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Syracuse faces Wake Forest at home amidst 2003 championship celebration

Judah Mintz (3) and Joe Girard (11) share a moment as Syracuse battles Georgia Tech.
Cuse.com
Judah Mintz (3) and Joe Girard (11) share a moment as Syracuse battles Georgia Tech.

The conclusion of the regular season for Syracuse men’s basketball welcomes in some old friends into the JMA Wireless Dome. At the end of Saturday's matchup with Wake Forest, the numbers three of Gerry McNamara and number one of Hakim Warrick will float into the rafters.

The ceremony serves as a distraction from the abysmal performances the current team has turned in over the last two weeks.

SU is on a four game skid and has been outscored by 77 across those four contests. The most recent of those defeats came against Georgia Tech 96-76 on Tuesday night.

The Orange were outmatched by a 12-17 Yellow Jackets team that didn’t have a single ACC road win up to that point.

Syracuse’s biggest problem during that matchup was the defense.

Georgia Tech came into Tuesday’s matchup as the worst shooting team in the ACC. However, SU let GT shoot 52% from the field and 45% from three while knocking down a program record 18 triples.

“We played them in Atlanta, our defense was just moving better…” Coach Boeheim said after the game. “Since then, our defense has gotten progressively worse. We tried to go with the press and it was a mistake. It gave them some open shots and I should have known better.”

The road doesn’t get any easier in terms of defending the three. Wake Forest has the best three point percentage in the ACC at 37.1%.

Some of that marksmanship can be attributed to grad-student Tyree Appleby. The guard has hit four or more 3-pointers in his last three games.

However, Appleby isn’t the team leader in threes made. That goes to Damari Monsanto, who is set to have a season-ending surgery after tearing his left patella tendon against NC State last week. Monsanto was also the team’s second leading scorer prior to the injury.

Looking at the matchup down low, Jesse Edwards is likely to be battling with either 7-foot-1 Matthew Marsh or 6-foot-10 Bobi Klintman. Edwards has to turn in a big performance to help out Judah Mintz and Joe Girard on the outside.

The Orange need to get better performances from their supporting cast as well. Maliq Brown has played essential minutes for most of the season for Syracuse, but against Georgia Tech, the Virginia Native had five points and three turnovers. His fellow freshman Justin Taylor has only recorded four points in his last six games. To top it off, forward Chris Bell hasn’t been able to see the floor the last two games.

Despite all the negatives surrounding SU at the moment, Saturday’s bout has some key implications. The Orange are currently ninth in the ACC standings with a 9-10 record. Boston College is currently 10th in the standings with that same conference record, however Syracuse holds a better overall record as a tiebreaker. If SU loses and BC wins, the Eagles would overtake the Orange in the standings and take away Syracuse’s first-round bye in the ACC tournament.

The contest between Wake Forest and Syracuse will tip off at 5 p.m. this Saturday. WAER’s coverage begins with McClurg Team Countdown to Tipoff at 4:30 p.m.