OMAHA, Neb. – Mississippi State took the lead on Wes Rea’s two-run double in the eighth inning, closer Jonathan Holder turned back two Oregon State threats, and the Bulldogs beat the Beavers 5-4 on Saturday in the openingSYRACUSE, N.Y. – Georgetown coach John Thompson III wouldn’t bite. He wasn’t about to say: “This Carrier Dome rivalry is officially over.”
He sure could have.
Thirty-three years after his father became persona non grata in Syracuse, Thompson and star Otto Porter added their names to the lore of the Georgetown-Syracuse rivalry.
Porter scored a career-high 33 points as the 11th-ranked Hoyas humbled No. 8 Syracuse 57-46 on Saturday.
It was the final game between Georgetown (21-4, 11-3 Big East) and Syracuse (22-5, 10-4) in the Carrier Dome as members of the same conference – the Orange are leaving the Big East in July to join the Atlantic Coast Conference.
“I’m sure you’re waiting for a Manley Field House statement,” Thompson said with a smile. “You’re not going to get it. We don’t get frazzled too much. It’s good to win here. We were the last team to win here, but there’s still a lot of ball to play. It’s one win.”
The victory placed an emphatic stamp on the impending end of an era before an imposing Orange crowd. It snapped the Orange’s 38-game home winning streak, the longest in the nation, and came 33 years after John Thompson Jr.’s Hoyas halted the Orange’s 57-game home winning streak at Manley. Both streaks were school records in the respective buildings.
Porter’s incredible play – open more often than not against Syracuse’s 2-3 zone, he was 12 of 19, including five three-pointers, and had a game-high five steals – came in front of a disappointed record crowd of 35,012.
