Starting the season with their best record since the 1992-32 season, the 11-1 men's basketball team begins conference play on the road against the top ranked Syracuse Orange, Wednesday night.
The Pirates come into the game on an eight game win streak while Syracuse is unbeaten on the season with a 13-0 record.
Syracuse has been ranked No. 1 in the country for the past three weeks and has not been ranked outside the top five all year. They also enter the game with the 13 ranked offense with 80.7 points per game while only allowing 58.6 points a game.
Senior Kris Joseph leads the Orange in both points and rebounds through 13 games, averaging 14.5 points and 5.4 rebounds a game. Behind Joseph is sophomore Dion Waiters who is averaging 12.3 points per game.
The Hall has been lead all season by senior Herb Pope who is averaging a double-double this season with 20.3 points and 11.4 rebounds a game. Fellow senior Jordan Theodore ranks fourth in the nation with 7.3 assists a game while also being the Pirates second leading scorer with 15.8 points a game.
The matchup between the Hall and the Orange will be the 62nd with Syracuse holding the 45-16 edge. However, in the last meeting between the two teams resulted in a 90-68 victory for the Pirates on the road at the Carrier Dome.
In that game the Hall jumped out to the early 10-2 lead and never allowed the Orange to tie the game leading wire to wire.
Theodore scored 19 points in the victory with sophomore Fuquan Edwin adding 13 points. That win was just the second victory in the Hall's last seven trip to the Carrier Dome.
Tip-off is scheduled for 7:00 p.m. Wednesday.
Stephen Valenti can be reached at stephen.valenti@student.shu.edu
