For what wound up being the 900th time, Jim Boeheim walked into the locker room before coaching a Syracuse victory.

Only this time, he found his old roommate and teammate, the Hall of Famer and mayor of Detroit, Dave Bing, waiting for him.

“I never told him I was coming, I saw him in the locker room so I think I surprised him,” Bing said. “It was a good meeting, we sat down for about a half an hour and had a lot of conversations.”

After the game Boeheim said Bing and the occasion of ending the anticipation of his 900th win made him more nervous than he’s been for a game in longer than he could recall.

“He’s the best I’ve ever been around in all ways on and off the court. … He’s a better athlete than anyone we’ve got and we’ve got some pretty good ones, but it was great to have him here,” Boeheim said. “He made Syracuse basketball. Syracuse basketball was nothing when Dave Bing came here. We’d lost 27 straight games and the whole thing. We had 200 people coming to a game on average so he started it, he got it going.”

Bing said he and Boeheim reminisced before the game about old teammates and talked about how the game had changed since they were teammates 46 years ago, leading SU to just its second-ever NCAA Tournament appearance.

In their playing days, basketball was just a game. Not so today, Bing said.

“This is a big business now. Back then it was just sports,” Bing said. “Basketball is a huge, huge business, especially at the collegiate level, and so he not only has to coach but he has business decisions that he has to make.”

In the SU locker room after the game, when asked if he thought one coach would ever win 900 games at one school again – Boeheim is the only Division-I coach to do so – Bing said no.

“I don’t think that’ll happen again,” Bing said. “This is history and he’s part of it and Syracuse as a city, upstate New York, the university are very lucky to have had somebody of his caliber, because not only has he won games, I think he has helped to develop young men.”

Southerland on fire—again.

Senior forward James Southerland tallied double-digits in points for the seventh time in 10 games. He broke a cold streak of 0-for-10 over three games with another breakout showing against Canisius on Saturday in which he went 9-for-14 for 21 points, nine of which came from 3-pointers.

Just 76 seconds into his night off the bench he hit his first 3, throwing up a series of pump fakes before draining one to give SU a 10-4 lead. He went on to finish with 22 points, four rebounds, two assists, two blocks and a steal, while going 5-of-8 from deep.

The Orange never needed Southerland in his slump, beating its opponents by an average of 39.7 points. But in what ended as a four-point game, SU’s demand for Southerland’s leadership and points, spurned him on.

“Just knowing that my team depends on me, especially in tight games like this where no one can get it going offensively,” Southerland said, “I was lucky in the other games we played, our team was able to blow them out by 20 or whatever but games like this it’s going to be tough and we’re going to need some scoring.”

Southerland hit a pair of 3-pointers within 49 seconds of each other at 8:09 and 7:30 in the first half to expand SU’s lead from eight to 14.

Both shots were assisted by Michael Carter-Williams.

“Me and James played really well together,” Carter-Williams said. “I think I find him in his spots, he lets me know and we were able to be successful in the first half and we should have stuck with it in the second half.”

Southerland was 2-of-5 from the field, missing both of his 3s in the second half. Still his continued resurgence bodes well for the Orange as it quickly approaches more difficult games such as against Temple and the start of the Big East schedule.

Said Carter-Williams: “He’s a great asset to this team and we’re going to need him.”

Published on December 18, 2012 at 2:19 am

Contact Jacob: jmklinge@syr.edu | @Jacob_Klinger_