CLEVELAND — After Syracuse’s disappointing early exit from the NCAA Tournament following a 66-62 loss to Marquette, both junior point guard Scoop Jardine and forward Kris Joseph hinted at returns for their respective senior seasons.

Joseph popped up as a possible first-round pick during the season. He led the Orange in scoring at 14.3 points per game. But in the locker room after SU’s crushing loss in the third round of the NCAA Tournament, Joseph said he was already looking toward next season.

‘Work hard, be a senior leader,’ Joseph said when asked what he needed to do during the offseason moving forward to his final season at Syracuse. ‘Lead these guys, just like Rick (Jackson) did. … I’m looking forward to next year’s season already.’

And amid questions concerning his crucial mistakes at the end of Sunday’s contest, Jardine perked up when asked about next season.

‘We should be good next year,’ he said.

Assuming they do stick around, Jardine and Joseph will be joined by a loaded supporting cast bolstered by the addition of a heralded freshman class. Sophomore center DaShonte Riley will also return after missing the season and redshirting with an injury similar to a stress fracture in his right foot.

At the end of last season, SU lost arguably its three top players in Wes Johnson, Arinze Onuaku and Andy Rautins. This season, the Orange looks to only lose its lone senior in Jackson.

Something Jardine also expects to be key is the development of a strong 2010-11 freshman class made up of Dion Waiters, C.J. Fair, Fab Melo and Baye Moussa Keita. After Waiters’ 18-point performance Sunday against Marquette, that’s something his cousin thinks could happen on a regular basis.

‘He’s got so many things offensively that you just can’t teach,’ Jardine said. ‘He’s great off the dribble. … He’s going to definitely be great with another year in him to get stronger, to get better and to get mentally better.’

Big East left with only two teams in Tournament

Perplexed, Buzz Williams searched for a reason why only two of a record 11 Big East teams remain after the first weekend of the NCAA Tournament. To him, every one of those teams was deserving of a Tournament bid.

‘We’ve won four of our last five, and on Monday we still won’t be ranked,’ Williams said Sunday after his Marquette team defeated Syracuse. ‘I think that it does speak to the depth of our league.’

Further confirming the league’s depth is the fact that the two teams that do remain from the Big East finished ninth (Connecticut) and 10th (Marquette), respectively, in the regular-season standings.

But Sunday, when No. 3-seeded Syracuse and No. 2-seeded Notre Dame each fell to lower seeds, much like Pittsburgh and Louisville did in the days previous, questions about the league’s strength were legitimized.

Though the league has underachieved in the tournament, six Big East teams finished the regular season ranked inside the Top 25. In the league’s postseason tournament, not even the two top seeds made it to the championship game.

‘I mean,’ Williams said, ‘in sticking up for our league, I think that it’s suggestive. If we were the last team in — which I think is hard to argue that we weren’t — for us to be one of the three still remaining, it speaks to the depth of our league and the talent depth of our league.’

Even after this weekend’s upsets, some outside the league were still refuting the fact that the Big East was overrated or that it shouldn’t have had 11 teams in the field.

To Williams, it doesn’t matter that just two Big East teams remain when evaluating the strength of the league. To him, the only thing that matters is what those 11 teams did during the entire season.

‘I think over a period of time is how you can tell how good teams are,’ Williams said. ‘And I think the resume of those 11 institutions speak for themselves over the course of from Christmas to Spring Break.’

bplogiur@syr.edu

aljohn@syr.edu

Published on March 21, 2011 at 12:00 pm