Syracuse’s defensive game plan entering its contest with No. 19 Louisville focused specifically on two players.

The Orange knew it needed to stop Peyton Siva from penetrating the 2-3 zone and keep Kyle Kuric from catching fire to knock off the Cardinals. If SU lost Saturday, it wouldn’t be because one of those two carried Louisville to the win.

‘We really keyed in on their players,’ SU guard Scoop Jardine said. ‘We talked a lot that we weren’t going to let Kyle Kuric beat us or let Peyton Siva drive. We were going to have to let somebody else beat us.’

No. 2 SU (30-1, 17-1 Big East) executed that game plan to near perfection in a 58-49 win over No. 19 Louisville (22-9, 10-8 Big East) in front of 33,205 fans at the Carrier Dome on Saturday. The second-largest crowd in the country this year watched the Orange defense suffocate the Cardinals’ attack. Kuric only scored eight points and went 1-of-7 from beyond the arc while Siva finished with four points and six turnovers.

Louisville shot just 33.9 percent from the field and went a putrid 2-of-23 from deep. And offensively, Syracuse caught fire just before halftime and continued to shoot well the rest of the game to seal the victory.

With the win, SU finished the year undefeated in the Carrier Dome for just the second time in school history and tied the Big East record for most conference wins with 17.

‘This group has had an unbelievable year,’ SU head coach Jim Boeheim said. ‘To win 17 in this league is a tremendous accomplishment for these players.’

Louisville’s offense started the game hot, building a 15-9 lead as the Orange stumbled through the opening minutes. But after a goaltending call on Fab Melo with 11:46 left in the first half, Syracuse’s defense buckled down.

The Cardinals scored just four points and made only one more field goal before halftime. And then, SU’s offense finally showed up.

The Orange closed the half on a 17-4 run that included a smaller 12-0 stretch as guards Dion Waiters and Brandon Triche sparked the Syracuse offense. Waiters scored six of those 12 unanswered points and added an assist. Triche set up James Southerland for a 3 and a pair of free throws, and he also dropped in a layup.

But Boeheim said the key to that run was defense.

‘Our defense got better,’ he said. ‘We got some steals. We started to score a little bit. We made a couple shots. I think that kind of got us going.’

Syracuse used the big run to take a 26-19 lead into halftime. Then Triche came out of the break on fire, scoring eight straight points after halftime to extend SU’s lead to 34-19.

‘It opened up their defense more,’ Triche said. ‘They had to play me on the wing. We spread them out a little bit more.’

While Triche set the tone for the second half offensively, Southerland did the same on the defensive end. When Louisville center Gorgui Dieng caught a pass in the paint heading toward the rim, the Orange forward met Dieng in midair and rejected his dunk attempt.

Louisville only converted three field goals in the opening five minutes of the second half against the dominant SU defense.

‘It’s about making guys uncomfortable,’ Jardine said. ‘They’re going to get good looks because they’re a good basketball team. They run some great sets. But when you make guys uncomfortable and run them off their spots, that’s what our defense does.’

SU built its lead up to as many as 19 thanks to that stifling defense and an 11-of-20 shooting performance in the second half. And when the Cardinals eventually went on a run and cut the margin down to 10, the Orange defense once again rose to the challenge.

Louisville made just two field goals in the next three minutes while Syracuse extended the lead back to 14 points. And with just a minute left to play at that point, the game was well in hand.

‘Our defense was good,’ Boeheim said. ‘We didn’t really let them get many open shots, and then when they got some open shots, they just didn’t make them. Sometimes that happens.’

zjbrown@syr.edu

Published on March 3, 2012 at 12:00 pm