Canada Takes Early 2-0 Lead, USA Closes With 120-63 Run

Tonight Team USA dominated Canada 120-65 in an Olympic tuneup. Carmelo Anthony helped lead the way with 20 points on 7-12 shooting and grabbing 6 rebounds. Carmelo played well on the offensive glass, getting three easy put-backs in the lane off of his teammates shots.

It was a very uneventful evening for current SU player Andy Rautins: 16 minutes, 0 FG attempts, 1 rebound, 1 steal, 2 turnovers and 2 fouls. On the plus side he left the game with all of his knee ligaments intact. Rautins ran a little bit of point gaurd tonight for his dad’s squad, but it didn’t seem to matter: Canada committed 25 turnovers that led to 43 US points.

The US was running whenever they got a rebound or steal. Jason Kidd threw a nice full court pass to Carmelo, who in turn dished to Chris Bosh for a nice dunk. The US was a little sloppy in their own right, committing 19 turnovers. They were almost a bit too unselfish-sometimes passing once more than needed. But I’m sure they’ll pick up their play leading into Beijing.

Syracuse Is Top 10 In Something

ESPN.com today released numbers 20-11 in their “Prestige Programs” list and Syracuse was absent. Big East teams Cincinnati (19) and Louisville (16) were joined by Mighigan State (11), Oklahoma (12), and Indiana (13-in your face Keith Smart) in this batch of the rankings.

ESPN researcher Nick Loucks, who helped put together the rankings, had this to say about Syracuse’s ranking:

Syracuse was certainly a beneficiary of no losing seasons… Most of the teams revealed today between 11 and 20 had multiple losing seasons.

Syracuse, UConn and Georgetown are all that remain from the Big East. Having 30% of the top ten is impressive. And when you add in Cincy and Louisville the Big East has 25% of the top 20. I expected Syracuse to be anywhere from 15th to 8th. The final ten schools will be revealed tomorrow.

Carmelo Seems Ready For Beijing

Carmelo Anthony hopes to lead the U.S. to gold in Beijing.

Since Syracuse football has brought no joy to any fan of the Orange recently, I’ll add another post about a former Orange hoopster. Scoop Jackson of ESPN.com has an interesting interview with Carmelo Anthony. Melo speaks on the upcoming Beijing Olympics and the debacle that was the 2004 Olympic team (including Larry Brown leaving Anthony, LeBron James and Dwyane Wade on the bench for most of the tournament). One point that struck me was something I’ve heard other people say before about Melo’s play during FIBA competition: that Melo seems more comfortable or better suited for the international game than the NBA. Here was his response:

Personally, I try to play wherever they need me to play, and that over the years has been to my advantage. I can play down low. I can play up top, where I can play off the dribble or hit the outside shot.

Melo does have a great inside-outside game that fits in well in international play. He can utilize his size against smaller defenders or draw bigger defenders to the outside with the threat of his three point shooting. He also seems to play better with the more physical defense that characterizes international play.

Here was his response to the question if the international game is easier for him than the NBA:

It’s easier from the standpoint that I don’t have to try to go out there and do too much, which I sometimes do. It’s easier for me to let the game just come to me. You know, knock a shot down when I’m open, and just getting open shots. Like I said, I’m out there with Bron, Kobe, Jason Kidd and all those other guys. At the end of the day, someone is supposed to be open.

Valid point. I would agree it is easier to play with the likes of LeBron, Kobe Bryant and Jason Kidd than Allen Iverson, Kenyon Martin and Marcus Camby. Not that those three are bad players, but the supporting cast for team USA is much greater. If it wasn’t, we could just send last year’s Nuggets (minus the likes of Nene, Linas Kleiza and Eduardo Najera) and a few other players to China.

Without a doubt Carmelo has been impressive during his men’s national team career. He lead the team in scoring leading up to the Athens games in 2004. He was the co-captain of the 2006 FIBA World Championship team and averaged 19.9 points per game. He improved even more during the 2007 FIBA Americas Championship. In nine games, he led the team in scoring with 21.2 points per game. Carmelo was the leading scorer in six of the nine games he played in. He finished one tenth of a rebound beind team leader Dwight Howard, averaging 5.2 per game. The biggest thing he brought to the table was his outside shooting. One of teams biggest weekends going into the Olympics is a lack of pure outside shooters. Michael Redd is the only legitamate outside shooter on the team. There are many players who can hit outside shots (LeBron made 62% in 2007, Kobe 45%) but Redd is on the team purely for his outside game (64 out of his 100 shots in 07 were threes). In 2007 Carmelo was second behind Redd in 3-pointers made (26) and second behind LeBron in 3-pt percentage (57.8%).

I know one of my favorite sports memories was watching the original Dream Team dominate in Barcelona in 1992. It was painful to watch the 2004 team get embarassed in Athens. The rest of the world has caught up to America on the basketball court. And while Coach K, Jerry Collangelo and our own Jim Boeheim have improved the state of USA Basketball, if the 2008 team is going to win gold Carmelo will have to continue his strong performace from previous international competitions. Team USA battles Canada (and current Orange sharpshooter Andy Rautins) on Friday.

Jason Hart To Back Up Different Star Point Gaurd Next Season

The Legend of 5: McNabb, Hart, Pace...anyone else? Nope?

I’ll try to limit the commas today.

Former Cuse PG Jason Hart is heading back to the Los Angeles Clippers after being dealt from the Jazz yesterday for Brevin Knight. Hart will now be backing up the Clippers big free agent signee, Baron Davis.

Hart struggled in Utah this season with averages of 2.9 points and 1.5 assists in 57 games. He is returning to his hometown, which also happens to be the place of his greatest NBA success. After joining the Clippers towards the end of the 2007 season, Hart started in 22 games and averaged 9.0 points and 4.0 assists. The Clippers fell two games shy of the 8th spot in the West.

Hopefully for Hart this return will give him some more playing time and better numbers. Hart was one of my favorite players during his time with the Orange. Here’s hoping he’ll get more run in LA.

A Brief Introduction…

The greatest "sounds like he's from England" player in Orange history.

Welcome to “The Orange Report” (which is the only stupid name I could come up with). This blog will basically take a look at the Orange through a statistical point of view. I’ll be using video analysis to talk about trends or stats that don’t appear in an average box score.

Who am I? Well I am Sir Mawn Wilson (not the real one). I am a lifelong Syracuse fan who will be writing about Syracuse football and basketball for the foreseeable future. Why Sir Mawn Wilson? Well, quite honestly, I was about ten years old when he was a senior at SU, and my brother and I would laugh everytime he caught a pass. And I guess it is still funny to me all these years later. I have been a Syracuse fan for as long as I can remember, and have attended and seen too many SU football and basketball games to count. I currently live in the middle of Connecticut, and could not have more contempt for the UConn fans I am constantly surrounded by. Anyways, I hope you’ll find my analysis informative. Sometimes I’ll try to be funny. But don’t hold that against me. And if you have any questions, comments or suggestions, leave them in the comments section on here, or feel free to drop me a line.

Thanks for reading. Go Orange!