When Syracuse makes defensive stops and gets out in the open court, Scoop Jardine says the team is as good as anybody.

And as West Virginia inched its way back from a nine-point deficit, Jardine knew that was exactly what needed to happen to secure a victory.

‘Transition was key, and it starts with our defense,’ Jardine said. ‘It showed today. When I said that, I really believed it because when we’re in transition, we’re passing the ball and looking great. But we’ve got to stop people.’

Following a loss to Georgetown last Wednesday, Jardine could see the stagnant half-court offense. He said the Syracuse offense is a transition offense at its best. Five days later, the transition offense is exactly what brought the Orange out of a two-game losing streak Monday.

Syracuse outscored the Mountaineers 19-0 in fastbreak points, pushing the ball until the final whistle of a 63-52 victory over the Mountaineers. What started as simply pushing the ball in transition to stay afloat in the first half turned into a means by which Syracuse put the finishing touches on WVU in the closing minutes.

The Orange forced five turnovers during a four-minute stretch from 7:30 to 3:11 in the second half, leading to three easy baskets in transition. When it wasn’t forcing turnovers, pressing the Mountaineers into 7-for-25 (28 percent) shooting in the second half led to long rebounds that jumpstarted the break.

‘That’s the type of team we are,’ SU forward Rick Jackson said. ‘We try to get it off the backboard and really just pushing it up. I think when we’re in transition, we’re really a dangerous team.’

From its very first offensive possession, the Orange was looking to run. Pushing the ball up the floor following a rebound, Brandon Triche drilled the game’s first points with a pull-up 3.

From then on, nearly every rebound or forced turnover was turned into a mini-track meet. Every opportunity to fling the ball up court and get quick, easy looks was utilized.

Syracuse dominated points in the paint, outscoring WVU in that statistic 34-4. It was a direct result of what the WVU defense was giving SU on the fast break. And the Orange was taking it by getting right to the rim with ease.

Again and again, defensive stops and rebounds led to a lot of WVU backpedaling. Seemingly every time, the Orange was able to generate its offense by repeating the routine, creating open looks on the other end before West Virginia could set up its defense.

‘We knew we could get into transition because they like to pound the offensive glass,’ C.J. Fair said. ‘So coming in, we knew we could get out and beat them up the court.’

When Triche re-entered the game with 7:55 remaining and SU clinging to a four-point advantage, he immediately ignited the break.

The Orange had gone nearly six minutes without a transition bucket as Triche sat on the bench for most of that time with four fouls. When he came in, he grabbed a loose ball that had been tipped by Jackson and took it coast to coast for a layup that brought the crowd to its feet.

That got the offense rolling once again, and the Orange never looked back.

‘It all started on the defensive end,’ Joseph said. ‘Tonight we were really aggressive. … We got fastbreak points and transition points, which we haven’t done in awhile, and that was big for us tonight.’

After it was all over, Jardine went back to his comments about the transition offense following the loss to the Hoyas. His words rang true. He saw this as the key to SU’s success all along.

The test will be continuing to use that key past Monday.

‘Teams are making us play (defense) for 30, 35 seconds,’ Jardine said. ‘We’ve just got to stay active and get those long rebounds so that we can run.’

aljohn@syr.edu

Published on February 14, 2011 at 12:00 pm