Orange Comes Alive In The Second Half of Dome Opener, Defeats Cornell 82-60

Story and photos by Julianne Dellorso

SYRACUSE - Down big in the first half at the Carrier Dome Friday night, Syracuse ratcheted up its defense in the second half to pull away from Cornell for an 82-60 win. On the offensive end, Trevor Cooney had a breakout performance in SU's first regular season game, putting up 27 points, going 7 for 8 from beyond the arc. C.J Fair added 19 and Rakeem Christmas had a dozen.

The Orange scored first in the game, with Fair putting in a layup on the opening possession. That lead was short lived, however, as Cornell went on a 12 point run, led by Nolan Cressler who had 20 points in the first half, scoring from all over the floor. Cornell eventually led by as many as 14. Two Cooney threes just before halftime cut the Big Red lead to 38-32 at the break.

In the locker room Boeheim called for improvement and the players got the message. Cooney said they knew that they had dug themselves into a hole and needed to find their way out.

Syracuse emerged after the break with a vengeance. The Orange applied full-court pressure in the second half and went on a 10-2 run that returned them the lead for the first time since being up by a point in the middle of the first half.

"We just made some adjustments defensively that just made a big difference," Boeheim said. "We took away the high-post pass and we got to the shooters better. I just thought our movement was a little better. When you don't move on defense, it doesn't matter what defense you play."

One thing the Orange did is find Cressler, who scored only three in the second half. What the Big Red could not do is stop Cooney. He sank five more three-pointers in the second half as SU outscored Cornell 50-22. He also had four steals in the game.

As the Orange got into the lead, the Dome crowd got into the game. The 24,788 in attendance started to chant Cooney's name and get fired up by slams from Cooney, Fair and Christmas.

"A crowd for our first game was awesome," Cooney said."It felt good to have them behind you and the team." 

After the game, Boeheim talked about his expectations for the season.

"My realistic expectation is that we're going to get better. We're going to go back out and try to play better next week. And you know, go game-by-game and see if we can become what everyone's predicting that we could become. We're far from it."

In a game where Cornell held the lead for almost the entirety of the first half, Boeheim had to give props to the Big Red.

"They made seven three's against us in the first half," he said  "Not many teams do that."

The Orange plays Fordham next, on Tuesday at 7:30 p.m. in the Carrier Dome.

Coach Boeheim Post-Game:

Trevor Cooney Post-Game:

C.J. Fair Post-Game: