Georgetown Shreds Supposedly Improved Syracuse Defense

After a 16-1 start for the Orange, there was a spreading meme that Syracuse had improved a lot on defense. While the Orange have been better defensively than they have for the past couple years, they are still not a patient defensive team. They looked very good in the non-conference slate with excellent wins over Florida, Kansas and Memphis. Then they started 4-0 in the Big East. What might have been missed is that they did it against Seton Hall, USF, DePaul and Rutgers. The teams at the very bottom of the Big East.

Georgetown also started strong in the non-conference schedule and came out in the Big East schedule with the huge road win over UConn. Then they got hammered by Pitt and beaten by Notre Dame. They didn't look bad, but they definitely looked young and inconsistent. They found the consistency against Syracuse Wednesday, as they pounded the Orange 88-74.

Georgetown just dismantled Syracuse. The Hoyas shot close to 60 percent and only took 54 shots. On top of that, Georgetown rediscovered their 3-point shooting -- at least for this game -- and drilled 12-for-21 from beyond the arc. Hitting from outside made it ridiculously easy to go inside and get easy baskets.

DaJuan Summers and Austin Freeman will haunt Syracuse dreams. They combined for 40 points, with both players hitting 3's and attacking the basket, and basically being the matchup nightmares that made them highly sought recruits.

Syracuse got scorched during a big Georgetown run in the first half that they were never able to close. It also hurt Syracuse that guard Andy Rautins -- who had been extremely hot from the outside coming into the game -- left the game after appearing to injure his left knee. Rautins missed all of last year with a torn ACL in his left knee.

The loss of Rautins also meant that Jonny Flynn and Eric Devendorf had to play the entire game, further weakening the perimeter defense.