Beware of the Panthers

Home and road splits are usually an indicator of whether or not a team is legit. The Big East has been argued as the toughest conference in the country, so road wins are at more of a premium with many of those games coming against ranked opponents. Syracuse showed how the home crowd pushed them to victory against Notre Dame on Saturday, but they responded with somewhat of a dud on Big Monday. Pittsburgh, although the home team, showed many signs as to why they could be considered an elite team in the country this year. Syracuse isn't exactly there yet.

Syracuse was running more man defense than usual because they were worried about allowing offensive rebounds while in the zone. Boeheim's reservations were true because whenever they went to the zone, DeJuan Blair and Pittsburgh ate up the glass. Blair is a vacuum. He exhibits great body control around the basket offensively, and always seems to have a nose for the ball when it comes off the rim. The Panthers will go farther than ever before as long as Blair is on the floor.

But what else do they have? Besides some questionable foul shooting (C'mon Levance Fields - Let's make one of those technical foul shots!), they shot the three pointer better than you'd think. It could be a home gym advantage, but it was nice to see. Jermaine Dixon also does some nice on the ball defending of the point guard. Pittsburgh has to hope Fields can drift to guarding the shooting guard, but it might be an issue if the shooting guard is the primary attacker. The idea fit well against Syracuse's offense.

There are many things to comment on with Syracuse, but we've discussed the team plenty in recent days. Being brief...Andy Rautins has really improved his all around game, especially defensively. He jumps the passing lanes well for breakaway layups. Syracuse needs to push the ball and play up tempo. They can't get into a drag it out match. That responsibility lies on Jonny Flynn, who played terribly. I expect better ball-handling and he's the one who needs to get the team moving. I didn't realize his jumper was this questionable. Cuse needs to be much better away from home and they might wanna work on that foul shooting...