CLEVELAND — Before Brandon Triche could answer, Scoop Jardine took the words right out of his mouth.

After Syracuse received a No. 3 seed in the NCAA Tournament on Sunday, Triche was asked to pinpoint the one element of this SU team that opponents don’t want to go up against in the Tournament. Five feet away from Triche at the podium, Jardine chimed in with what he felt was the obvious answer.

‘The zone!’ Jardine said in a hushed shout.

Jardine referred, of course, to the trademark 2-3 zone championed by SU head coach Jim Boeheim. It’s the zone that has frustrated opponents all season, minus one four-game losing streak. It’s the zone that has Indiana State preparing for it with unconventional tactics.

And it’s the zone that Jardine, Triche and the rest of the Orange (26-7) will look to master to catapult the team to a deep NCAA Tournament run. That run starts Friday at approximately 9:57 p.m. inside Quicken Loans Arena, when Syracuse takes on the Sycamores (20-13) — champions of the Missouri Valley Conference tournament.

‘I think they haven’t really played against zone,’ Triche said on Selection Sunday. ‘A lot of teams play mostly man-to-man. But they don’t practice against zone. And I believe our zone is the best 2-3 zone in America.’

But Boeheim and SU’s players see Indiana State as a team that’s ripe to exploit the zone if the Orange comes out of the gate lazily. On Tuesday during Syracuse’s afternoon practice, Boeheim compared the Sycamores’ offense to that of Georgetown, specifically referring to their quickness and flowing offensive movement and cuts.

Through practice and film study this week, Indiana State evolved quickly for the Orange. From a program Jardine only knew as synonymous with NCAA and NBA legend Larry Bird to a current team with talent.

‘When I saw we were playing Indiana State, I knew they weren’t a team full of athletes,’ SU forward Kris Joseph said. ‘The first thing I thought about was probably a bunch of white boys that could shoot.

‘So, we’re going to have to extend the zone. We know that much. We’re going to have to extend the zone and keep a high hand out on their shooters.’

The Sycamores shoot a solid — yet unspectacular — 36 percent from 3-point range. The ISU players said they played against few zones throughout the year in the MVC, none of which could match the luster of Boeheim’s zone, though. Not to mention the length and athleticism of the SU zone’s players.

So to prepare for that zone, first-year Indiana State head coach Greg Lansing used unconventional methods. Starting with an old recreation sports department’s hockey stick.

‘We kind of had it in our office for a while and they never asked for it back,’ Lansing said. ‘Coach (Steve) Alford used to do that at Iowa — cut off the edge of a hockey stick and pad it up for the interior guys to go against.’

The hockey stick in the middle of the zone helped prepare for the height and athleticism of Syracuse, which the Sycamores have not seen in the majority of games this season.

And Lansing also took another step. When his offense went to practice this week, he put not five, but six, of his bench players out to defend. In the end, Lansing hopes six players and a hockey stick match what his team will see Friday against the Orange.

‘You’re trying to simulate how much ground they can cover,’ Sycamores guard Aaron Carter said. ‘Because they’re going to get to you quick on the perimeter and just having six guys helped simulate that a little more. … With the hockey stick, it’s something we were doing after practice. Hopefully, it will be beneficial to us.’

But if Joseph and the rest of the Orange do their jobs on defense, they will watch as the look on the face of the opponent becomes the look Joseph loves to see. It’s the look that comes with a rushed shot after 34 seconds of misery against the SU zone.

The look that comes with complete offensive aggravation.

‘You know, when a team starts arguing with each other on the court,’ Joseph said, ‘you know there’s a sense of frustration.’

bplogiur@syr.edu

Published on March 16, 2011 at 12:00 pm