Syracuse seeks revenge on top-seeded Virginia in ACC Tournament quarterfinals

By Jerry Ratcliffe

The Boeheims still have an unsavory flavor in their mouths from an earlier encounter with Virginia back on Jan. 25 in Charlottesville.

That’s the night Sam Hauser lit up the Syracuse 2-3 zone with seven of UVA’s 14 three-pointers in a Cavaliers 81-58 rout of the Orange. Jim Boeheim was convinced Virginia was as good as its then No. 8 national ranking.

It was Syracuse’s worst loss of the season.

Son, Buddy Boeheim, remembers well that he and his Orange mates shot 37 percent for the game and made only 5 of 24 shots from the arc against the Cavaliers’ “Pack-Line” defense.

Syracuse will have some of those thoughts lingering when the 8th-seeded Orange take on top-seeded Virginia at noon Thursday in the opening quarterfinals game of the ACC Tournament in Greensboro.

“[Virginia’s] a really good team offensively, defensively,” said Buddy Boeheim, who helped his dad’s team advance Wednesday. The younger Boeheim put up 27 points and posted six of Syracuse’s 14 3-pointers in an 89-68 blowout of NC State.

“[Virginia] has great shooters, great inside guys, good point guards,” Buddy Boeheim said. “We know it’s going to be a battle, but we know what to do against them on defense and offense. But you turn right back around and you get ready for tomorrow.”

In that first encounter, Hauser shook off back spasms during warmups and came out firing with 21 points on a 7 of 16 shooting performance. Only three of those shots came from within the arc. He made 7 of 13 from beyond the arc and didn’t make one in the final 10 minutes of the game or he would have threatened Curtis Staples’ school record of nine 3-pointers in a game, a mark that has stood since 1998.

The Boeheims had to choose their poison in that game, because while Hauser was busy being “Mr. Outside,” his 7-foot-1 teammate Jay Huff, was “Mr. Inside.” Huff scored a career-high 21 points and a career-high 12 rebounds.

What clicked against the Syracuse zone was point guard Kihei Clark locating around the high post and distributing the ball to his scorers. Clark handed out a season-high nine assists in the win.

The beauty of that Tony Bennett strategy is that he has multiple players capable of moving into the high post and making things happen.

Coach Boeheim knows what lies ahead for his team, which is playing for a spot in the NCAA Tournament. Some bracketologists have the Orange on the proverbial bubble.

“We’ve got a great challenge [Thursday],” Boeheim said. “Virginia is really good and we’ll have our hands full.”

Still, he is confident that his team is playing well enough to be a part of the NCAA field. The Orange are 16-8 on the season. An upset win over the Cavaliers would likely put Syracuse into the NCAAs.

“Our defense has been pretty good the last three games,” Boeheim said. “The second half [Wednesday], the first 10, 15 minutes our defense was really good. I thought that was a big difference in the game. We got some stops and [State] couldn’t stop us.”

The veteran coach already believed his team belonged into the NCAA Tournament even before the Orange defeated the Wolfpack.

“I felt all along – I don’t think it’s been taken into consideration – we played seven quadrant 1 games all on the road,” Boeheim said. “You look at most teams that have got two or three quadrant 1 games, they won at home. We didn’t get an opportunity to play a quadrant 1 game at home this year. The Big Ten game, Rutgers, was on the road, and then all the [ACC] games were on the road.”

Syracuse is 12-2 in quadrant 2 and 3 games this season.

“Some of those are top 50 games, so there’s a lot of wins in there, and if you look at some teams, they’ve had like five wins in quadrant 2 and 3. They’ve got a lot of wins in quadrant 4,” Boeheim explained. “I think we beat a team today [NC State] that could have been in the tournament. They’ve won five straight games. They could have beaten us and had a chance to go to the tournament.”

Bennett and his UVA staff had to prepare for both Syracuse and State, not knowing what team the Cavaliers might face. Virginia’s staff scouted the Orange game on Wednesday and had the rest of the day to prepare a game plan.

The Cavaliers coach said earlier in the week that even though his team hasn’t played in the postseason since winning the national championship in 2019, that they won’t take this opportunity for granted. This is UVA’s sixth regular season championship in program history, the last five coming under Bennett.

“It’s about being healthy, sometimes it’s matchups,” Bennett said about postseason success. “Are you playing good ball?”

Virginia is coming off one of its best performances of the season, a win at Louisville to close the regular season, which clinched the No. 1 ACC Tournament seed.

“It’s always razor thin in all things,” Bennett said. “You just have to be fortunate and as ready as you can, and go after it. I think this year will be even maybe more unique than most years because obviously, it looks like there’s maybe a couple teams that have separated themselves. But everyone else is capable. That doesn’t mean those teams can’t be caught.

“The Louisville game for us was a single elimination game in terms of if you can win a conference regular season title and how special that would be. That was the mindset and then obviously you head into the conference tournament and being as ready as you can and then rolling off the plane for the same thing for the NCAA.”