NEW YORK — Scoop Jardine laid out another scenario. One that was realistic and would be much more regrettable than what had just transpired.

Say Syracuse won the Big East championship. The Orange nearly beat Cincinnati and could have defeated Louisville a third time this season. The team storms into the NCAA Tournament at 33-1, but then — boom, upset in the Sweet 16.

‘You’re all going to be saying ‘Coach (Jim Boeheim) can’t get out the Sweet 16, and, ‘What’s his record in the Sweet 16?” Jardine said, doing his best media impression. ‘The only thing that matters is getting to New Orleans and having a chance to win a national championship, and that’s what we said all along.’

No. 2 Syracuse’s surprising 71-68 loss to Cincinnati in the Big East tournament semifinals at Madison Square Garden on Friday will not affect the Orange’s tournament seeding. Syracuse, at 31-2, is a clear-cut No. 1 seed. Yet a loss — especially to a Bearcats team that, despite being 24-9 and fourth place in the Big East, didn’t receive a vote in the most recent ESPN/USA Today coaches’ poll — will bring out the skeptics.

Syracuse has squeaked out most of its recent wins. The Orange has been cold shooting, hasn’t been able to put it together. The senior leaders, Jardine and Kris Joseph, played poorly in the Big East tournament.

All that talk should subside. The last time Syracuse lost, it reeled off 11 consecutive wins in response.

‘We’ve won 31 games, and we’ve proven what we can do,’ Boeheim said. ‘And we’ve got to get back and we have to play a little better from the beginning. Our two seniors have got to do what they need to do.

‘Most national championships — not all, but a lot of them, have been won by teams that lose in their conference tournament.’

That includes Syracuse’s championship run in 2003. Carmelo Anthony’s team fell in the semifinals of the Big East tournament to Connecticut before stringing six wins together in the NCAA Tournament.

Syracuse has until Thursday — that’s when the games begin in Pittsburgh, Syracuse’s likely second-round location — to correct the issues that presented themselves down the stretch of this season. Boeheim said Syracuse is not doing a couple things defensively as well as it has in the past.

Brandon Triche agreed, saying the defense is not forcing as many turnovers. But Syracuse’s last four games were rematches. Four teams that had already seen the 2-3 zone at least once found ways to maintain possession and score against it.

Syracuse also played a zone defense for the first time in a while on Friday. Jardine said the Orange won’t be tripped up by a zone again in the Big Dance.

It is hard to argue against him. Especially since this was Syracuse’s first loss with its complete team. Remember, the Orange entered Friday 29-0 with Fab Melo in the lineup.

‘You need that all against Syracuse because they are arguably the best team in the country,’ Cincinnati head coach Mick Cronin said after his team’s program-defining victory.

Syracuse’s players were eager to win the Big East tournament, but tried to shift the focus to the bigger goals. The path to the NCAA title remains the same. The 31 wins and Big East regular-season title were bonuses. The Big East tournament championship would have been sweet, but it can’t set the tone for the rest of the postseason.

While Dion Waiters may have embellished a bit in his postgame press conference when he said winning the Big East means ‘nothing at all,’ he and the SU players still have a point.

The measuring bar for this season will be the next three weeks. And there is no need to panic before then.

‘It doesn’t matter that you win 31 games,’ Boeheim said. ‘It doesn’t matter that you win your conference tournament. The way college basketball is now, whoever you are, whether you’re VCU or Syracuse, the only thing that really matters is how you do in the tournament.

‘We know that, and we’re going to be prepared for that.’

Mark Cooper is the sports editor at The Daily Orange, where his columns appear occasionally. He can be reached at mcooperj@syr.edu or on Twitter at @mark_cooperjr.

Published on March 9, 2012 at 12:00 pm

Contact Mark: mcooperj@syr.edu | @mark_cooperjr