Syracuse Blows Out Gonzaga, But That's Only Part of the Stink in Buffalo

Briefly, Gonzaga traded blows with Syracuse in Buffalo. After a 9-0 run by the Orange made it 31-21 in their favor, the 'Zags cut that lead to four with a 7-1 read of their own.

From there, the Bulldogs just got blown away.

Syracuse made 12-of-25 threes, Wes Johnson (a career-high 31 points to go with 13 rebounds) and Andy Rautins combining to sink nine of them, and frustrated the defenseless Zags all day. 'Cuse took a 32-point lead midway through the second half before bringing in the bench and winning comfortably by a less absurd margin.

It's just another non-competitive game from the Buffalo pod, where it's a little more like March Misery. The average margin of victory so far in the five games played there? 17.4 points.

And to add intolerable cruelty to uninteresting play, Sports Illustrated's Stewart Mandel tweeted that part of HSBC Arena literally smelled like excrement.

Such a wonderful weekend in Buffalo, and now there's a sewage burst in the arena. Hallway literally smells like s---. Can't make this up.

Yeah, I would say that's a fitting capper to the weekend. Barring a barnburner between West Virginia and Missouri, it's looking like a few Mountaineers dancing in their hotel room might be the lasting memory from this painfully boring pod.

This post originally appeared on the Sporting Blog. For more, see The Sporting Blog Archives.