Syracuse got a signature win over the weekend when it knocked off Georgetown. Forty-eight hours later, it had another chance at an eye-opening victory when it went to Louisville.

Instead, the Orangemen got bounced right back to the bubble, going down to defeat 61-50. It proved to be a case study in the limitations of coaching.

It's an old adage that the coaches can draw up the plays, but the guys on the court have to make the shots. Syracuse had a nice game plan for attacking the Louisville 2-3 zone, moving aggressively toward the basket and getting the Cardinals in severe foul trouble.

Had the team made it shots at anywhere close to the 49 percent clip it was shooting before the game, the Orangemen would have walked away with an easy victory. Instead, Syracuse made just 24 percent of its first-half shots and finished the game at 29 percent. The team went 2-for-20 from 3-point range.

It's not that the players performed poorly, but they did look tired. That's not surprising. The Orangemen were limited to seven players because of injury and attrition, with four true freshmen, a redshirt freshman and a juco transfer in his first year on campus among them, and this is a situation that only sophomore Paul Harris has played through before. All the starters are playing huge minutes; on this night, it showed.

The Orangemen were destroyed on the boards, 53-35. The team gave up 19 second-chance points and allowed the Cardinals to end the game on a 9-0 run. In crunch time, the legs just weren't there.

The good news for Syracuse is that it has six days to get its second wind. The bad news is that that the team is 7-7 in the Big East and closes with road games at Notre Dame and Seton Hall and home games against Pitt and Marquette. Anything less than 3-1 in that stretch probably dooms the Orange to the NIT barring a strong performance in the conference tournament.

LOUISVILLE 61, SYRACUSE 50: The Cardinals closed the game on a 9-0 run to pull away from a Syracuse squad that couldn't shoot straight as the Orangemen missed a chance for their second consecutive victory over a ranked opponent.

Syracuse shot just 29 percent in defeat, including 24 percent in the opening 20 minutes to squander a half in which the Louisville inside threats were severely limited by foul trouble.

A slow start to the second half left the team facing a 50-40 deficit with a little more than eight minutes left. A 10-2 run over the next six minutes brought Syracuse within a bucket, but the Orange didn't score again.

Arinze Onuaku led Syracuse with 16 points and made five of his seven shots. No other starter shot better than 25 percent from the floor.

--He's far from the flashiest member of the Orange, but center Arinze Onuaku is as indispensable as anyone on the team. When he struggles, so does the Orange.

A three-game stretch in February illustrates how critical Onuaku is to his team's fortunes. He scored six points and was not a factor on offense, and the Orange lost. He had nine points and four turnovers against South Florida, and Syracuse lost to one of the worst teams in the Big East.

But against Georgetown, a team with an All-America-caliber center in Roy Hibbert, he scored 13 points and made 6 of 10 shots from the floor. Though he fouled out in 25 minutes, he also contributed two steals and was a factor on both ends of the court. The team knocked off the No. 8 Hoyas in a season-saving victory.

Onuaku won his battle with Hibbert, which was a nice bonus. Coach Jim Boeheim doesn't need Onuaku to outpoint opposing centers every night -- although that is always appreciated. However, he does need Onuaku to be aggressive. The coach called his center out after the South Florida loss and has been brutal in his attempts to get his center to be aggressive.

When Onuaku is on, opponents have to be concerned about him in the paint, giving Donte Greene and Syracuse guards Jonny Flynn and Paul Harris more room to operate. If he doesn't look for the ball or take shots when he has an opening, the rest of the Orange finds good looks harder to come by. None of the other inside players, aside from Greene, is an offensive threat, so it's Onuaku or a perimeter-dominated attack.

As Syracuse has found out again over the past few weeks, the former gives the team a tough road to victory. When the latter happens, Syracuse has proved beyond all doubt that it can knock off one of the 10 best teams in the country.

--Free throws have been a source of inconsistency for Syracuse this season, with much depending on who is at the line. However, it was a strength down the stretch against Georgetown as the Orangemen went 17 for 21 from the stripe in the second half.

QUOTE TO NOTE: "I was sleeping, and Coach came up and yelled at me for 45 minutes. He was right for yelling. We played like crap. He did what he's supposed to do. He yelled at us, got us re-focused and we came out and played well tonight. We didn't want him yelling at us again today." -- Syracuse forward Donte Greene, in the Syracuse Post-Standard, on how his coach used the South Florida loss to motivate the team for the Georgetown game.

Even with Scoop Jardine back in the rotation, there's no rest for the weary. Jonny Flynn and Paul Harris can each expect to be on the court, barring foul trouble or injury, from the opening tip until the final whistle.

PLAYER ROTATION: Usual Starters -- F Donte Green, F Kris Ongenaet, C Arinze Onuaku, G Paul Harris, G Jonny Flynn. Key Subs -- F Rick Jackson, G Scoop Jardine.

GAME REVIEW:

Connecticut 63, Syracuse 61

South Florida 89, Syracuse 78

Syracuse 77, Georgetown 70

Louisville 61, Syracuse 50

GAME PREVIEW:

at Notre Dame, Sunday, Feb. 24

vs. Pittsburgh, Saturday, March 1

IN FOCUS: Notre Dame isn't a great matchup for Syracuse because it's strong at all positions and can score both inside and out. But Jim Boeheim will have nearly a week to prepare his team for the Fighting Irish, and Mike Brey's Fighting Irish first have to worry about playing Pitt on Feb. 21. An upset on the road would give the NCAA Tournament selection committee another reason to take the Orangemen, who will likely once again find themselves on the dreaded bubble.

ROSTER REPORT:

--Donte Greene was held by Louisville to nine points on 3-of-15 shooting. The freshman is 10-for-37 from the floor over his last two games.

--Arinze Onuaku was the only offensive threat for the Orangemen at Louisville, finishing with 16 points. He also helped himself with an unusually good performance at the free throw line. The redshirt freshman made six of his 10 attempts after entering the night shooting a woeful 45.5 percent on the season.

--Jonny Flynn played "only" 39 minutes against the Cardinals, ending a seven-game stretch in which he never left the court. The freshman shot 3-for-13 with three turnovers, so the coaching staff probably figured he could use the 60 seconds of rest.

--G Paul Harris led the Orangemen with 22 points against Georgetown. He went on a personal 8-0 run to take Syracuse from an 8-6 deficit early in the game to a lead the team would never relinquish.

--F Rick Jackson played only 15 minutes against Georgetown and had two points and four rebounds. However, he was key during the final four minutes after starting center Arinze Onuaku fouled out, particularly on the defensive end and on the glass.

Previous Report: 02/18/2008