All Scoop Jardine needed was 26 seconds to find his niche. Twenty-six seconds to pull Syracuse out of a halftime deficit. Twenty-six seconds to take over a game in which Detroit appeared to have the Orange on the ropes.

 

Jardine drilled a momentum-changing jumper from behind the arc at the 19:34 mark of the first half, and the Orange never looked back.

 

‘Our offense can click at any time,’ Jardine said.

 

Led by Jardine, Syracuse again overcame a slow start with a second-half surge, beating Detroit, 66-55, in front of 17,379 at the Carrier Dome on Tuesday in the regional round of the Legends Classic. Jardine scored 17 of his career-high 27 points in the second half, to go along with eight assists and five steals on the night.

 

Beginning with a simple jumper to start the second half, Jardine guided the Orange on a 17-4 run in under seven minutes, scoring 12 on 5-of-5 shooting during the stretch. Through the first 10:44 of the half, Jardine either assisted or scored on all nine of SU’s field goals.

 

Jardine also converted on a career-high four shots from behind the arc, including two during SU’s initial stretch to start the second half.

 

‘I took what the defense gave me, and the ball just went in for me today,’ Jardine said. ‘There are going to be games where the ball doesn’t go in for me, and my teammates will have to pick me up, and tonight I just picked them up.’

 

Despite a third consecutive double-digit win, SU head coach Jim Boeheim wasn’t pleased with the lack of consistency between the first and second halves. Each of SU’s first three games began in a similar fashion: a slow start followed by an impressive finish.

 

Though Jardine shined in the second half, the team as a whole struggled. Before the intermission, the Orange converted on just 7-of-32 from the field (21.9 percent), including 2-for-17 from beyond the arc.

 

Boeheim said he’s concerned and is looking for his players to step up and make open shots.

 

‘Pretty soon we’re going to play someone who can make a shot,’ Boeheim said at the podium after the game, ‘and we’re not going to win that game.’

Detroit played the majority of the first half in a zone defense, daring Syracuse to fire away from the outside. Until Jardine got hot and the Titans were forced to switch to a man-to-man defense, the strategy worked.

 

‘Scoop really carried us tonight,’ senior forward Rick Jackson said. ‘The first half we were really struggling, scoring, and he kept us in there with his scoring. He hit a lot of big shots.’

 

Jackson compiled a career high with 22 rebounds but couldn’t generate offense consistently with Detroit packing it in down low. Taking a page out of Northern Iowa and Canisius’ playbooks, the Titans worked the defensive game plan to near-perfection in the first half, allowing just eight points in the paint.

 

It’s a trend Boeheim said he believes the Orange will continue to see with opponents until it proves it can hit an open jump shot. That’s what he sees as the reason for the first-half struggles.

 

‘We’re better than this. Whoever said we’re overrated, you can’t listen to those people,’ Boeheim said, joking about his comments following a win over Canisius Sunday. ‘We were definitely overrated in the first half tonight. I think if we take the second halves we’ve played, we’re not overrated.’

 

After losing the team’s two best shooters in Wes Johnson and Andy Rautins, Boeheim is looking for someone to step up and shoot with consistency. Until then, he expects the Orange to struggle.

 

‘If Scoop didn’t just pull us up by the shoulders tonight and take the game over, we’d have no chance to win,’ Boeheim said. ‘Absolutely no chance.’

 

aljohn@syr.edu

Published on November 15, 2010 at 12:00 pm