With some serious shades of 1991, the Richmond Spiders came into the Carrier Dome tonight and took a 7-point lead into halftime. But led by an 11 point run by a resurgent Eric Devendorf and a dominating second half by sophomore Jonny Flynn, the Cuse held off the Spiders, 76-71, winning fairly easily at the end against a non-conference opponent. While I'll take the win, I must admit the Orange looked bad for most of the first half and looked outhustled for parts of the second half until Flynn took over -- and Devo made a hugely important three from the corner with about 6 minutes to play. Richmond was only 16-15 last season and while they played well (and were red-hot from 3 in the first half... where have we seen that before?), this is a game the Cuse should have won, and by a more comfortable margin. Of course, we've lost in early season games to midpack A-10 schools the last couple of years, helping to keep us out of the NCAA tournament. So I'll take the win.
And it's sad to say, but at first glance, this team doesn't look much better than our last two teams and is arguably worse. Flynn and Devo were supported by 17 mostly first half points by Arinze Onuaku, but that was it. They might as well have played with three guys on the court. The rest of the team? Disastrous. Paul Harris scored 8 points and the rest of his teammates scored 3 points, combined. Andy Rautins went 0 for 6 in his 2nd game back from knee surgery, Rick Jackson and Kristof Ongenaet were invisible on the court, especially on defense, and freshman Kris Joseph did little with extended 2nd half minutes. I don't think fellow freshman Mookie Jones got on the court -- he didn't in the 2nd half, when Boeheim buried his bench in a close game and rode Devo and Flynn to victory. That will not be enough to win in the Big East. We're 2-0 to start the season, but there is a ton of work to do.
