Dennis Nett | dnett@syracuse.com

By Mike Waters

On Friday, Syracuse (10-1) will host a St. Bonaventure team that comes into the Carrier Dome with a 9-2 record and riding a six-game winning streak. It's the Bonnies' longest win streak since the 1999-2000 season. That was also the last time that St. Bonaventure got off to a 9-2 start.

Syracuse has a 24-3 lead in the all-time series between the two schools. The Bonnies' last win over the Orange came in the 1980-81 season. Syracuse has won 14 in a row over the Bonnies.

The game is scheduled for a 7 p.m. start and (sorry fans) will be available on ACC Network Extra.

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Courtesy St. Bonaventure athletics

The starting lineups

Syracuse coach Jim Boeheim has gone with the same starting five in each of the Orange's first 11 games. Don't expect any changes against St. Bonaventure.

Syracuse's starting unit consists of guards Frank Howard and Tyus Battle, forwards Matthew Moyer and Oshae Brissett and center Paschal Chukwu.

St. Bonaventure's LaDarien Griffin (No. 15) is one of just two Bonnies who have started every game this season. Griffin (6-6, Jr.) is averaging 9.7 points and a team-high 6.9 rebounds. The other player who has been in the starting lineup for every game is Idris Taqqee (6-4, Sr.).

While they haven't started every game, St. Bonaventure's real mainstays are guards Jaylen Adams (6-2, Sr.) and Matt Mobley (6-3, Sr.). They are averaging 17.2 points and 18.4 points, respectively.

Josh Ayeni (6-8, Soph.) has started 10 out of 11 games at center for the Bonnies.

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Dennis Nett | dnett@syracuse.com

Brissett's bailout

On a night when Syracuse's leading scorer Tyus Battle struggled to find open shots, the Orange received a huge bailout from freshman Oshae Brissett. The 6-8 forward scored 25 points to lift Syracuse past a pesky Buffalo team on Tuesday.

It was Brissett's second straight game with 25 points. He also had 25 points in SU's win over Georgetown last Saturday. He is the first Syracuse freshman with back-to-back 25-point games in 10 years.

Donte Greene scored 25 points against East Tennessee State and then had 26 in the next game against Colgate in the 2007-08 season.

For the season, Brissett is now averaging 15.6 points and 9.5 rebounds.

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AP Photo

Adding Adams

Jaylen Adams missed the first six games of the season with a foot injury, but since his return the Bonnies have gone 5-0.

Adams, an electrifying guard out of Baltimore, Md., is averaging 17.2 points since his return to the lineup. He also leads the Bonnies with 5.8 assists per game. He's making 40 percent of his field-goal attempts, including 47 percent on his 3-pointers.

Howard and Battle must press out on Adams, while also preventing him from getting penetration into the lane.

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Dennis Nett | dnett@syracuse.com

Syracuse's (lack of) depth

Syracuse has almost no depth at this point in the season. In the Orange's 81-74 win over Buffalo on Tuesday night, the bench consisted of just two players and they logged a combined 27 minutes of playing time.

Freshman forward Marek Dolezaj accounted for 19 of those minutes. Howard Washington, a freshman guard, came off the bench to play eight minutes.

Boeheim's rotation will stay at seven players until freshman center Bourama Sidibe, who has been playing through a nagging case of tendinitis in his left knee and a sprained right ankle, can go. Sidibe sat out the Buffalo game, the second time in three games that he has missed a game.

With only seven (or eight) players, Syracuse must avoid foul trouble and pray that no one gets seriously injured.

As the season goes along, Dolezaj, Washington and Sidibe must progress so that they can take some of the load off the Orange's starters.

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Courtesy St. Bonaventure athletics

Marking Mobley

When Adams missed St. Bonaventure's first six games, Mobley had to step up and carry the Bonnies' offense.

Mobley leads St. Bonaventure with 18.4 points per game. His scoring helped St. Bonaventure go 4-2 without Adams, including an impressive neutral court win over Maryland. The Bonnies' losses came against nationally ranked TCU and a 2-point loss in the season-opener to Niagara.

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Dennis Nett | dnett@syracuse.com

Syracuse must dominate the boards

Syracuse went into its game against Buffalo as one of the nation's leaders in rebounding margin. The Orange had a rebound margin of 10.5 per game through its first 11 games.

But despite having a much smaller lineup, Buffalo neutralized the Orange on the boards. The Bulls had 35 rebounds to 37 for Syracuse.

The Orange has to do better than that against St. Bonaventure. The Bonnies have played evenly against their opponents on the boards — 34.4 for the Bonnies to 34.4 for their opposition.

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AP Photo

The 3rd guard

Taqqee is the third guard in St. Bonaventure's 3-guard lineup. The 6-4 senior is not your typical guard.

He's not a great shooter. He has taken just six 3-point shots all season and made two of them. However, he pulls down 4.5 rebounds per game and he leads the Bonnies in steals. He's second on the team in blocked shots.

What Taqqee likes to do is get into the lane. Despite his size, he's a likely candidate to run into the high-post against SU's 2-3 zone defense.

One interesting note on Taqqee. He played with former Syracuse guard Kaleb Joseph at Cushing (Mass.) Academy.

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Dennis Nett | dnett@syracuse.com

Syracuse must defend

Syracuse isn't a great offensive team this year. The Orange has gotten off to its 10-1 start thanks largely to rugged rebounding and a tenacious defense.

Syracuse has held its opponents to just 39.1 percent field-goal shooting this season.

The highest percentage Syracuse has allowed this season came in its only loss. Kansas made 49 percent of its shots against the Orange.

The other teams that have shot better than 45 percent against Syracuse are Maryland (45.1 percent in a 72-70 loss) and Georgetown (45.6 percent in an 86-79 overtime loss).

In its 11 games this season, St. Bonaventure has made 45.5 percent of its field-goal attempts.

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Courtesy St. Bonaventure athletics

Threes in reserve

St. Bonaventure is a very good 3-point shooting team. The Bonnies are hitting 38.4 percent of their 3-point shots as a team.

The Bonnies' shooters include starting guards Adams (47 percent) and Mobley (37 percent), but Syracuse will also have to be aware of a top 3-point threat coming off the Bonaventure bench.

Izaiah Brockington (No. 21) is 12-for-22 from 3-point range this season. That's a tidy 54.5 percent from beyond the arc for the 6-4 freshman from Philadelphia.

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St. Bonaventure's notable alumni

There's a good chance that St. Bonaventure alum Adrian Wojnarowski of ESPN has already tweeted out this selection. Woj's ability to break picks during the NBA draft is legendary.

Other Bonaventure grads include legendary baseball manager John McGraw, NFL coach Ted Marchibroda, NBA Hall of Famer Bob Lanier and Mychal Judge, the chaplain who died during the 9-11 attacks.

But we had to give a tip of the cap to NBA coach Chuck Daly. Daly not only coached the Detroit Pistons to back-to-back NBA titles, but he was also the coach of the 1992 U.S. Olympic team, aka the Dream Team.

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