Three months ago, the Big East coaches picked Syracuse to finish eighth in the conference. Those expectations are all but forgotten as just a few weeks ago, both The Associated Press and the nation’s coaches voted the Orange No. 8 in the country.

The better the ranking, the higher the expectations became. But during the last four games, SU has not played like a Top-10 team and has not lived up to the new expectations. The Orange have gone 1-3 during this stretch and fallen to No. 15 in the most recent rankings.

The rise may have set the Orange up for a fall. At the end of this stretch, questions started to emerge about the flaws of the team, and the bandwagon seemed to have much more room on it.

‘Those are the people who don’t know what they’re talking about,’ point guard Jonny Flynn said after Sunday’s 67-57 loss to Louisville. ‘Look at Georgetown. They’re losing, they’re almost .500 in the Big East. That’s just this kind of conference,’ he said.

‘Those people are the people who want to see us fail. The people who want us to slip up and are happy to see us slip up. You can’t listen to people like that because they’ll get you thinking differently than the way we should be thinking positively and on the right path.’

The right path would be a win tonight at Providence (7 p.m., TW26). If the Orange goes down the wrong path, it would mean a three-game losing streak.

Still, SU (17-4, 5-3 Big East) only has four losses on the season, and all of them have been easy to explain away. First, a three-quarter court buzzer-beater from Cleveland State’s Cedric Jackson gave the Orange its first loss of the season. Syracuse also lost twice on the road to the then-No. 13 (Georgetown) and then-No. 4 (Pittsburgh) teams and finally lost at home to the then-No. 9 Louisville in the nation.

But for a team that began the season unranked and considered a middle-of-the-pack team in the conference, expectations have skyrocketed and now no loss is acceptable to a fan base with renewed sense of confidence in its team.

‘It seems people really expect us to win, we expect us to win,’ forward Paul Harris said. ‘But that’s good that we have big expectations.’

The new expectations have brought many different responses from opponent’s fans, especially in the Big East. Lately, opposing fans have sided with the preseason Big East poll. At Georgetown and Pittsburgh, chants of ‘over-rated’ echoed through the arena.

Fans weren’t the only ones to notice Syracuse. As SU continued to climb up the rankings, opponents have seemed to come harder at the team.

‘Without a doubt,’ Harris said when asked if the Orange’s ranking has affected its opponents’ effort. ‘Teams are coming in here and not sleeping, ready to beat us because they know we get a lot of publicity. They showed that we are a top team in the country, but on the other hand teams are coming hard so we got to pick up our play up too.’

Life in the limelight hasn’t been the easiest for the Orange. Since reaching its highest ranking of the season, SU is 1-3. But even as the questions continue, the animosity on the road gets louder, and opponents come at the team harder. But the Orange believes its still has something to prove.

‘We still feel like we don’t have everyone’s respect even if we’re ranked No. 8,’ forward Kris Joseph said. ‘That doesn’t mean anything to us. We’re playing for respect because we should’ve been ranked in the preseason, I feel. And now that we’re ranked, people are saying we can be a Final Four team and things like that, but they weren’t saying that before.’

mibonner@syr.edu

Published on January 27, 2009 at 12:00 pm