Syracuse students agree: winning at the Pavilion would be HUGE!
In many regards, the matchup Monday night between the Syracuse Orange (22-6, 9-6) and the Villanova Wildcats (21-6, 9-5) is quite even. They both have similar records and are closely ranked. They're both coming off overtime victories Saturday against lesser opponents. They both are falling a bit short of expectations this season. So, this should be a pretty evenly matched game. When Villanova comes to the Dome, we like to pack as many people in there as possible. When Syracuse visits Villanova, they decide to play in the Pavilion instead of the downtown Wells Fargo Center. The Pavilion holds 6,500 people, and as of 9:30am EST, stubhub still had quite a few $30 tickets remaining. Sad. At any rate, most of us will be catching this game on ESPN's Big Monday broadcast tonight at 7pm. We'll get to see Corey Stokes back in action after missing three games with turf toe. Nova's leading scorer is usually good for about 15 points per game, and of course we all remember how he smoked the Orange last month with four of Villanova's 11 three-pointers. Between him and Corey Fisher, we'll either get rained on or peed on. At any rate, Syracuse has been getting great production from Brandon Triche and CJ Fair, who is coming off a career-best 17 points and has some serious swagger going. Villanova has already shown it can lose at the Pavilion (albeit to Pittsburgh) but I see no reason Syracuse can't do the same. In a game that comes down to who makes fewer mistakes down the stretch, I have Syracuse winning this one by one point in a thrilling Big Monday matchup. I'd also like to point out that Syracuse is undefeated when I write the blog's previews this year, so, we've got that going for us... which is nice.
Labels: Basketball, Big East, Preview
The game is at the Wells Fargo center in Philly - holds 22,000...not the pavilion.