SYRACUSE -- Thanks to a career night form senior forward Kris Joseph, the No. 2-ranked Syracuse Orange edged No. 12 Georgetown Hoyas, 64-61, in a Big East Conference men's basketball game that was played in front of 27,000-plus at the Carrier Dome Wednesday night.
Joseph, who nailed the game-winner with 26 seconds to go in overtime, and the Orange (24-1, 11-1 Big East) earned their fourth straight victory and helped their head coach Jim Boeheim earn his 880th-career victory, which helps him surpass former North Carolina head coach Dean Smith for third all-time on the Division one list.
If you'd like the game story, well, check out this link but here's the post-game tidbits for your enjoyment:
Column: Jim Boeheim Can Sense A National Championship And He Wants It, Badly
If they ain't falling, keep shooting
Before Wednesday's contest, Joseph was struggling from behind the 3-point arc, as the senior had made just two of his 16 attempts (10.5-percent) in the previous five games.
However, the way a shooter gets out of a slump is to keep shooting and that's just what the 6-foot-7 forward did.
"Obviously, I hadn't been shooting it great from outside," said Joseph, "but I never was going to stop shooting. I was getting good shots, open shots."
In the first 20 minutes of Wednesday's victory, Joseph had already chucked up 10 shots, including six from 3-point range, and he made only two, but that didn't stop him letting them go in the second half.
"I knew I was going to start hitting them eventually. My teammates told me to keep shooting, the coaching staff told me to keep shooting, my mom told me to keep shooting," Joseph said with a laugh. "So, I was going to keep shooting the ball."
The strategy worked, as Joseph went 4-for-5 from long-range, compiled 17 points and knocked down the game-winning 3-ball in overtime.
"The way the game was going, they were leaving me open for some reason," said Joseph about the game-winning shot. "I was able to sneak behind the defense and get open. Scoop (Jardine) did a great job of finding me and I knocked the shot down."
Boeheim's final 5
There was a lot of post-game Twitter comments about Boeheim's decision to play Joseph, Jardine, sophomore guard Dion Waiters, sophomore forward C.J. Fair and sophomore center Fabricio Melo in closing minutes Wednesday.
Many wondered why junior guard Brandon Triche wasn't on the floor, but Jardine was, while others asked why junior forward James Southerland didn't play at all (five minutes).
My answer to that is, well, get used to it because that's the five players that Boeheim trusts the most in crunch-time, and it worked out well against Georgetown.
"We hit a couple key shots at the end," said Boeheim. "We made couple key plays when we were down."
"The only reason we won this game was we hit a couple of key shots late, our defense was good late."
Many still question -- and I don' understand why this is still an issue -- why Jardine continues to handle the ball or play over Triche in those important minutes.
Boeheim addressed this breifly at his post-game press conference.
"(Scoop) is really the only point guard that gets us into plays and gets us into sets," said Boeheim.
So, there you go. In the the clutch, Boeheim is going to play those five guys and he really doesn't care of you like it or not.
There's always two sides to a story...
After the game, which I thought was refereed fairly well -- at least, compared to other Big East games this season -- here were the two opinions by the SB Nation blogs, Troy Nunes Is An Absolute Magician (Syracuse) and Casual Hoya (Georgetown).
"I thought it was one of the most well-refereed games I've seen in the Big East in a long time," wrote Sean Keely of TNIAAM.
However, here's the Hoya take:
"The referees did nothing to help Georgetown down the stretch, calling phantom fouls and absurd possession changers in a game that came down to the last moments."
All-in-all, both blogs came away with a positive feeling after the contest that, as always, featured a lot of pre-game trash talk.
For more on this game Syracuse vs. Georgetown, check back to this StoryStream.
Check out, the SB Nation's blog Troy Nunes Is An Absolute Magician to discuss everything on the Orange, while the Casual Hoya is all about Georgetown. Make sure to follow along on Twitter at SBNationNY or JaredSmithCNY, as we blog live from the Carrier Dome for Syracuse vs. Georgetown Wednesday night.