Orange You Glad...

That all of the Carmelo trade speculations are finally over with, and he's back in orange and blue? Or how bout that the 'Cuse avenged an earlier home loss to Villanova, with an ugly, Big East-style victory in Philadelphia last night.  Two orange themed topics, and Daily Onions has lots of thoughts on both.

-With the win over #14 Villanova, Syracuse beat its sixth Top 25 opponent of the year.  That's tied for most in the NATION with Texas. For all the experts that bang on 'Cuse for the scheduling or lackluster wins, take note of that stat.

-Syracuse now has wins on the road at St. John's (a place where Pitt, ND and G'town lost), at UConn (when the Huskies were ranked #7) and at Villanova. Not too shabby.

-Scoop Jardine is one of the most frustrating players to watch. The majority of the time he makes poor decisions, and has been nicknamed "The Momentum Killer" by a former Daily Onions roommate and loyal reader. With that said, Scoop hit some big shots last night, leading the 'Cuse with 20 points on 7-11 shooting. He did have 5 turnovers though, and kept the "getting called for a charge" streak alive as well. I guess you just need to take the good with the bad, even if the bad is painful sometimes.

-In this week's stat you wouldn't expect: Scoop Jardine leads the Big East Conference in total assists. In this week's stat you probably would expect: Scoop Jardine is second in the Big East Conference in total turnovers.

With Melo back in NY, do the Knicks get alternate Orange jerseys?

-On to Carmelo, who took a lot of heat (not Jay Cutler heat, but some heat) on the Twitterverse, blogosphere, interweb nation last night, in regards to how much the Knicks gave up for him.

-First of all, Carmelo Anthony is currently a Top 10 player in the NBA. Period.

-People are saying, "he's only made it out of the first round of the playoffs once." That is true - and he made it to the conference finals where the Nuggets lost to the Lakers. You know who also only made it out of the first round once with his original team in the Western Conference? Kevin Garnett. He then got traded to the Celtics, had some other pieces put in place around him, and since then he's got to the Finals 2 out of 3 years, winning one of them.

-Just in case you forgot, as a freshman, Carmelo led Syracuse to a National Championship.

-With that said, the Knicks have zero bench right now. Their starting lineup will be Amare, Carmelo, Lance, Chauncey Billups and Turiaf. Off the bench you have Toney Douglas, the Williams brothers, Shawne and Sheldon (no relation), Bill Walker, Andy Rautins and Roger Mason, Jr. In other words, the pupu platter. In a year and a half, the Knicks could be in the running for a Chris Paul or Deron Williams, making their own Big Three. Until then, depth will be a concern.

-Will Sheldon Williams have "She. Williams" on the back of his jersey to distinguish from Shawne Williams?

-Overall, Daily Onions thinks the Knicks had to make this deal. Anytime you have the opportunity to get a top 10 talent, you need to do it, and that's the bottom line.

Big Monday turned out to be a big night for Syracuse nation. One of our favorite sons is returning to New York and will be wearing orange and blue once again. We also went on the road and beat one of our Big East rivals. Not bad, not bad at all.