Paul Harris’ face lit up. He was asked about playing in a hostile environment this early in the year, something Syracuse rarely does.

‘Honesty, I like traveling,’ the sophomore forward said. ‘I like going on the road and playing teams away. I really want to test to see how good we are early. This will be a big test.’

It certainly will be. When Syracuse travels to Charlottesville, Va., tonight to take on Virginia (7:30 p.m., ESPN2), it will be the first time in nearly six years that the Orange has played a true non-conference road game against a power conference team during the first two months of the season.

It’s the question that persisted throughout last March, when Syracuse was denied a spot in the field of 65 for the NCAA Tournament: Do Jim Boeheim’s non-conference schedules adequately test Syracuse?

National analysts, specifically ESPN’s Doug Gottlieb, said no. The Tournament selection committee decided that without a marquee non-conference win, combined with losses to Drexel and Wichita State, Syracuse was not worthy of a spot.

Syracuse has not played a true road game against a power conference team in November or December since Dec. 16, 2001, when Georgia Tech defeated SU, 96-80. By scheduling the game at an Atlantic Coast Conference opponent tonight, Boeheim is hoping to correct the perception of SU’s weak non-conference slates.

Even Dave Leitao, head coach of Virginia, acknowledged Syracuse’s lack of travel in the early months of the season.

‘They’ve had kind of a desire to – not obviously a strong desire to – go on the road, but you have to start somewhere,’ Leitao said in a Monday teleconference, ‘and they were willing to start on the road, and we kind of needed to start at home. So the conversations got more in depth after that point and everything worked out.’

Syracuse has played big-name teams in the last five seasons, but those games have either been at the Carrier Dome or part of a tournament at Madison Square Garden, generally considered friendly confines for the Orange. Last year, Syracuse did not leave the state of New York until Jan. 7, its first Big East road game, at Marquette.

Even further, the Orange hasn’t beaten an ACC team since the second round of the 2004 NCAA Tournament, when it bested Maryland, 72-70. And the last time SU defeated an ACC school on the road was Feb. 3, 2001, a 54-53 victory at North Carolina State.

‘I think every year there are three or four or five teams that deserve to be in the tournament that are not invited,’ said Leitao, who was an assistant at Connecticut for 14 years. ‘And whether it’s because of schedule or this or that, I don’t know.’

Leitao did say the agreement for the two-game series, which will conclude next season when UVa travels to Syracuse, was a byproduct of both schools looking to start a marquee non-conference matchup.

And that’s exactly what they got. Virginia (6-1) was ranked 23rd before losing to Big East foe Seton Hall at the Philly Hoop Group Classic on Nov. 24. The Cavaliers have already traveled to Arizona and beat the then-No. 17 Wildcats on their home floor, 75-72. Syracuse was ranked as high as No. 21 before losing to Ohio State and Massachusetts.

Virginia has played one game since losing to Seton Hall, a 94-52 rout of Northwestern in the Big 10-ACC Challenge. In that game, Virginia shot the lights out of the Northwestern zone defense, hitting 16 3-pointers.

But Leitao said preparing for the Syracuse 2-3 zone is a completely different task.

‘Syracuse’s is so unique to college basketball,’ Leitao said. ‘There’s a lot of teams out there playing zone, a lot playing 2-3 zone, but there aren’t very many if any that play it as well and as effective as Syracuse has this season and over the year. It’s a totally different preparation than Northwestern.’

The Cavaliers’ main threat is senior guard Sean Singletary, who averages 20.4 points per game, second in the ACC. Syracuse freshman guard Jonny Flynn said the goal is to limit Singletary’s penetration.

‘We’re just going to try and keep (Singletary) out of the lane and make somebody else beat us,’ Flynn said. ‘I just think it’s a lot on our part. If we just play defense…we can come out with a win.’

After allowing a season-low 60 points to Tulane, Flynn said the team will go into the Virginia game on a high, but Boeheim thinks his team and those around it should be reserved with the expectations, for now.

‘People around here must think I’m really smart. A lot smarter than I really am,’ Boeheim said after the Tulane game Saturday. ‘I can’t fix things that young players do in a day, a week, two weeks or two months. They have to work through that. Good teams have veteran guys that help them get through that. We don’t have that.’

But can a game on the road against an ACC school help?

Said Boeheim: ‘Let’s hope it’s a good learning experience.’

Published on December 4, 2007 at 12:00 pm