The average price for a Syracuse-Duke part two ticket is $2,125 on the secondary market.

And if the game is anywhere near as exhilarating as the last time the two teams met, it just might be worth the splurge.

The sequel is here, three weeks after the opening act — one that wowed fans around the world and kicked off what is blossoming into a sensational rivalry with the loudest of bangs.

“If you paid $3,400 on the market for a courtside seat, it was money well spent,” SU head coach Jim Boeheim said after the first game. “You should be happy that you did.”

Now No. 1 Syracuse (25-1, 12-1 Atlantic Coast) will try to bounce back from a stunning 62-59 loss Wednesday night to Boston College when it travels to Cameron Indoor Stadium to face the No. 5 Blue Devils (21-5, 10-3) on Saturday at 7 p.m. The Blue Devils will be looking to avenge the crushing defeat they suffered on Feb. 1 when the top-5 teams face off for the second time this year.

This time, the Orange doesn’t have the spacious, vociferous Carrier Dome at its disposal. It has to deal with the equally vociferous and far less spacious stadium down on Tobacco Road.

“Duke is the toughest place to play in the — probably if not in the country, one of the toughest places to play in the country,” Boeheim said Wednesday night.

It’s rare in sports that a game exceeds the hype, but that’s exactly what Syracuse-Duke did three Saturdays ago.

The fans that camped out in Boeheimburg for close to two weeks got to witness what Boeheim called quite possibly the best game in Carrier Dome history.

They got to see C.J. Fair piece together the best performance of his stellar four-year career at SU, and they watched Syracuse counter every one of Duke’s punches — including Rasheed Sulaimon’s shocking buzzer-beater to force overtime.

SU has struggled to score ever since that game since then, averaging 58.2 points per game and looking abysmal in its sets.

Teams have deliberately slowed the pace down against SU, especially of late, but Boeheim is confident that that will change against the Blue Devils.

“We won’t have to worry about that Saturday night,” Boeheim said. “There will be a lot of possessions Saturday night. It’ll be a different game.”

Regardless of the pace, though, Syracuse isn’t entering the Duke game the way it wanted to. The Orange could have been undefeated. A double-digit win over BC could have been the bounce-back game SU needed.

Instead, it was another poorly played game. And this time — for the first time all season — it resulted in a loss.

Yet perhaps the Duke game comes at a perfect time. It brought Syracuse out of a spell of offensive mediocrity last time, and the Orange hopes it will do the same the second time around.

“We’ve just got to focus in on what they like to do,” Fair said. “They like to speed up the pace, so I think our offense can pick up more because we’ll have more possessions. We can get in a better rhythm.”

But that doesn’t account for the hostile environment. For a stadium that only fits 9,314 people, Syracuse can be sure it will be rocking. There will be a sea of blue. The shaking hands always shown on TV will be in full swing.

It will be pandemonium — just like it was in the Carrier Dome.

“Cameron Indoor is noisy,” SU center Baye Moussa Keita said. “It’s going to be wild, but we’re used to the environment.”

These teams could meet three times this season. Maybe even four. The second chapter has arrived.

Brace yourselves.

“This is a tough bounce-back game for us,” Fair said, “especially going to Cameron Indoor. You hear so many things, and you watch them on TV. I’m excited to experience it.

“Hopefully we can leave there with a victory.”

Published on February 20, 2014 at 3:06 am

Contact Trevor: tbhass@syr.edu | @TrevorHass