Syracuse’s (18-8, 9-4 Atlantic Coast) anticipated meeting with No. 1 Duke (23-3, 11-2) on Saturday is expected to break the Carrier Dome’s basketball game attendance record by eight seats. Duke will look to bounce back from being upset by Syracuse at Cameron Indoor Stadium, and Syracuse is coming off a dominant win over No. 18 Louisville.

Heading into the much-hyped game, here’s how some of Syracuse is thinking.

Looking back to first meeting

It’s been a bit over a month since Syracuse played Duke, and junior guard Tyus Battle thinks plenty has changed to set Syracuse up for a repeat.

“We have more experience,” Battle said. “Buddy’s been playing great, Oshae’s playing better, Elijah’s playing better. We should have that confidence. We’ve seen it before, so we should be ready to go.”

SU is known to watch less film than most other teams. And rewatching the first game could only garner so much insight, as the Blue Devils coming to the Dome will look different, as well. Head coach Jim Boeheim said no conference game is more important than any other — “they’re all important,” he said Wednesday night. Earlier in the week, he said it’ll take another stellar offensive game for SU to topple the Blue Devils.

“There’s no way I think to slow them down,” Boeheim said Monday. “We had our best offensive game of the year against them. That was the difference, really. We had no success slowing them down. We had a tremendous offensive game, that’s why we won the game.”

Duke freshman phenom Zion Williamson left Wednesday’s game and will reportedly be out on Saturday. After he put up 35 points and 10 rebounds in the first meeting, his status is uncertain. Freshman Cam Reddish missed the first contest with an illness but should be good to go. And point guard Tre Jones played about five minutes before leaving with an injury, but should be fully healthy for the rematch.

“Every game is different,” sophomore forward Oshae Brissett said. “We’re gonna look back and see where we were able to be successful. We know Saturday’s gonna be a different challenge.”

Big game

Syracuse doesn’t want to make Saturday’s game out to be bigger than it is. Brissett said you can’t ignore it — Twitter and Instagram make sure of that, he said. But as he’s said all season, SU will want to treat it just like another game.

Battle was asked whether the game is “ginormous.” It’s not, he said. He doesn’t circle games on his calendar before the season, something that fans are said to do. To Battle, it’s not even the biggest Duke game in recent memory; the Orange played the Blue Devils in last year’s Sweet 16.

“It’s a game,” Battle said. “We’ve played them before. We’ve played them in big games, in bigger stages than this. It’s nothing new to me, it’s nothing new to these guys, they’ve been through it. We’ll be ready.”

Record-setting crowd

When Syracuse hosted Duke in the Carrier Dome in 2014, the Orange set a new single-game attendance record for an on-campus host. Saturday, that will be broken because the Orange have added eight new seats near the court.

Battle and SU head coach Jim Boeheim know it’ll be “noisy.” One of the almost 36,000 making noise will be New England Patriots’ star Rob Gronkowski, who syracuse.com reported will be in attendance with Adam Weitsman.

“Our fans are the best,” Battle said. “They’re hyped for this game. It’s gonna be fun seeing them all out there, and we’ll be ready to play.”

SU students will also be camping out in “Boeheimburg” as part of an Otto’s Army promotion to get the best student section seats. As Battle said, “they’re hyped,” and it’ll be the most-attended on-campus game this season. The Carrier Dome has had the highest attendance number in that category every year since it was built in 1980.

Published on February 22, 2019 at 8:04 pm

Contact Matthew: mguti100@syr.edu | @MatthewGut21