Inside Scoop on Syracuse's win

THE OOZING gash was the size and shape of a big man's bite mark. And if someone had chomped a little on Scoop Jardine's left arm in last night's 69-64 Syracuse victory over Villanova, well, it would have been well within the parameters of the game.

"Typical Big East game," said the Neumann-Goretti grad, examining the fresh blood as if a new tattoo. But even inside of this Mixed Martial Arts league, last night's neighborhood tussle was, well, atypical.

There was the usual stuff for sure - bumping, shirt-grabbing, five-man pileups for loose balls. Someone went for a block and nearly broke his hand on the backboard. A Stooges-like poke in the eye went down in the scorebook as a steal. Typical stuff.

Here's what wasn't. Villanova attempted 26 three-point shots. Five went in. Corey Fisher, who had 34 points in the 'Cats' overtime victory against DePaul on Saturday, missed all eight of his threes, was 3-for-16 for the game, and finished with eight points. And Maalik Wayns, whom Jardine considers "one of my best friends," made one of nine shots he attempted and finished with four points.

The irony was not lost on Jardine. When Villanova "punched us in the mouth at our place" - Jardine's words - a month ago, Wayns was the 'Cats' leading scorer with 21, setting the tone with early threes. In an 83-72 victory, Villanova made 11 threes against the Orange's infamous zone, in a hostile Carrier Dome renowned for its notoriously bad shooting backdrop.

In that game, Jardine attempted eight shots, made one, and finished with two points. "Up there I pressed a little bit," he said. "I was trying to force a few things and I was trying to answer him every time he did something. Tonight I just tried to stay in control. Do whatever coach tells me to do."

Jardine finished with 20 points, evenly distributed through two brutal halves. As important as those points were, he got them inside of a more evenhanded approach, evidenced by the 8-for-9 shooting from his old Neumann-Goretti teammate Rick Jackson, who finished with 18.

Jackson and Jardine did to Villanova here what Wayns and Corey Stokes did up there, the difference being in style points. Stokes' return from turf toe last night was a 24-point diamond in the rough, and I do mean rough. Rough on the coaches, players, refs and fans. Rough even on the eyes that weren't actually poked.

Villanova shot just over 24 percent in the first half, yet trailed 29-27. How? Syracuse turned it over nine times, made just two of the 10 it tried from outside the arc. "Bottom line is we played better defense and they missed shots," Syracuse coach Jim Boeheim said.

Bottom, bottom line? Jardine stepped up in crunch time, while Fisher and Wayns didn't. "I was relaxed this time," said the sophomore, who like his Philly friend Wayns had been slumping of late. "I tried to let it come to me. I tried to take whatever they gave me."

Really, Villanova didn't give him much. And when he picked up his fourth foul with 12:29 to go, he gave the 'Cats a chance to gain some traction - which they did.

Syracuse led 47-40 at that point. When he returned with 7:41 left, the Orange led by four. "I had to go back, they were on a run," he said. May not sound like much of one to those who didn't watch this game, but trust Jardine's analysis, because that's how it looked. The 18,899 at the Wells Fargo Center were at their loudest. You had seen 'Nova steal a game like this a dozen times before.

He scored five points in the next few minutes, including a 23-foot trey that pushed the lead to five with 4:40 left. "I thought that got us into position to win the ballgame," said Boeheim. But what really did it was a rebound and a long outlet pass in the final frantic minutes.

"Ricky was tremendous in the middle," Boeheim said. "But the difference obviously was the Philly guy, Scoop."

To those who know him, it should come as no surprise that Scoop agreed. "Sometimes when I'm not doing enough on the court I try to get a little too anxious," he said. "Try to pass it to somebody who it's hard to get to . . . Tonight it was just a relaxed game."

He looked at the top of his arm as he said this, discovering his wound for the first time. "I have no idea how I got that," he said, bemused. "Really. I might have fallen. Or hit something . . . "

Or someone. Does it really matter? Teeth, floor, the bottom of one of those five-man pileups. Just don't call it typical Big East basketball. This was a Philly playground in July.

And Scoop had the tattoo to prove it.

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