Rick Jackson had to take a step back from the reporters and pull out the stool next to his locker.

Letting out a conclusive groan, the power forward slumped down onto his seat out of necessity – he needed that moment of reposition.

It wasn’t anything in particular. His knees were fine. Everything was in working order. But it was that all-encompassing ache that overcame him, the one that usually follows the most taxing of workouts.

‘It’s my whole body,’ Jackson said. ‘I’m just tired. I’ve been running and jumping and now just standing for 20 minutes in one spot. You know, I just want to sit down.’

For Jackson, though, this was exactly what he was looking for. Leading the Orange with 19 points, he and center Arinze Onuaku dominated in Syracuse’s 99-75 victory Saturday. Perforating a severely undersized Villanova frontcourt, the pair took a game that was supposed to accentuate two frantic offenses and turned it into a forum for on-the-block dynamism. Together, they finished with 36 points and 17 rebounds.

‘They were big down low,’ sophomore forward Kris Joseph said. ‘And they’ve been doing this all year.’

This was not, of course, a breakout game by any means for either Onuaku or Jackson. Together, the two have scored more than 15 points in a game six times.

Instead, it was an example of a very simple game plan executed at a high level. When taking a look at Villanova’s roster, Jackson said they knew the guard-heavy Wildcat starters only boasted one true big man – Antonio Pena (Villanova head coach Jay Wright started 6-foot-10 freshman Mouphtaou Yarou to try and counteract the difference). So, in practice, the two focused on getting to the basket early and exposing the weakness right away.

‘We have a mismatch down low, so we just try and exploit it,’ junior forward Wes Johnson said. ‘Rick and A.O. have been doing a wonderful job finishing around the rim. I think they had an all-around game tonight.’

On the game’s second possession, Jackson flashed up top and pounded the ball inside, separating from Pena just quickly enough to loft a hook shot over his defender and in. He would do the same two possessions later, taking the feed from Rautins, turning quickly toward the baseline and powering toward the rim for a strong finish.

Onuaku – who only had five points at halftime – picked up scoring in a crucial second half, aiding Syracuse’s eventual breakaway. With a series of statement dunks, Onuaku erased what was a frustrating first, terrorizing a Villanova defense that had little grasp after the Orange’s sixth player had crawled into double figures.

With 13 minutes remaining, Onuaku bulled his way through the paint to recover a missed Andy Rautins 3-pointer and buried the putback. On the next possession, Rautins again missed from beyond the arc, this time with Onuaku crashing the boards and finishing the broken play with a one-handed jam. The series – one that started with the Orange clinging to a nine-point lead midway through the second – ended with Rautins zipping a pass upcourt to Jackson for another dunk.

It was then that the record 34,616 began to sense the Orange were en route to a victory. The noise level grew inside the Carrier Dome, while Wright scrambled desperately to find a stopgap solution. He immediately subbed out the freshman Yarou and countered with shot-blocking sparkplug Dominic Cheek and reserve forward Isaiah Armwood for support. But by then, the 15-point lead only ballooned.

The problem was, Wright had put all of his resources into countering leading scorers Rautins and Johnson but not enough attention to the frontcourt. And with nine minutes left on the clock, it was simply too late.

‘I think people are concerned about Wesley (Johnson) and Andy (Rautins), and he’s got to take advantage of those opportunities and he is,’ SU head coach Jim Boeheim said of Jackson. ‘He’s done a great job finishing around the basket. He’s got that little hook down. He has worked hard on it.’

Onuaku dazzled the crowd once more, flipping in a rebound while he tumbled to the floor after a called foul. Jackson continued to work under the boards, chipping in a few more crowd-pleasing jams.

And all the while, Boeheim watched as his team grew right in front of him. The part of his lineup that was supposed to be the weakest had stepped up, creating a dangerous precedent for opponents in the weeks ahead.

‘That’s what it has taken for us to get better – those two big guys inside are huge for us,’ Boeheim said. ‘I think we are getting better. I think we can still get better as a team. I would anticipate us being a little better these last two weeks.’

ctorr@syr.edu

Published on February 28, 2010 at 12:00 pm