A completely dominant performance by the #1 seed Syracuse Orange this weekend was highlighted by the play of Wes Johnson, who is finally back to his early-season form before the February fall against Providence hurt his back and a subsequent hand injury hurt his shooting. Wes was absolutely the best player on the court and as Gus Johnson repeatedly said "the best player in Buffalo" and he followed up a 20-point outing against over-matched Vermont with a 31 point, 13 rebound domination of the #19 team in the nation, Gonzaga. Wes played as well on Sunday as he has all year and the team did the same, despite not only being without Arinze Onuaku but also without Rick Jackson for the final 9 minutes of the first half, when he recorded his third foul. But even semi center-less, with freshman DeShonte Riley filling in the gap, the Orange just went on a dominant run against the Zags to close out the first half with a 16 point lead and then they came out in the second half and just blew the doors off their opponent, staking themselves a 32 point lead before some late game sloppy play pushed the final score to 87-65.
I was frightened to death about this weekend's matchups, both Vermont and Gonzaga, because we were without Onuaku and we hadn't been playing well, but neither game was close and neither team had even a shred of a chance to stop our offense, especially with Wes Johnson playing this well. Three-point shooting was probably the biggest factor, against both teams, as we shot incredibly from long-range and the opponents did not, so the size of the blowouts was definitely affected, but we do lead the nation in field goal percentage and it was no fluke that we were ranked #1 in country just two weeks ago. The Big East may be struggling mightily early but Syracuse is carrying the banner for the league and if they can come anywhere near as close to playing this well next week, a trip to the Final Four should be theirs. There is still hope that Onuaku will be back for Thursday's game against Butler, and even though we played great without him, I still think we need him to keep winning, so my fingers are crossed that he keeps healing, but damn, DeShonte Riley didn't play half bad today... I still can't believe it.