Rick Jackson could only imagine a night like this.

The senior played 119 games in his Syracuse career before SU’s matchup with Morgan State Monday. But this performance by the Orange, he said, had only occurred in fantasy. Syracuse’s near-perfect ball movement and superior finishing ability caught even SU’s star forward by surprise.

‘I mean I pictured that in my dreams,’ he said. ‘But I didn’t think that would happen tonight.’

Jackson and the Orange treated the 16,031 people in the Carrier Dome to a show of fast break alley-oops, flashy passes and wide-open threes in its 97-55 romp over Morgan State. Jackson and sophomore James Southerland led Syracuse with 18 points — a career high for Southerland — to power the SU attack. And Syracuse registered a season-high 34 assists on its 39 field goals.

‘That’s pretty good,’ Syracuse head coach Jim Boeheim said. ‘That’s a lot of assists. That’s real good. Everybody looked for each other today; everybody was unselfish moving the ball. … Everybody passes the ball.’

Whether it was Southerland or Jackson or any of the other SU players putting the ball in the hoop, chances were the bucket came on a dish from a teammate. Twelve Orange players recorded at least one assist. Dion Waiters dished out eight, Brandon Triche dropped seven dimes and Scoop Jardine and Jackson both finished with four.

Those four players combined to turn the ball over three times, and SU only turned the ball over 10 times as a team.

The Bears hung with the Orange for the first eight minutes of action. But on Syracuse’s first possession after Southerland checked into the game, Jackson caught the ball in the high post and found the sophomore in the corner for an open three.

He drained the shot, sparking a 15-2 run that included another three by Southerland and four passes by Triche and Waiters that set up two dunks and a layup by Jackson, and a bucket by Baye Moussa Keita.

‘We’re starting to click on offense,’ Waiters said. ‘We know where each other’s cutting when we have the ball. All we have to do is hit the open man, spread out and you get shot ready if he has the ball.’

From that point on, SU never trailed by less than 11 points. The Orange finished the first half with 16 assists on 19 field goals and only five turnovers.

Morgan State tried to crawl back into the game to open the second half, but Syracuse squashed those hopes with a 7-0 run to put the lead back at 54-36. After that, the Orange tacked on a multitude of exclamation points.

Southerland drained a 3 on his first shot of the second half to put him over his previous career high of 10 points. He added to that total on a two-handed dunk after a no-look, underhand bullet pass from Jardine.

The sophomore left the game to a standing ovation from the SU crowd.

‘I felt like everything went well,’ Southerland said. ‘Rick (Jackson) was doing a good job inside which made the team collapse more and gave me a lot of open shots.’

And with all the ball movement and fast break opportunities, nearly everyone had their moment in the spotlight. Jardine was on the receiving end of a fast break feed from Triche — throwing down a left-handed dunk. Brandon Reese came off the bench with more than five minutes left and scored four points. Boeheim emptied his bench with more than two minutes left, giving all the walk-ons some time on the court.

For Jackson, the impressive performance turned in by the Orange was no longer a thing of fantasy. On Monday night, it became a dream come true.

‘Just for that to happen, that’s a great feeling,’ he said. ‘Just to get everybody out there and have these type of games and everybody have a great game is a great feeling.’

zjbrown@syr.edu

Published on December 19, 2010 at 12:00 pm