his ability at 6 feet 11 inches to step out and hit the three.
Veteran observers of the Syracuse Orange, though, were shocked to see Greene almost completely ignore the long-range shot on Saturday against the Golden Eagles.
It wasn't really surprising considering MU used Jerel McNeal almost exclusively on him in the first half and McNeal and Wesley Matthews on him in the second.
The pair gave up nine and six inches, respectively, and Greene took full advantage by repeatedly posting up, scoring on jump hooks, layups and dunks. When it was all said and done seven of Greene's eight makes had come from two-point range, and his 21 points tied classmate Jonny Flynn for the team lead.
"We've got to put our best defenders on their best players," said coach Tom Crean. "We did not dig off the post as consistently as we needed to...he's a big kid. I had to put guys on him that were going to challenge him, be aggressive -- even if they were smaller, you've got to put guys on him that are going to try and do the job."
Greene said he asked coach Jim Boeheim for the opportunity to get more touches on the inside recently. Looks as though Boeheim listened to him and it paid off, leading in part to the Orange's 58% performance from the field.
"Tonight I just focused all inside," Greene said. "They had a small guard, I think it was McNeal on me, and I had to punish him. To tell him that they really can't put a small guard on me."
McNeal, for his part, took responsibility for Greene going off.
"As an overall unit we just didn't get it done tonight defensively," he said. "I'll take full responsibility for that. I let the momentum and everything get going, so I'll take the blame for that mostly."
-- Flynn had a field day against MU and his junior counterpart Dominic James.
Flynn also scored 21 points to go along with seven assists, flashing a nice perimeter game that netted him 3 three-pointers as well as an ability to get to the free-throw line (8 for 10).
James, meanwhile, had a quiet day with seven points on 3-for-12 shooting, one rebound, five assists to go along with five turnovers, and three steals.
-- Sophomore F Lazar Hayward had a second straight quiet day in Big East play, scoring seven points on 2-for-7 shooting to go along with four rebounds and five turnovers.
He needs to step up his play in a big way heading into the Big East Tournament this week.
-- I was really impressed with Syracuse's Arinze Onuaku and Kristof Ongenaet.
Onuaku is just a beast in the paint; defenders seem to just bounce off him whenever he has the ball in a post-up situation. And Ongenaet had a huge game with nine points, five rebounds, four assists, three blocks and two steals.
His steal and coast-to-coast dunk punctuated with a foul was the play of the game.
-- Crean said he was aware that West Virginia beat St. John's in OT prior to the game but chose not to alert the team.
Had the Mountaineers lost, MU would have clinched the No. 5 seeding in the Big East Tournament before it even hit the court.
"We didn't bring that up. We wanted to win the game," he said. "We wanted to get to 23 wins, we wanted to win the game. We weren't concerned about anyone or anything other than us."
As far as possible matchups -- most likely either Seton Hall or Cincinnati, depending on what transpires tomorrow -- Crean wasn't looking ahead.
"I haven't had time to think about it yet," he said. "We'll see who we match up with and just go from there."
-- Once again, MU had its share of struggles against Syracuse's 2-3 zone.
It shot 41.7% for the game and more surprisingly committed 18 turnovers, leading to 22 Orange points.
"Our guys were great about what we needed to do offensively -- flashing," Crean said. "We didn't finish great, obviously, around the rim, and we didn't get enough foul shots. Attacking, whether you're scoring or not, cannot carry over to the defensive end, and I think that's what happened a little bit."
-- Once again, Ousmane Barro made himself a non-factor because of early foul trouble. MU really could have used his length against Onuaku, who was having little trouble bodying up and shooting over the Golden Eagles' other defensive alternatives.
-- McNeal wrapped up the steals title in the Big East with two against the Orange. He finishes with 68, one more than Providence's Jeff Xavier.
McNeal figures to be in contention to repeat as the league's defensive player of the year, but it wouldn't be surprising to see him lose out to Hasheem Thabeet, who had 133 blocks in 30 games (4.3 per game) for the third-place Huskies.
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