"Paint" the Town Orange

Its interesting that the "lanes/paint" of the basketball court at Madison Square Garden are painted orange, because that's where Syracuse felt most comfortable last night, in their convincing 72-58 win against #8 Michigan State.

No need to apologize, 'I'm Sorry' (AP Photos)

Check out this stat from last night....Syracuse had 42 points in the paint.  They also made 22 free throws. That's 64 of 72 points....throw in 2 three point buckets, and one more jumper - and that's that. For the first time this season, Syracuse has played to their strength - get out on the break, get to the rim, and get the ball inside. They stopped settling for outside shots (with good reason, 2-11 from 3 last night), forced 16 turnovers (Mich St. is 321st in the country in turnovers per game....who knew there were that many schools!), and minimized (notice I didn't say eliminated) their own mistakes.

As Doris Burke noted last night, you cannot replicate Syracuse's length (that's what she said) in the zone. Cuse is athletic as heck, so let's hope they continue to get out in the open court and keep attacking the rim.

I'm going to give out the first ever Daily Onions Game Ball (we'll get a sponsor for this eventually - maybe FX Caprara or Vanilla Milk) for last night's win....and it goes to the slimmed down, new and improved Rick Jackson (aka "I'm Sorry Rick Jackson" - an affectionate nickname I coined a few years back for the big guy).  I'm Sorry is a double-double machine this year, and put up 17 pts and 16 rebounds last night.  He's added one more phone book to his vertical jump, bringing it up a 2 phone book total (finally threw a couple down last night, instead of going up soft). If I'm Sorry continues to play this way, I just might be fully convinced that Cuse if for real.