SYRACUSE — Jim Boeheim will have to wait until fall to notch the 800th victory of his stellar coaching career at Syracuse. With a solid nucleus of players set to return, it doesn’t figure to be a very long wait.
Despite a sour ending to a season that left Boeheim at 799 wins — the Orange are still smarting from their 84-71 loss to Oklahoma in the South Regional semifinals on Friday night — the coach had few complaints about how his team responded to the rigors of its difficult schedule in his 33rd season at the helm.
Syracuse finished 28-10 to give Boeheim his 31st 20-win season, an NCAA Division I record.
“I think that overall this team played well,” Boeheim said. “You know, we had a horrific stretch of games during the course of the year where we lost five games — at Connecticut, at Pittsburgh, at Villanova, Louisville and Villanova at home. That could knock anybody out of the box, and our team did not let that happen. We’re in, obviously, the toughest league in the country, and we survived it.”
In the final month of the regular season as the NCAA tournament loomed, the Orange again seemed to be teetering on the brink for the third straight year. Despite early season wins over Kansas, Florida and Memphis — none of them in New York state — Syracuse was 18-7 overall and 6-6 in the Big East after a 63-49 loss at top-ranked UConn on Feb. 11.
That was the Orange’s fifth setback in six games, but they rallied with five wins in their final six to assure themselves of their first NCAA tournament berth after two straight NIT appearances. Then came the scintillating run to the final of the Big East tournament, which included an epic six-overtime triumph over Connecticut and an overtime win over West Virginia on consecutive nights in Madison Square Garden.
“We battled back,” center Arinze Onuaku said. “We had a time when we were really in a slump. I got hurt and Andy (Rautins) got hurt. We battled since then. That’s the good part of it.”
Although Syracuse lost to regular-season Big East champion Louisville in the conference title game, Syracuse defeated Stephen F. Austin and Arizona State to make it to the round of 16 in the NCAA tournament, stamping itself as a national contender with flashy point guard Jonny Flynn running the show.
That’s an impressive showing for a team that wasn’t even ranked when the season began. It might have been even better if not for nagging injuries to Rautins (ankle sprain) and Onuaku (knee tendinitis).
“We played a good overall season. There are a lot of memories,” said guard Eric Devendorf, who is on target to graduate in May but has one more year of eligibility. “We can take a lot from this season. Overall, it was pretty good.”
Syracuse, led by Flynn’s 17.4 points per game, had five players average in double figures and averaged 80 points per game. That was tops in the Big East, as was the Orange’s .487 field goal percentage.
Rautins, who did not play in 2007-08 because of a torn knee ligament, emerged as an effective outside threat with 102 3-pointers, five off Gerry McNamara’s school record for a season. Devendorf, also back after a knee operation, was suspended from school and missed two games in late December for his part in an off-campus altercation in November. He had to perform community service to be re-admitted to school and missed two games, averaged 15.7 points, and finished the season with 82 3-pointers to give Syracuse a dangerous outside presence.
Next year’s team has the promise to be even better, with or without Flynn, whose postseason performance has piqued the interest of pro scouts. Syracuse loses one scholarship player: forward Kristoff Ongenaet, its high-energy guy off the bench.
Guards Scoop Jardine and Mookie Jones will be ready to go again after being injured for 2008-09 (Jardine missed his sophomore season with a stress fracture in his left leg and Jones, a freshman, played sparingly in nine games before a hip injury necessitated season-ending surgery).
Onuaku (10.3 points and 7.3 rebounds per game) and forward Rick Jackson (8.3 ppg and 5.8 rpg), both 6-foot-9, return to give the Orange a strong presence under the basket, and the team’s leading rebounder, small forward Paul Harris (12 ppg and 8.1 rpg), will make it even more imposing if he returns for his senior season.
Wesley Johnson, a 6-7 forward who transferred to Syracuse after playing two seasons at Iowa State, gets to play again after sitting out this season (he averaged over 12 points per game with the Cyclones), and 6-7 freshman Kris Joseph gained valuable playing experience in 34 games.
Syracuse also has three high school recruits — local star Brandon Triche of Jamesville-Dewitt, James Southerland of New York City, and 6-11 center DaShonte Riley of Detroit Country Day School.
Although Devendorf, who has an infant daughter, and Harris, who has two young sons, could decide to try something new next season, if every scholarship player on the roster returns Syracuse would be one over the NCAA limit.
Flynn said before the NCAA tournament that he plans to return for his junior year, and that would be a huge boon. He finished the season with 254 assists, the second-most for a sophomore in school history, behind the 289 by Sherman Douglas in 1986-87.
Still, the decision isn’t necessarily set in stone.
“We’ll look at it, and he’ll decide what he thinks he should do,” Boeheim said. “He’ll have to decide what’s best for him.”
