https://wvusports.com/news/2003/7/11/4949_131441744484204373.aspx
The Cat carved up this zone on our first meeting with the Cuse in the Big East. Interesting to note that at one point, Cat only had one player on the floor over 6'3" - which was 6'9" Sandro Varejo.
Adrian Pledger ate them alive...our defense was our best offense that day. Gordon Malone's best day as a Mountaineer. He was a monster down low, catching alley-oops from Seldon Jefferson and swinging from the rim, laughing.
SYRACUSE, N.Y. (December 4, 1996) – The scoreboard read Syracuse 19, West Virginia 10 when Gale Catlett began tinkering.
First the West Virginia coach sent in 5-11 guard Jarrod West in place of Seldon Jefferson. West had scored just five points in West Virginia’s first two games against Minnesota and Ohio.
Minutes later, he replaced Adrian Pledger with 6-3 guard Greg Jones, whose two-game totals showed two points in eight minutes of action. Catlett’s lineup consisted of just one player taller than 6-5 (6-9 center Sandro Varejao, who had suffered a cut above his right eye that required five stitches against Minnesota and sustained a broken nose against Ohio) turned a nine-point deficit into a one-point lead with 2:52 left in the first half when Gordon Malone, now back in the game, slammed home two of his game-high 25 points.
The tactic jump-started West Virginia’s defense and led to a 101-79 victory over the No. 18-rated Orangemen in the famed Carrier Dome. West Virginia’s 101 points matched Notre Dame’s 1992 total as the most points scored by an opposing team in the Carrier Dome. It was the worst Big East Conference home loss ever for Syracuse and was the first time SU allowed a team to score more than 100 points in a game since a 111-104 overtime loss to George Washington in 1994.
"I thought the three guards changed it around for us," remarked Catlett. "I had not intended that before the game but we were forced into that. We started pressuring a little more on the wings."
Syracuse (3-1) was coming off a 73-56 victory over UNC Greensboro at the Great Alaska Shootout just five days earlier and was a preseason pick to win the Big East 7. Even though West Virginia’s best player is named Damian, the 7-0 Orangemen lead proved to be no omen.
West Virginia (2-1) overcame a one-point halftime deficit by scoring 18-straight points in a span of four minutes to turn a three-point Syracuse lead into a 13-point deficit. The Mountaineer defense ripped into Syracuse, creating turnovers and easy fastbreak layups. It was almost as if West Virginia knew Syracuse’s offense better than the Orangemen did.
Trailing 43-38, West Virginia got things going on a pair of layups by Owens and Malone, who tacked on a free throw for a three-point play to tie the score at 43. Pledger scored another layup to give West Virginia a two-point advantage.
"Once we got caught up," Catlett said, "I think we felt a lot more comfortable."
Jefferson added another layup and a three-point jumper to push West Virginia’s advantage to 10. Another three-pointer by Owens gave West Virginia a 13-point advantage before Todd Burgan stopped the run with a pair of free throws.
The Mountaineers built their advantage to as many as 23 points before finally settling for a 22-point win.
Having survived the first half, West Virginia scored 65 points in the second half to tie the Carrier Dome record set by Navy in the 1986 NCAA tournament. West Virginia made 22-of-33 shots after the break.
Twenty of those 65 second-half points came from Owens, who finished 9-of-18 from the field and 5-of-5 from the foul line for 24 points.
"The difference in the ballgame was West Virginia’s defense," Syracuse coach Jim Boeheim admitted. "They just did a good job of getting into the passing lanes. Our younger players really didn’t come to the ball.
Offensively we just didn’t get the movement we needed." Six-eleven Gordon Malone was unstoppable against Syracuse’s front line of Otis Hill, Elvir Ovcina and Etan Thomas. He converted 10-of-12 field goal attempts and grabbed 10 rebounds.
Pledger completed the 20-point hat trick by turning in 24 himself. The 6-1 jumping jack hit 10-of-17 field goal attempts and 4-of-5 from the free throw line.
After halftime the game came remarkably easy for the unranked Mountaineers against a Syracuse team that lost to Kentucky in the national championship game just a year earlier.
"Once they got the rock rolling it just kept going," said Syracuse guard Todd Burgan, who finished with 20 points – two shy of Jason Hart’s 22 to lead the Orangemen. "We weren’t doing anything to prevent it. It was frustrating."
Owens and his teammates kept swiping passes and dribbling for uncontested layups. They bumped, embraced and howled as they celebrated an unlikely annihilation. Malone was ripping down rebounds and dunking while Pledger, a JUCO transfer from George Wallace State in Alabama, kept spinning and jumping over everybody.
West Virginia assistant coach Mike Brown sat on the bench in amazement. As an assistant at Seton Hall he endured many brutal nights in the Carrier Dome. He watched Pearl Washington, Sherman Douglas, Derrick Coleman and Rony Seikaly chew up and spit out some pretty good Seton Hall basketball teams.
"I remember looking for the nearest hole to crawl into," Brown told the Syracuse Post-Standard after the game. "I remember all of those Syracuse players running around, dunking on your head."
That night it was West Virginia dunking on Syracuse’s heads. He glanced through his wire-rimmed glasses at the statistics sheet, shaking his head in disbelief. You just don’t do this to a Jim Boeheim-coached team in the Carrier Dome.
"It was almost too easy, " he said.
The most telling moment of the game came with just seven minutes to go when Owens muscled his way into the lane for his third offensive rebound in less than a minute, outjumping and outwilling the Orangemen to get the basketball.
The next trip down the floor, SU’s Jason Cipolla fired an errant jump shot that bounced off the rim and fell harmlessly to the floor without being touched. Syracuse, down just 15 at the time, had given up.
"We stood around," a dejected Boeheim said. "I’m disappointed in some of our perimeter play from our two guys."
It was a blue week overall for the Orangemen. They lost by 34 to Kentucky in Alaska seven days earlier and their football team was backed into accepting a Liberty Bowl invitation despite 20 members of the team voting to reject it.
For a capper, West Virginia ran them right out of their own gym. It was a remarkable victory for the Mountaineers. Syracuse finished the 1996-97 season with a 19-13 record. It snapped a streak of 14 straight 20-win seasons for Boeheim. Syracuse lost to Florida State, 82-67 in the first round of the NIT.
West Virginia, meanwhile, produced a 21-10 record and advanced to the third round of the NIT before losing to Florida State, 76-71 in Morgantown. The nucleus of this team returned in 1998 to record a 24-9 record and advance to the "Sweet 16" round of the NCAA tournament.
West Virginia 101, Syracuse 79
West Virginia (2-1)
Solheim 0-0 0-1 0, Owens 9-18 5-5 24, Varejao 3-4 0-0 6, Jefferson 3-5 4-4 11, Pledger 10-17 4-5 24, Malone 10-12 5-8 25, West 0-3 1-2 1, Jones 3-6 1-2 9 Beynon 0-0 0-0 0, D’Alesio 0-0 1-2 1, Ligouri 0-0 0-0 0. Totals 38-65 21-29 101.
Syracuse (3-2)
Burgan 7-18 2-3 20, Hill 5-10 4-8 14, Ovcina 2-2 0-0 4, Cipolla 2-9 0-0 4, Hart 9-15 2-3 22, Thomas 1-2 1-2 3, Janulis 2-4 2-3 6, Howard 0-0 0-0 0, Lloyd 2-5 0-0 5. Totals 30-65 11-19 79.
Halftime-Syracuse 37-36. Fouled out- Burgan, Hill. Three-Point Field Goals- Syracuse 8-26 (Burgan 4-11, Cipolla 1-4, Hart 2-7, Janulis 0-2, Lloyd 1-2); West Virginia 4-6 (Owens 1-1, Jefferson 1-1, West 0-1, Jones 2-3) Rebounds-Syracuse 33 (Burgan 3, Hill 4, Ovcina 3, Cipolla 3, Hart 2, Thomas 4, Janulis 1, Lloyd 5); West Virginia 40 (Solheim 1, Owens 7, Varejao 3, Jefferson 2, Pledger 5, Malone 10, West 2, Jones 2, Beynon 1, D’Alesio 1). Assists-Syracuse 12 (Burgan 3, Cipolla 2, Hart 7), West Virginia 25 (Solheim 1, Owens 4, Varejao 2, Jefferson 4, Pledger 4, Malone 1, West 5, Jones 4). Total fouls-Syracuse 26, West Virginia 17. Technicals- None.
Attendance – 20,980.
The Cat carved up this zone on our first meeting with the Cuse in the Big East. Interesting to note that at one point, Cat only had one player on the floor over 6'3" - which was 6'9" Sandro Varejo.
Adrian Pledger ate them alive...our defense was our best offense that day. Gordon Malone's best day as a Mountaineer. He was a monster down low, catching alley-oops from Seldon Jefferson and swinging from the rim, laughing.
SYRACUSE, N.Y. (December 4, 1996) – The scoreboard read Syracuse 19, West Virginia 10 when Gale Catlett began tinkering.
| Forward Gordon Malone scored 25 points and grabbed 10 rebounds to help West Virginia rout Syracuse. (WVU Sports Communications) |
Minutes later, he replaced Adrian Pledger with 6-3 guard Greg Jones, whose two-game totals showed two points in eight minutes of action. Catlett’s lineup consisted of just one player taller than 6-5 (6-9 center Sandro Varejao, who had suffered a cut above his right eye that required five stitches against Minnesota and sustained a broken nose against Ohio) turned a nine-point deficit into a one-point lead with 2:52 left in the first half when Gordon Malone, now back in the game, slammed home two of his game-high 25 points.
The tactic jump-started West Virginia’s defense and led to a 101-79 victory over the No. 18-rated Orangemen in the famed Carrier Dome. West Virginia’s 101 points matched Notre Dame’s 1992 total as the most points scored by an opposing team in the Carrier Dome. It was the worst Big East Conference home loss ever for Syracuse and was the first time SU allowed a team to score more than 100 points in a game since a 111-104 overtime loss to George Washington in 1994.
"I thought the three guards changed it around for us," remarked Catlett. "I had not intended that before the game but we were forced into that. We started pressuring a little more on the wings."
Syracuse (3-1) was coming off a 73-56 victory over UNC Greensboro at the Great Alaska Shootout just five days earlier and was a preseason pick to win the Big East 7. Even though West Virginia’s best player is named Damian, the 7-0 Orangemen lead proved to be no omen.
West Virginia (2-1) overcame a one-point halftime deficit by scoring 18-straight points in a span of four minutes to turn a three-point Syracuse lead into a 13-point deficit. The Mountaineer defense ripped into Syracuse, creating turnovers and easy fastbreak layups. It was almost as if West Virginia knew Syracuse’s offense better than the Orangemen did.
Trailing 43-38, West Virginia got things going on a pair of layups by Owens and Malone, who tacked on a free throw for a three-point play to tie the score at 43. Pledger scored another layup to give West Virginia a two-point advantage.
"Once we got caught up," Catlett said, "I think we felt a lot more comfortable."
Jefferson added another layup and a three-point jumper to push West Virginia’s advantage to 10. Another three-pointer by Owens gave West Virginia a 13-point advantage before Todd Burgan stopped the run with a pair of free throws.
The Mountaineers built their advantage to as many as 23 points before finally settling for a 22-point win.
Having survived the first half, West Virginia scored 65 points in the second half to tie the Carrier Dome record set by Navy in the 1986 NCAA tournament. West Virginia made 22-of-33 shots after the break.
Twenty of those 65 second-half points came from Owens, who finished 9-of-18 from the field and 5-of-5 from the foul line for 24 points.
"The difference in the ballgame was West Virginia’s defense," Syracuse coach Jim Boeheim admitted. "They just did a good job of getting into the passing lanes. Our younger players really didn’t come to the ball.
Offensively we just didn’t get the movement we needed." Six-eleven Gordon Malone was unstoppable against Syracuse’s front line of Otis Hill, Elvir Ovcina and Etan Thomas. He converted 10-of-12 field goal attempts and grabbed 10 rebounds.
Pledger completed the 20-point hat trick by turning in 24 himself. The 6-1 jumping jack hit 10-of-17 field goal attempts and 4-of-5 from the free throw line.
After halftime the game came remarkably easy for the unranked Mountaineers against a Syracuse team that lost to Kentucky in the national championship game just a year earlier.
"Once they got the rock rolling it just kept going," said Syracuse guard Todd Burgan, who finished with 20 points – two shy of Jason Hart’s 22 to lead the Orangemen. "We weren’t doing anything to prevent it. It was frustrating."
Owens and his teammates kept swiping passes and dribbling for uncontested layups. They bumped, embraced and howled as they celebrated an unlikely annihilation. Malone was ripping down rebounds and dunking while Pledger, a JUCO transfer from George Wallace State in Alabama, kept spinning and jumping over everybody.
West Virginia assistant coach Mike Brown sat on the bench in amazement. As an assistant at Seton Hall he endured many brutal nights in the Carrier Dome. He watched Pearl Washington, Sherman Douglas, Derrick Coleman and Rony Seikaly chew up and spit out some pretty good Seton Hall basketball teams.
"I remember looking for the nearest hole to crawl into," Brown told the Syracuse Post-Standard after the game. "I remember all of those Syracuse players running around, dunking on your head."
That night it was West Virginia dunking on Syracuse’s heads. He glanced through his wire-rimmed glasses at the statistics sheet, shaking his head in disbelief. You just don’t do this to a Jim Boeheim-coached team in the Carrier Dome.
"It was almost too easy, " he said.
The most telling moment of the game came with just seven minutes to go when Owens muscled his way into the lane for his third offensive rebound in less than a minute, outjumping and outwilling the Orangemen to get the basketball.
The next trip down the floor, SU’s Jason Cipolla fired an errant jump shot that bounced off the rim and fell harmlessly to the floor without being touched. Syracuse, down just 15 at the time, had given up.
"We stood around," a dejected Boeheim said. "I’m disappointed in some of our perimeter play from our two guys."
It was a blue week overall for the Orangemen. They lost by 34 to Kentucky in Alaska seven days earlier and their football team was backed into accepting a Liberty Bowl invitation despite 20 members of the team voting to reject it.
For a capper, West Virginia ran them right out of their own gym. It was a remarkable victory for the Mountaineers. Syracuse finished the 1996-97 season with a 19-13 record. It snapped a streak of 14 straight 20-win seasons for Boeheim. Syracuse lost to Florida State, 82-67 in the first round of the NIT.
West Virginia, meanwhile, produced a 21-10 record and advanced to the third round of the NIT before losing to Florida State, 76-71 in Morgantown. The nucleus of this team returned in 1998 to record a 24-9 record and advance to the "Sweet 16" round of the NCAA tournament.
West Virginia 101, Syracuse 79
West Virginia (2-1)
Solheim 0-0 0-1 0, Owens 9-18 5-5 24, Varejao 3-4 0-0 6, Jefferson 3-5 4-4 11, Pledger 10-17 4-5 24, Malone 10-12 5-8 25, West 0-3 1-2 1, Jones 3-6 1-2 9 Beynon 0-0 0-0 0, D’Alesio 0-0 1-2 1, Ligouri 0-0 0-0 0. Totals 38-65 21-29 101.
Syracuse (3-2)
Burgan 7-18 2-3 20, Hill 5-10 4-8 14, Ovcina 2-2 0-0 4, Cipolla 2-9 0-0 4, Hart 9-15 2-3 22, Thomas 1-2 1-2 3, Janulis 2-4 2-3 6, Howard 0-0 0-0 0, Lloyd 2-5 0-0 5. Totals 30-65 11-19 79.
Halftime-Syracuse 37-36. Fouled out- Burgan, Hill. Three-Point Field Goals- Syracuse 8-26 (Burgan 4-11, Cipolla 1-4, Hart 2-7, Janulis 0-2, Lloyd 1-2); West Virginia 4-6 (Owens 1-1, Jefferson 1-1, West 0-1, Jones 2-3) Rebounds-Syracuse 33 (Burgan 3, Hill 4, Ovcina 3, Cipolla 3, Hart 2, Thomas 4, Janulis 1, Lloyd 5); West Virginia 40 (Solheim 1, Owens 7, Varejao 3, Jefferson 2, Pledger 5, Malone 10, West 2, Jones 2, Beynon 1, D’Alesio 1). Assists-Syracuse 12 (Burgan 3, Cipolla 2, Hart 7), West Virginia 25 (Solheim 1, Owens 4, Varejao 2, Jefferson 4, Pledger 4, Malone 1, West 5, Jones 4). Total fouls-Syracuse 26, West Virginia 17. Technicals- None.
Attendance – 20,980.
