Jim Boeheim says he made a mistake and his players covered for him.
Three days after beating defending national champion Kansas and 2006 and ’07 champ Florida in back-to-back nights for the CBE Classic title in Kansas City, the weary Orange came home and played Virginia.
Syracuse downed the Cavaliers, 73-70, Friday night behind 15 points apiece from Jonny Flynn and Andy Rautins. Eric Devendorf added 14 and Paul Harris 13 for the Orange, who outscored Virginia 44-30 in the second half.
Former Queens Holy Cross star Sylven Landesberg led the Cavs with 16.
“I give Virginia a lot of credit for the way they came in here and played tonight,” Boeheim said. “There’s really only one person to blame for this night and that’s me. We no way should’ve been playing this game on Friday night. I’m glad we won because I would’ve said the same thing, win or lose. There’s just no way I should’ve ever scheduled this game to be the sixth game in 12 days.
“You shouldn’t play 6 games in 12 days anyway, period, let alone go on the road and play Florida and Kansas and come home and play Virginia.
“It’s just my fault. It was a tremendous mistake and our players overcame it…
“I told the players I think this was probably harder and almost a better win than the two we had in Kansas City considering how far behind we were , how tired we looked and everything was going their way. It was a tremendous win to overcome the scheduling. Now we gotta come back Monday night and Wednesday and try to get some time to get recovered.”
This weeks’ AP Top 25 poll featured seven Big East teams and three more — Seton Hall, Syracuse and West Virginia — who received votes.
Syracuse is now 6-0. Think they’ll be ranked next week?
(Photo courtesy Syracuse athletics)
