Men's Basketball: Here comes an old Big East colleague for a key ACC game
Tom Noie
MEN’S BASKETBALL
►WHO: Syracuse (15-12 overall; 9-7 ACC) vs. Notre Dame (19-8; 12-4)
►WHERE: Purcell Pavilion (9,149).
►WHEN: Wednesday at 7 p.m.
►TV: ESPNews
►RADIO: WSBT (960 AM).
►TICKETS: Available. Masks are mandatory regardless of vaccination status. Concessions are again available.
►ONLINE: Follow every Notre Dame game with live updates from Tribune beat writer Tom Noie at twitter.com/tnoieNDI.
►NOTING: Cornell graduate transfer Jimmy Boeheim scored 20 points with 10 rebounds and Villanova transfer Cole Swider added 18 points and 12 rebounds in Monday's 74-73 overtime victory at home over Georgia Tech. The Orange shot .329 percent from the field, .313 percent from 3 and .727 percent from the free throw line. Syracuse committed only four turnovers in a game that featured 13 ties and 12 lead changes. ... The Orange have won two straight and six of seven. ... The Notre Dame game originally was scheduled to be played Tuesday, then was pushed back a day to accommodate the Syracuse makeup game against Georgia Tech. … This wraps a stretch of three games in five days for the Orange. … Syracuse returned three starters off last year’s team that finished 18-10, 9-7 and eighth in the ACC. The Orange were picked this preseason to finish seventh; the Irish were picked eighth. … Syracuse leads the all-time series 31-22, 14-10 at Purcell Pavilion and 6-3 as ACC colleagues. This is the only regular-season meeting. Notre Dame has lost the last two meetings and three of four. The Irish have dropped the last two at home in the series with their last win over Syracuse at home on Jan. 21, 2017 (84-66). … Orange coach Jim Boeheim is in his 46th season at his alma mater. He has 997 career wins. … Syracuse is 3-5 on the road in league play with the wins at Boston College, Florida State and North Carolina State. It has lost five of its last six on the road with the win Feb. 8 at Boston College. … The Orange are without center Jesse Edwards, out for the year with a broken left wrist suffered earlier this month in a win over Boston College. Edwards was averaging 12.0 points and 6.5 rebounds in 27.8 minutes over 24 games, all starts. … Irish guard Blake Wesley currently ranks fifth in school history for points scored as a freshman. Wesley has 398 points this season. Former Irish All-American Troy Murphy is first with 519 points scored his first season. … This starts a stretch of three of the last four at home for Notre Dame, the only ACC school with only one home loss (Duke). No league school has played as few home games as the Irish (12). … Notre Dame has allowed an average of 87 points in its last two games. … Coming off Saturday’s loss at Wake Forest, which snapped a five-game win streak, Notre Dame looks to avoid losing consecutive games since dropping three straight in late November/early December. … The Irish enter the final two weeks of the regular season alone in second place in the ACC.
►QUOTING: “Every league game for us is hard.” — Notre Dame coach Mike Brey
— Tom Noie
Follow South Bend Tribune and NDInsider columnist Tom Noie on Twitter: @tnoieNDI