sutomcat
No recent Cali or Iggy awards; Mr Irrelevant
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Welcome to International Kiss a Ginger Day!
International Kiss a Ginger Day was created by Canadian Derek Forgie in 2009, as a response to Kick a Ginger Day, which had been created the previous year. Forgie started a Facebook group for the day and invited eight of his red-haired friends to it. To his surprise, the group and the day soon took off. On the day, red-haired people—or gingers—are given kisses if they want to receive them.
Red is the rarest hair color, with only 2 percent of the world's population having it. Most redheads are of northern or western European ancestry; the highest percentage of redheads come from Scotland, followed by Ireland. Redheads are often stereotyped as having a fiery temper. Kick a Ginger Day led to many redheads being bullied. In ancient Greece, some redheads were considered to be vampires. Many redheads were killed in Europe between the fifteenth and eighteenth centuries because they were perceived to be associated with witchcraft.
SU News
Syracuse Orange center Jesse Edwards (14) gets a high five from Syracuse Orange forward Cole Swider (21) after getting fouled in the act of shooting. The Syracuse Orange take on the Pitt Panthers Jan. 11, 2022 at the Carrier Dome in Syracuse, N.Y. Dennis Nett | dnett@syracuse.com
Syracuse’s defense stifled Pittsburgh in second half: ‘Their big guys are really tall’ (PS; $; Ditota)
There were stretches of Tuesday night’s game in the Carrier Dome when Pittsburgh could not score.
The Panthers led Syracuse 32-27 after Femi Odukale drained a 3-point shot.
But the field goals, for Pitt, would soon become impossible to come by.
Syracuse outscored the Panthers, 31-9, during a crucial stretch of SU’s 77-61 victory over Pitt. During that remarkable period, the Panthers scored exactly one basket from the field.
“We were a little more active all the way around and that was really the difference,” said SU coach Jim Boeheim.
Boeheim was talking specifically about his defense. The much-maligned Orange zone took a giant step in the right direction against Pittsburgh.
Syracuse limited Pitt to 27 second-half points. The Panthers shot 24% overall and 20% from the 3-point line after intermission. There were vast stretches of the middle of the game when the only points the Panthers mined came from the free-throw line.
“I thought the zone at times in the second half made us hesitant, made us stand,” Pitt coach Jeff Capel said. “That’s what this zone can do at times. It makes you stand. It can affect you defensively, too, because it’s a slower pace. You’re spending time moving the basketball side to side, trying to get it inside and out. At times, I did think we were a little bit hesitant.”
Contrast that to most of the first half, when Pitt was getting on the offensive glass and exploiting the Orange on the interior.
SU determined it would trap the corners whenever the ball went in there in the first half. And at times, Pitt players passed out of that double-team to a wide-open middle.
The Orange, too, allowed dribble penetration and permitted the Panthers – a team that shoots 31% from the 3-point line – to make 42% of those shots in the first half.
But as the half drew to a close and the second half began, that shooting space collapsed.
The Orange rotated better, faster and with more purpose. The lane, for parts of the first half so exposed, was suddenly swallowed up with white jerseys.
Syracuse players made five steals in the second half, most of those coming on rotations in the middle of the zone.
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A disastrous second half dooms Pitt in 16-point loss at Syracuse (P-G; Meyer)
With about 12 minutes remaining in Pitt’s 77-61 loss at Syracuse Tuesday, Orange guard Buddy Boeheim rose up from the corner for a contested 3-pointer.
The ball clanged off the rim and hovered several feet above the basket’s opening before dropping gracefully through the net to give his team a 56-41 lead, the latest points in an offensive outburst that had broken a once-closely contested game open. As Boeheim’s shot fell through and the unusually sparse Carrier Dome crowd applauded, Jeff Capel turned around back to his bench, gave a slight shrug and shook his head.
After such baffling play, and in a second half that was quickly trending toward disaster, there wasn’t much else he could do.
Boeheim’s trey was one basket in an avalanche of them in the game’s final 24 minutes, a barrage of points that went unanswered for the majority of that stretch and ultimately sank Pitt, which fell by 16 after losing its first three conference games by a combined five points.
After the Panthers (6-10, 1-4 ACC) took a 32-25 lead on a 3 from Femi Odukale with 3:51 remaining, Syracuse countered as forcefully as it could have, finishing the first half on a 10-2 run before scoring 16 of the first 19 points of the second half. In a span of 9:32 across both halves, the Orange (8-8, 2-3) outscored Pitt, 26-5.
“It’s a learning experience for us,” Capel said. “We talk about it all the time — we can’t let our inability to make a shot affect what we do defensively. I don’t think we talked well on the defensive end. I thought there were moments where we didn’t compete well on that side of the floor. You can’t do that, period, but especially against an outstanding offensive team like Syracuse.”
Tuesday’s setback marked Pitt’s fifth loss in its past six games at the Carrier Dome since former coach Jamie Dixon, whose teams regularly picked apart Syracuse, left to become the TCU head coach in 2016.
This most recent one was defined by what many of its predecessors were over these past five years — a pivotal period in the game in which the Panthers couldn’t make a shot and didn’t do much of anything to stop their opponent from scoring.
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Five Takeaways: Syracuse 77 Pittsburgh 61 (SI; McAllister)
Syracuse basketball knocked off Pittsburgh 77-61 Tuesday night to snap a three game losing streak. Here are five takeaways from the victory.
1. Much Needed Win
Let's face it. There was a lot of negativity surrounding this program following the three game losing streak. The losses, the defensive lapses, fans growing more and more frustrated at the lack of wins, etc. The win was needed to get the team back in the right mindset, to remove mounting pressure as the losses piled up, to give the fans a little relief from those losses. A little sigh of relief. No it does not change the fact that Syracuse is 8-8. No the flaws are not suddenly gone. But the win was certainly needed by all parties. And hey, win streaks have to start somewhere, right?
2. Buddy Breaks Out of Shooting Slump
Buddy Boeheim was just 7-27 (26%) from the floor and 4-15 (27%) from three point range over the previous two games. Against Pittsburgh, however, Buddy was 7-13 (54%) overall and 5-8 (63%) from beyond the arc. Buddy looked confident shooting the ball from the get go. He made a couple of threes during Syracuse's decisive 26-5 run that spanned from the end of the first into the beginning of the second half. It was an encouraging sign as his shot has not looked that good for most of the season. Nothing was forced, he was getting open looks, and drilling them when he did.
Coach Speak: What Syracuse is Getting in Dan Villari
3. The Bench
Symir Torrence gave Syracuse 12 quality minutes. He scored four points, had one assist and one steal, but also ran the offense well. Good minutes from him. Frank Anselem played seven minutes and played good defense while rebounding well. Benny Williams only played four minutes due to missing a couple of defensive assignments. John Bol Ajak also saw some action in this one and gave the Orange four minutes. Bol Ajak did not score or grab a rebound, but he plays with energy, is another big body and sets screens very well. Coach Boeheim said after the game that Bol Ajak has been practicing at a high level and he earned some minutes. It will be interesting to see how those minutes are distributed moving forward, especially if Bol Ajak continues to impress during practice.
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Out of the Pitts: SU basketball defeats Pittsburgh (Axe recap) (PS; $; Axe)
The Orange brought back that loving feeling in two ways on Tuesday night at the Carrier Dome.
First, a win. A much-needed 77-61 win over the Pittsburgh Panthers to snap a three-game losing streak and get back to .500 with an 8-8 record.
The second was a return to a defensive effort worth writing home to Mom about, with the Orange holding the Panthers to 38.3% from the field on 18-of-47 shooting.
Syracuse sprinted out of a 35-34 halftime lead and put the Panthers out of commission with a 26-5 run. SU held the lead for 31:48 of Tuesday’s game, which had to be welcome relief after its prior three games were decided by a mere nine points.
The Sunny Side
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FSU basketball tops Miami on Evans’ last second free throws (tomahawknation.com; Nevitt)
Tallahassee, FL- Florida State basketball (9-5, 3-2 ACC) topped the Miami Hurricanes (13-4, 5-1 ACC) 65-64 on Tuesday night in a back-and-forth affair at the Tucker Center. RayQuan Evans won the game for the Seminoles on two free throws with less than a second remaining. Matthew Cleveland led the Seminoles with 15 points (11 second half points) on 5-7 shooting. Anthony Polite stuffed the box score with 12 points (4-6 FG) and eight boards.
Both Miami and FSU were slowed down by turnovers, but FSU’s performance at the free throw line and on the glass made the difference. The Seminoles out-rebounded Miami by 12 rebounds and had nine more second-chance points. Florida State was also 13-16 on free throws, while the Canes were 7-10.
With the win, FSU has won eight straight against the Hurricanes. The ‘Noles have also won six straight home games in the series. Florida State is 27-1 in their last 28 ACC home games.
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EIGHT STRAIGHT WINS OVER MIAMI#NewBlood pic.twitter.com/oEZtV123oD
— Florida State Men’s Basketball (@FSUHoops) January 12, 2022
BOX SCORE
GAME THREAD
Summary
The Seminoles began the game with back-to-back turnovers. UM opened the scoring on a dunk by Sam Waardenburg. FSU’s initial score came on a layup by Anthony Polite. Charlie Moore and John Butler traded triples to tie the game at five. A long offensive board led to three second-chance points for the Canes on Isaiah Wong’s first three. Miami led 8-5 at the first media timeout.Out of the timeout, Jalen Warley intercepted an inbounds pass, leading to a Polite dunk.
The stealthe finish #ACCMBB | @FSUHoops
@accnetwork
Miami vs. Florida State (M Basketball) | Watch ESPN pic.twitter.com/MD4RlV6MVb
— ACC Men's Basketball (@accmbb) January 12, 2022
FSU went scoreless over their next four possessions, including a trio of missed three-pointers by Caleb Mills. Kameron McGusty scored four straight points, before Moore hit his second three to put Miami up eight in a hurry. Leonard Hamilton called his first timeout with the Seminoles on a scoring drought of nearly three minutes.
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Other
PressRoom Pub, Syracuse, N.Y.
Downtown Syracuse bar/restaurant closes due to continued pandemic pressures (PS; Cazentre)
The PressRoom Pub, which offered beer, food, games and plenty of sports on TV in a historic former newspaper building downtown, is closed and for sale.
Owner Tom Hornstein blamed the continuing effects of the Covid pandemic.
“Since March 2020, we’ve been told, it’s just going to be a few weeks,” Hornstein said. “But it just doesn’t stop. Now there’s (the) Omicron (variant).
“There’s only so many times you can be knocked down and get up, and be knocked down and get up again,” he said. “I just can’t do it anymore.”
The PressRoom Pub opened in April 2018 at 220 Herald Place in a multi-room space that had been Herald Commons, and before that had been the long-time home of Syracuse’s afternoon newspaper, the Herald-Journal.
The building is owned by the Horn Companies, a commercial real estate business owned by the Hornstein family and run by Tom’s son Chris. The pub (but not the building) is for sale along with all its equipment and furnishings, including kitchen and dining areas.
“It’s a turnkey proposition,” Hornstein said.
After all the ups and downs of the pandemic, the PressRoom closed except for catered events just before Christmas. In recent days, Hornstein decided to close it up and sell it.
“I’ve already got a few guys looking at it,” he said.
The PressRoom’s decor was a mix of old newspaper memorabilia and a strong dose of sports themes. It served pub fare like pizza, wings, sandwiches and burgers and its beer list featured many local and New York state breweries.
It also has something few other downtown spots can offer — its own dedicated parking lot.
Hornstein has an extensive background in the local bar and restaurant business. He once operated Mrs. O’Leary’s bar in the Hawley-Green neighborhood and the Orange Grove and Dorian’s on Westcott Street.
His son Chris, is more of a “real estate guy than a restaurant guy,” he said.
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