The last time Syracuse beat Louisville, Gerry McNamara shot the lights out.

The current Syracuse assistant coach and former guard scored 30 points to lead the Orange to a 13-point victory over the Cardinals on Feb. 18, 2006. It was the first meeting between the two teams since Louisville joined the Big East.

Louisville has taken all seven meetings since that game.

‘We’ve got them two times, so we’re trying to beat them both times to make up for the last seven times they beat us,’ guard Dion Waiters said.

No. 24 Louisville (20-5, 8-4 Big East) is also one of the hottest teams in the country having won six straight games. No. 2 Syracuse (25-1, 12-1 Big East) is on a five-game winning streak of its own. The Orange will be looking to extend that streak while snapping its losing spell against the Cardinals when the two teams square off at 7 p.m. Monday inside the KFC Yum! Center. In Syracuse’s first road game against a ranked team this season, it faces a Louisville team that leads the Big East in field-goal percentage defense at 37.2 percent —and one that has had Syracuse’s number in recent years.

In 2009-10, the last year Syracuse held the No. 1 ranking, two of the Orange’s three regular-season losses came to Louisville.

‘They are playing great,’ SU head coach Jim Boeheim said about Louisville after the Orange’s win over Connecticut on Saturday. ‘I think they are playing the best in the league right now.’

The Louisville game is the conclusion of what Boeheim called an ‘extremely tough’ 10-day period. The Orange played a road game at St. John’s on Feb. 4, followed by two rivalry games at home against Georgetown and Connecticut.

So far, Syracuse has conquered the first three tests, doing so by double digits against the Red Storm and Huskies. But a quick Saturday-to-Monday turnaround for a road game against the Cardinals is perhaps the Orange’s toughest test of the season to date.

‘They’re playing well, and they just came off a win,’ forward C.J. Fair said. ‘And they got confidence against us because we didn’t beat them in so many years, and we got to go in there ready to play right from the jump.’

Syracuse’s issue against Louisville in recent years has been the Cardinals’ ability to shoot the 3-pointer. Last season, Louisville made 13-of-27 3s en route to a 73-69 win over the Orange in Kentucky.

In two games the year before, Louisville attempted 70 3-pointers combined —making 21 of them.

Syracuse had difficulties closing out on 3-point shooters at times in Saturday’s win over UConn. With the Orange ahead 32-26 in the first half, the Huskies swung the ball around the arc, getting it to guard Ryan Boatright on the right wing.

Boatright had an open look, and Waiters was late trying to contest the shot. He leapt into the air and landed on Boatright, but the ball had already left the UConn guard’s hands and fell through the net.

Boatright missed the free throw and chance at a four-point play, but it was one of eight 3s for Connecticut in the game. The Huskies are last in the conference in 3-point field-goal percentage in Big East play, at just 28 percent. They shot 42.1 percent against Syracuse.

‘Some days you shoot better,’ Boeheim said, also referring to his team’s 10-of-16 performance from deep Saturday. ‘There is no question about that. I haven’t seen Connecticut shoot that well this year either. Their guards were 6-for-8, and they have not been shooting the ball well from the 3-point line.’

Syracuse plays Louisville twice in its final five regular-season games, with the other being the Orange’s regular-season finale in the Carrier Dome on March 3. As Waiters said, there are two chances to put an end to the talk of Louisville’s dominance against Syracuse.

And on Monday, it’s a battle of the two hottest teams in the Big East.

Said Boeheim: ‘It will be a tremendous challenge to go down there on Monday night.’

mcooperj@syr.edu

Published on February 12, 2012 at 12:00 pm

Contact Mark: mcooperj@syr.edu | @mark_cooperjr