Sunday, March 13, 2011

Milestones Entering the NCAA

Congratulations to the Orange for earning a #3 seed in the NCAA tournament. And congratulations to the UConn Huskies for winning five straight and winning the Big East tournament. The Huskies now tie the Hoyas for most Big East Tournament championships with 7.

Some quick notes on milestones for the Orange. Brandon Triche now holds the school record of 37 consecutive free throws made, breaking Mike Lee's record. He does not yet hold the Big East record for consecutive free throws made, which is 41. More notably, that record is held by a Syracuse player. So how is that possible? More on that later in the article.

Rick Jackson has played 141 games for Syracuse, and trails only Stephen Thompson (144 games) and Derrick Coleman (143 games) for games in a Syracuse uniform. A trip to the Sweet 16 would tie him for the school record, and Elite Eight would break it for him.

Jackson has 349 rebounds for the season. Earlier in the year he was on pace to break Coleman’s single season school rebounding record of 422. However, he now needs 74 rebounds to do that; if the Orange were to go to the national championship with 6 more games, he’d have to average 12.3 rebounds a game. That’s not to negate the fact that big Rick has had an outstanding season rebounding. He’s been consistent game after game this year.

Jackson now has 256 career blocked shots, which is good for seventh all-time at Syracuse. 7 more blocked shots would get him to 5th all time, passing Darryl Watkins and Jeremy McNeil. I never would have thought Jackson was that much of a shot blocker, but the statistics state otherwise.

Syracuse’s loss to UConn in the Big East Tournament was coach Jim Boeheim’s 300th career loss. It was going to occur, and really, for a guy with 855 wins, who cares?

Scoop Jardine needs 10 more assists to become the 8th Orangeman to have a 200+ assist season (Sherman Douglas did it three times).

Kris Joseph has 956 career points. He should get to 1000 points in the NCAA tournament. It would be very disappointing to all the Orange faithful if he did not (the implications being how poorly the Orange would have done).

Brando Triche has made 84.6% of his free throws this season, the 16th best season in Syracuse history (minimum of 50 attempts).

So who holds the Big East consecutive free throw record? The answer is Gerry McNamara. GMac started the streak in his first Big East game against Seton Hall on January 8th, 2003, and broke his streak during the Georgetown game on February 3rd, 2003. He, however, did not make 37 in a row? Why? Because the Orangemen played Missouri on January 13th, 2003, and McNamara missed a free throw in that game. It was a non-Big East game, so it did not impact his Big East shooting streak, but it did snap his Syracuse streak. McNamara would have two 30 free throw streaks that season.

Let’s go Orange!

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