big east game #7 ... #5 syracuse 76, marquette 71 ... no espn, no espn2, no espn360 ... had to listen to the streaming audio of this one ... here's what i gathered ... big carrier dome crowd, 28,000+ ... huge height advantage for syracuse ... a lot of cuse scoring from close to the basket ... orange had a 26-9 rebounding advantage at the half ... super sub kris joseph grabbed 9 himself in the 1st half ... even with a height advantage, high percentage scoring opportunities and rebounds galore ... the score was tied at the half ... if not for way too many turnovers, the cuse lead would have been double digit ... syracuse leads the big east in turnovers per game (16.0) ... the other side of that coin is they also lead the conference in steals per game (11.2) ... second half, the orange build to a 17 point lead with 3:45 on the game clock ... more front line scoring (johnson finished with 22, jackson 12, onuaku 12 and joseph 14) ... then they let down for a second saturday in a row ... they turned the ball over some more (22 in the game) ... they forgot marquette leads the nation in 3-point scoring percentage (.431) ... they seemed to forget it's 40 minutes of basketball, not 37 or 38

we're now 20 games into the season ... we have 19 wins, a gaudy #5 ranking and some very talented hoops players ... but, if syracuse is going to realize it's full potential come the big east tournament (where a #1 tournament seed will be on the line) and then march madness ... they need to improve in 3 key areas ... 1) focus for 40 minutes, no let-up, no taking a lead for granted ... 2) turnovers, 16 per game is awful ... and 3) free throw shooting success, 65.3% is well below average

next up is #12 georgetown (15-3/6-2) at 7:00 pm on monday night (1st game of espn's big monday) from the carrier dome ... crowd should be huge ... battle has potential to be another georgetown vs syracuse classic