OMAHA, Neb. — One day before 11th-seeded Syracuse (23-13, 8-10 Atlantic Coast) faces No. 2 seed Duke (28-7, 13-5), Orange head coach Jim Boeheim discussed the Sweet 16 matchup from the CenturyLink Center.

Here are three notable things he said.

Down-low duo

Duke’s Marvin Bagley III and Wendell Carter, Jr. are leading the show. The freshmen clean up boards inside, collecting easy put-back points. They back down fellow bigs. And they dunk.

Bagley III, a probable lottery pick in June, averages a team-high 21.2 points and 11.3 boards per game. Carter Jr. averages 13.6 points and 9.2 boards per game. Against Syracuse on Feb. 24, a 60-44 Duke win, Bagley III had a game-high 19 points. Carter Jr. added 16 points and 10 rebounds. Whether SU can prevent both from similar production on Friday night could dictate who goes home and who keeps dancing.

“They’re a problem inside for everybody,” Boeheim said. “They’ve averaged right around that for the year. What they did against us wasn’t unusual. I think they averaged pretty close to that, 34, someplace in that area.

“Our center got in foul trouble down there. We did a good job on the perimeter shooters. That’s important. But we played against three pretty good man-to-man defensive teams, and seeing that Duke does play some man-to-man, it wouldn’t surprise me if they played man-to-man in some cases against us. I think we’ve overall played pretty well against zones this year.”

The beauty in low-scoring, defensive battles

Syracuse arguably is playing the best defense in the country right now, holding three-straight opponents who averaged 80-plus points per game to under 60. First was Arizona State last Wednesday in Dayton, Ohio, for the Sun Devils were once ranked in the AP Top 5 and proved capable of efficient offense. Then SU held TCU to just 52 points, and only 24 in the second half.

On Sunday, Syracuse played perhaps its best defense all season. The Michigan State Spartans boasted a deep, high-powered offense that had powered them to 30 wins and only four losses. Yet SU held them to 53 points in front of a mostly MSU-backed crowd in Detroit.

“Everybody says defense wins games, but then when they see it they don’t like it,” Boeheim said. “I think there’s a beauty in that or 90 to 95 or 100. And you can do that; you can watch the NBA and see that anytime you want to. College basketball is different. It’s always been different. You can control the game a little bit more with your defense and with your offense a little bit, too.

“We just aren’t good on that end (offense) of the court,” he added. “Where we struggle is on that end. On defense, if you like defense, it’s good to watch. But our offense has struggled and that gets difficult sometimes. I don’t like to watch it sometimes.”

Appreciating Big Dance expansion

Boeheim said he’s an advocate of an expanded NCAA Tournament. For years, the field consisted of 64 teams. But in 2011, the NCAA expanded that number to 68, including four additional teams that would compete in “play-in games,” such as the game in which Syracuse played last week against Arizona State. The First Four is a series of play-in games contested between teams holding the four lowest-seeded automatic bids and the four lowest-seeded at-large bids.

In 2011, VCU most famously made a run from the First Four as a No. 11 seed out to the Final Four. La Salle (2013) and Tennessee (2014) each made the Sweet 16 as First Four teams, and Syracuse has this March. For that reason, Boeheim said, more bubble teams should be allowed in.

“It used to be, if you were on a bubble, you probably couldn’t win anyway,” Boeheim said. “But now those teams can win. And there’s more than a couple of teams that are on the bubble. But I’ve always advocated for more teams from when it was 64 to 68. And the playoff system that we have this year, when we go and play, I think you could duplicate that in another regional and get a couple more teams in or four more teams in, whatever the number is.

“And I just think that when you give fan bases and players that opportunity to go play, even if you don’t win, you had that opportunity,” he added. “And I just think it’s a great thing, because if it hadn’t gone from 64 to 68 we wouldn’t be here, I wouldn’t be here now.”

Published on March 22, 2018 at 6:49 pm

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