PHILADELPHIA—Jay Wright tried to put it as politically correct as he could.

The Villanova head coach didn’t come out and say Syracuse was flat out better than his Wildcats. But there was a clear difference in the level of play between the Orange and Villanova.

And Wright saw it, too.

‘I think they’re just a little bit more physically mature to be honest with you,’ Wright said. ‘We’re there, they’re there and they come up with it. I think that’s just really experience and physically stronger players.’

No. 1 SU (18-0, 5-0 Big East) breezed by the overmatched Wildcats 79-66 in front of 14,877 fans at the Wells Fargo Center. The final score, though, was not indicative of just how dominant the Orange truly was on Wednesday. At times, Syracuse seemed to be able to score at will while Villanova (8-9, 1-4) struggled to score at all against SU’s 2-3 zone. The Orange raced out to a 19-point halftime lead and, despite a few small runs by the Wildcats, that margin never shrunk to less than 11 points.

And while Wright pointed to Syracuse’s physical mismatch as a key factor, SU head coach Jim Boeheim felt that it was Villanova’s lack of experience that contributed to the Orange’s easy win.

‘When you don’t have a senior, I think that’s something that can affect your team,’ Boeheim said. ‘They’ve got a lot of guys that are good players that are trying to figure it out. We’re fortunate that our young guys have veteran guys there to kind of lead the way.’

Sophomore Dion Waiters led the way for Syracuse with 20 points off the bench. He, senior Scoop Jardine and the rest of the Orange guards penetrated the Wildcats defense with ease from opening tip.

Villanova tried to use both zone and man-to-man defenses throughout the night but neither slowed down the Orange. Waiters and Jardine — both Philadelphia natives — constantly drove into the heart of the defense and either dished to an open teammate or finished at the rim themselves.

‘We play with that Philly swag,’ Jardine said of himself and his cousin Waiters. ‘And being able to do it at home with our family and friends watching us, it’s a dream come true. We made plays when we needed to win the game.’

SU broke the game open coming out of a timeout in the first half. Waiters found Jardine on a fast break for a layup, senior Kris Joseph scored in transition shortly after and junior James Southerland knocked down a 3-pointer in a span of 1:04.

That extended SU’s lead from five to 12 points and the Villanova’s anemic offense never pulled to within single digits from there on out.

As easy as it was for the Orange to score at times, it seemed equally as difficult for the Wildcats to manufacture points. Villanova went 20-of-61 (32.8 percent) from the field, forcing up contested, off-balance shots from the perimeter or trying to go through SU defenders down low. If the Wildcats didn’t have a 20-of-28 performance at the free-throw line, the game could have been significantly more out of hand.

‘I thought our defense was good,’ Boeheim said. ‘And they missed some open shots in the first half. I thought that was the difference. When we made our run, they missed a couple shots, we got a couple steals inside and got fast breaks out of it.’

Syracuse extended its lead to 19 at halftime thanks to a banked-in buzzer-beater by Jardine. Villanova made a brief run in the middle of the second half to close the lead to 11, but SU quickly pulled away.

The Orange scored nine straight points, highlighted by one of Waiters’ two tomahawk slams on the night, to put the game out of reach for good.

‘We’ve played against a lot of great Syracuse teams,’ Wright said. ‘This reminds me of one of their very, very good teams. I don’t remember them having a team with this kind of depth. … It’s a really special team.’

zjbrown@syr.edu 

Published on January 11, 2012 at 12:00 pm