Week in Review – Football bowling, Hoops struggling

wes It’s been a busy week here at The Juice. We opened our doors on Wednesday and there was no shortage of Syracuse news. But have we come to expect anything less from our beloved Orange?

On the football side, Syracuse accepted a bid to the inaugural Pinstripe Bowl where they will face a familiar foe in Kansas State. If you remember, Syracuse and Kansas State have previously met in the 1997 Fiesta Bowl in the 2001 Insight Bowl. Syracuse won the latter game. It’ll be essentially a home game for the Orange as it attempts to capture its first Bowl victory in nine years.

While we’re on the topic of Bowl games, with a win over South Florida last night, Connecticut will be the Big East’s BCS team. Since Pittsburgh in 2004, I don’t remember there being a more weak Big East representative.

To put this in prospective, Rutgers had one Big East win this season. The team they defeated? Connecticut.

West Virginia would’ve been the better fit from the Big East, but the 13-9 loss to Syracuse at home sealed its fate. Either way, TCU should be a nice addition (strictly in terms of football competitiveness) when it joins the Big East in 2012.

Meanwhile, Syracuse hoops is continuing to struggle. The offense appears non-existent and coach Jim Boeheim is not pleased with his group.

Hard to blame him. In Syracuse’s win over N.C. State, the Orange was led by Scoop Jardine’s 21 points and Rick Jackson’s 16. Other than the two of them, no Orange reached double figures. Among those who were MIA in the game – Kris Joseph (8 points) and Brandon Triche (5). Both need to step up, and step up soon.

While Joseph came into the game on a hot streak in his past four games (18 points on 55 percent shooting), Triche has been lost all season. Perhaps it’s because Triche is more of a shooting guard now with Jardine in the back court. Either way, Triche is averaging just 7.9 points on 40 percent shooting from the floor, and 24 percent from downtown. Compare that to last year, when he shot 50 percent from the field, and 40 percent from downtown.

Despite the struggles, the Orange fan base was out in full force on Saturday as a season high 22,334 were in attendance. No wonder the U.S. News and World Report named Syracuse as one of the top schools to attend if you’re a college basketball fan.

I’m sure I’ll have plenty more thoughts on all of these developments next week. Until then, keep checking back with The Juice Online for more insight, news and analysis.

Sincerely,

Wesley Cheng
Editor in Chief

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About Wes Cheng 2907 Articles
Wes has worked for Rivals.com covering the New York Knicks, as well as for Scout.com covering Syracuse athletics. Wes has also been a contributing writer for the South China Morning Post (Hong Kong), for SportsNet New York (SNY) as a news desk writer covering all of New York professional sports, and reported on the NBA and MLB for the New York Sportscene. A native of Long Island, New York, Wes graduated from Syracuse University in 2005 with a degree in journalism. Contact him at wes[at]sujuiceonline.com.