The rambunctious middle-aged man in front of me ran his hands through his hair in one slick motion. Hunched over, he let out an agitated scream.

Josh Hart had just flushed home a dunk, giving Villanova an improbable 25-7 lead. This wasn’t why he paid to come to the game. It certainly wasn’t the version of Syracuse basketball that he expected to see.

Just six minutes later, though, he turned to me again, grinning and straining his neck to get a good angle. This was more like it.

“Someone decided to wake up the high-schoolers,” he said in a dry manner.

SU’s ghastly opening act quickly disappeared, and the No. 2 Orange (12-0) played the part of the second best team in the country, bulldozing No. 8 Villanova (11-1) 78-62 at the Carrier Dome. With the convincing come-from-behind win, Syracuse proved that it really is a legitimate top-five team.

This was the staple win SU needed to cement itself as one of the nation’s premier, top-echelon teams. Baylor, Indiana and St. John’s are all good teams, but Villanova’s a great team. And, like Jerami Grant candidly said afterward, the Orange is even better.

“To be able to come out and get some stops and get some big buckets,” SU guard Trevor Cooney said, “it showed a lot about us tonight.”

This signature win, complete with its old-time Big East feel and memorable 20-0 run, showed more about Syracuse than any other win has this season.

It wasn’t just that the Orange won. It was the manner in which it did so.

Going on a 40-12 run is nearly unheard of in college basketball. To do it against a Villanova team that’s beaten Kansas and Iowa is incredible.

A few games into the season, Jim Boeheim called media picking Syracuse to go 29-2 “the height of foolishness.” When SU squeezed out a 68-63 win over an athletic, pesky St. John’s team at Madison Square Garden, Boeheim still said Syracuse wasn’t a good team.

“We’ve got a lot of work to do,” Boeheim said. “I think we can become a good team, but right now we’re rated high because we started off high and everybody else has lost.

“That doesn’t mean you’re good, it just means other teams have lost a game or two.”

But after Saturday’s masterpiece, I’m sold. This team’s for real. No one ever questioned Syracuse was a top-15 or top-20 team. People did question whether it was a top-five team — and now that question has a clear answer.

Absolutely.

With an elite backcourt in sharpshooter Cooney and court general Tyler Ennis, highlight-reel forward Grant and one of the most reliable forwards in the nation in C.J. Fair, Syracuse makes a case for being as good as any team in the country.

Against Villanova, Cooney hit five 3s and forced three steals. Ennis had 20 points and no turnovers.

Cooney has now canned five or more treys in seven games this year and is shooting a staggering 50.6 percent from downtown, compared to 26.7 percent last season. Ennis has 61 assists compared to just 13 turnovers, and is the only player in the NCAA’s top-100 assist list with fewer than 15 turnovers.

“I thought Trevor and Tyler were the difference today,” Boeheim said after the game. “They were absolutely tremendous today.”

When teams key in on Ennis and Cooney, Fair’s still there. He casually had 17 points on Saturday. It’s a menacing big three – one that accounted for 58 of Syracuse’s 78 points against ‘Nova.

And the big three that prompted the guy in front of me to turn once more, when the game was out of reach, and offer headline suggestions.

“Holiday gift,” he bellowed, turning to his friends and guffawing.

But the comeback wasn’t a gift, my friend. It was an indication of just how explosive Syracuse really can be.

The first nine minutes were the anomaly. The last 31 were a sign of things to come.

That deficit was exactly what the Orange needed. An adverse situation, as Boeheim dubbed it. A chance to show the country its remarkable potential.

Watch out, folks. Syracuse is for real.

Trevor Hass is an asst. sports editor at The Daily Orange, where his column appears occasionally. He can be reached at tbhass@syr.edu or on Twitter at @TrevorHass.

Published on December 29, 2013 at 3:27 pm