WASHINGTON — When Syracuse traveled to Philadelphia on Feb. 21 to take on Villanova, it was smack dab in the middle of the Big East — seventh in the conference with three games to play. It wasn’t where most thought it would be after going more than two months into the season with an unblemished record.

After winning four of its last 10 games, Syracuse took to the road for consecutive games against nationally ranked teams ahead of the Orange in the league’s pecking order.

Now, just a week later, after road wins against Villanova and Georgetown, Syracuse might be the hottest team in the conference. Rolling on a four-game winning streak, the Orange has sole possession of fifth place, with a chance to finish as high as second in the standings.

The final stretch of the regular season sounds like an ideal time to hit a stride. And it’s all because Syracuse is finally making the key plays down the stretch.

‘This was a big win because of how close everybody is in the standings,’ Kris Joseph said after SU’s win over Villanova. ‘We needed this one, and we’re not done. We’re looking for a few more.’

After Syracuse’s win over Georgetown on Saturday, Jim Boeheim’s squad is sitting pretty. Assuming SU takes care of DePaul in its final regular-season game inside the Carrier Dome, it can finish no worse than fifth in the Big East.

Since it beat St. John’s and Notre Dame — two of the four teams currently ahead of SU in the standings — earlier this season, the Orange holds the tiebreaker if the Red Storm loses one or Notre Dame loses both of its final two games.

Finishing fourth would guarantee Syracuse a double-bye in the upcoming Big East tournament. For a team that seemed to be hitting the panic button just a week ago, it’s about as optimistic of a situation imaginable.

Boeheim warned those who were acting as though the season was already over. ‘The season is over when we’ve played 18 games in the league,’ he said after Syracuse’s win over West Virginia on Feb. 14 as part of a defiant press conference.

After a rough patch, the Orange has now reeled off four consecutive wins, the second-longest winning streak in the league.

‘I never like to lose, and I don’t want to lose four in a row,’ SU point guard Scoop Jardine said Saturday. ‘But I think that helped us. I think we really got to see who we were and see the things we have to work on to get better.’

It almost never happened, though. Syracuse almost lost at home on Feb. 19 against Big East bottom-feeder Rutgers. The Scarlet Knights took SU into overtime, where the Orange made the necessary plays to pull it out.

When times got tough against Villanova, and then against Georgetown, it was Syracuse again making the plays at crunch time.

Through 30 games, Syracuse is the worst free-throw shooting team (65.7 percent) in the league. Yet the Orange made 8-of-10 inside the final minute against Villanova and Georgetown to seal the two victories.

‘We knew what we had to do, and we went out and executed,’ Joseph said. ‘We’ve overcome a lot, and we’re just trying to build momentum going into the tournament.’

Syracuse is far from playing mistake-free basketball, and even Boeheim has said recently that there’s still some work to be done. Still, there’s now evidence to suggest that although once wounded by the gantlet of the Big East, Syracuse is peaking at exactly the right time.

And now there’s no looking back. The bar has been raised again, and the team that started the season winning 18 in a row is re-emerging down the stretch.

Andrew L. John is a staff writer at The Daily Orange, where his column appears occasionally. He can be reached at aljohn@syr.edu.

Published on February 27, 2011 at 12:00 pm