NEW YORK — Six overtimes, anyone?
Syracuse and UConn probably won’t go that long — at least we hope not — when they tangle Thursday at noon in the Big East Tournament quarterfinals at Madison Square Garden.
It has all the makings of another classic.
“We’re playing one of the best, in my opinion, along with Kentucky, the best team in the country tomorrow,” UConn coach Jim Calhoun said following his team’s 71-67 overtime win against West Virginia.
Three years ago in the quarterfinals, Syracuse prevailed over UConn 127-117 in six overtimes. They met last year in the semifinals, a 76-71 Connecticut win that went one overtime.
Syracuse (30-1) won both encounters this year.
But UConn appears to be jelling yet again during March.
They have Calhoun back after he missed eight games with spinal stenosis and a subsequent back surgery.
They have Shabazz Napier (26 points), Jeremy Lamb (22) and Ryan Boatright (10) playing at a high level and they seem to be more focused during this three-game winning streak that followed a period in which they lost nine of 12.
Can history repeat itself?
For the second straight year they are the No. 9 seed, they beat No. 16 DePaul in a noon first-round game and they need to win five games in five days to capture a second straight Big East crown.
“I don’t think it can happen again, but then again, I said it could never happen in the first place,” Calhoun said, referencing his team’s run of 11 straight postseason wins last year. “Would we like to give it a shot? Yeah, but when people said to me, ‘You guys are defending champs,’ I said, ‘No, we’re not.’
“I saw the trophy case right at UConn. We don’t have to defend it, we have it. It’s true, we don’t have to defend anything. We’re the national champs. What we have to do now is create our own stuff.”
And standing in the way of this year’s Huskies are the Orange, a team that has lost just once all season, and that came against Notre Dame when center Fab Melo was out with academic issues.
Syracuse, along with Kentucky, are the favorites to cut down the nets in March, but here comes UConn hoping to crash the party — again.
“Would we like to take a stab at it?” Calhoun asked. “Everybody out there would. Everybody out there would.
“We’re just going to try to play tomorrow’s game and to take it where it may.”
Photo: AP
