Whenever Rick Jackson fought for position in the post Sunday afternoon, he felt an unfamiliar sensation – a hand on his back. Big East opponents this season have generally tried to contain Syracuse’s frontcourt by placing defenders in front of Jackson and center Arinze Onuaku, hoping to prevent them from establishing a presence on the low block and catching passes near the basket.

Cincinnati, however, thought a better strategy would be to play behind the Orange’s big men and double down from the perimeter whenever the ball went inside.

It apparently thought wrong.

The duo of Jackson and Onuaku combined to score 23 points on 11-of-13 from the floor and grab 10 rebounds in Syracuse’s 87-63 rout of the Bearcats. Backup power forward Kristof Ongenaet added another seven points and a game-high nine boards. The Orange dominated the interior on both ends of the court, finishing with an impressive 30-point advantage (48-18) in the paint.

‘They have a lot of big guys, so I guess they figured they didn’t have to really front us, that they could play us straight up against us and be fine,’ said Jackson, who scored 13 points on 6-of-6 shooting and blocked three shots. ‘But they weren’t fine. That’s all I can say about that.’

At least a portion of Syracuse’s success down low could be attributed to who wasn’t on the court for Cincinnati. Mike Williams, a 6-foot-7 forward who entered the day as the Bearcats’ second-leading rebounder and scorer, missed Sunday’s game with a sore knee. SU forward Paul Harris said the team found out Williams wouldn’t play a few minutes before tipoff and that his absence ‘could have mattered’ in the outcome of the game.

Without Williams, UC still boasted 6-foot-8 Steve Toyloy and 6-foot-9 Yancy Gates in its starting lineup and appeared to have the bodies to match-up well with Jackson and Onuaku, who are both listed at 6 feet 9 inches.

With such a big lineup, Cincinnati opted to play straight man-to-man in the post instead of forcing a guard to lob a pass over the top of a defender by fronting. That left Onuaku and Jackson in several one-on-one opportunities before a double-team came, and they took advantage. They scored 10 points in the first five minutes of the second half to extend the Orange’s lead to 33 points, the largest discrepancy of the game.

‘They weren’t fronting our big guys, so that was the main point,’ Ongenaet said. ‘We have not just big guys, but scoring big guys, and I think no matter who plays them, if they play behind them, we’re going to have an easier time scoring, and it worked today.’

The Bearcats tried to stop Onuaku and Jackson by sending a guard to double down and cause a turnover whenever an SU big man received the ball. The plan failed. Jackson and Onuaku consistently anticipated a second defender before the Bearcats were able to trap and found an open Syracuse player either on the perimeter or cutting to the basket. The pair finished with four assists, three of which were by Onuaku.

‘When they doubled, Arinze hit a couple guys, we got a couple easy baskets out of it,’ SU head coach Jim Boeheim said. ‘When they played zone, we got good shots. When they tried a triangle for a little while, that’s when Arinze made a couple great passes and we got a couple easy layups in there. We moved the ball very well.’

Sunday’s performance was the second consecutive strong outing by the Orange’s big men. Against St. John’s on Tuesday, Onuaku and Jackson combined for 29 points and 10 rebounds. This comes after possibly their worst game of the season, when they took just three shots and tallied six points in a loss to Villanova on Feb. 22.

Their recent play is reminiscent to how they performed earlier in the season, before Onuaku suffered a knee injury that hampered him for weeks. This is the frontcourt the Orange missed, and the one it will need moving forward with the Big East and NCAA tournaments looming.

‘We were just going really hard tonight, rebounding, offensively, defensively, all of that,’ Jackson said. ‘That’s why we went up by so much.’

jediamon@syr.edu

Published on March 1, 2009 at 12:00 pm