PHILADELPHIA — Dion Waiters didn’t forget what fellow Philadelphia native Maalik Wayns did to Syracuse when Villanova visited the Carrier Dome last year.

Even though the Orange won the next matchup between the two teams in February, the memory of Wayns going off for 21 points in a Villanova win remained fresh in Waiters’ mind.

‘I told him that,’ the SU sophomore guard said. ‘I said, ‘I didn’t forget about that.’ We knew he was going to look to be on the aggressive side. We just wanted to match his intensity, too, on the defensive end.’

Syracuse did that and then some Wednesday. Wayns didn’t come close to 21 points in the Orange’s (18-0, 5-0 Big East) 79-66 win over Villanova (8-9, 1-4 Big East) at the Wells Fargo Center. In fact, were it not for a bad foul by Brandon Triche on a Wayns’ jumper from beyond the arc, the Wildcats junior wouldn’t have scored at all. He finished 0-for-7 from the field and all three of his points came from those three free throws.

‘They did a great job on Maalik Wayns,’ Villanova head coach Jay Wright said. ‘When he got it, they loaded two guys to him. When he was in a pick-and-roll, they loaded three guys to him. … They really did a good job on him.’

Wayns came into the game ranked seventh in the Big East with 17.4 points per game. But the Orange defense bothered him from his first shot of the game.

Three minutes into the action, the 6-foot-2 junior jacked up a 3 over 6-foot-7 Orange forward Kris Joseph. He tried to adjust by putting extra arc on the shot to get it over the taller defender, but the rainbow jumper didn’t even reach the rim. Instead, it fell short and landed out of bounds to give SU possession.

‘That was the game plan: Let anybody else beat us,’ Syracuse senior Scoop Jardine said. ‘Tonight, it worked.’

Even when the Orange made mistakes defensively, Wayns couldn’t make them pay. On his second shot of the game, he drove into the paint and picked up his dribble looking to kick it back out. As he did, SU’s defense shifted away from him, leaving him open for a shot. But his floater clanged off the rim and Syracuse gobbled up the rebound.

Wayns was not available for comment after the game, but he appeared to feel pressure to make something happen at times. He forced up a couple contested jumpers and got lucky when Triche fouled him on a 3 to ultimately provide him his only scoring in the game.

Even when he made a nice move at the end of the game to split a couple defenders, that play ended disastrously for the junior guard.

‘Toward the end of the game,’ Wright said, ‘he finally said, ‘All right, let me just try to get to the rim.’ And he got a charge.’

It was the second game in a row SU had shut down Wayns. Even though he scored 21 points in the Dome last year, he scored just four points on 1-of-9 shooting in the rematch in February.

Wright said Wayns and forward Dominic Cheek are still transitioning into their roles as the primary scorers and added that the duo still has trouble offensively when good defensive teams focus on shutting them down like the Orange did Wednesday.

‘I do think they’re good shooters that have to learn how to go against defenses that are geared to stop them,’ Wright said. ‘They were always the secondary guy, and they got the easier shots. (Syracuse) did a great job on Wayns.’

zjbrown@syr.edu

Published on January 11, 2012 at 12:00 pm