Syracuse Basketball Beats #25 Notre Dame: Game Review

Since the return of Jim Boeheim, Syracuse basketball has been playing much better basketball, managing another surprising victory against a ranked ACC opponent, Notre Dame.

Quite a few Syracuse basketball fans have been asking me how this team was able to seemingly turn their season around and start competing with, and in most cases beating, some very good teams. It’s a difficult question to answer outside of a few visible factors. Better ball handling and passing, better defense all over the court, choosing better shots to take, and actually rebounding. Syracuse managed that and more against #25 Notre Dame tonight.

Syracuse was able to control this game from the beginning, leading 44-27 going into half-time. As my colleague David Stone wrote, one of the keys to this game would be Syracuse’s ability to contain Notre Dame’s Zach Auguste. What did they do? They contained him to the tune of eight points on 3-8 shooting. The game may have finished 81-66, but if you watched the game, you were probably surprised Syracuse didn’t win by more. There were very few points that the Irish even looked competitive.

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On many possessions, Syracuse managed to smother Notre Dame’s offense and almost forced multiple shot clock violations, which is wildly uncommon in the college game. The Orange managed to force 11 turnovers and out rebounded the Irish 36-32. What caught my eye tonight was the ferocity of which Tyler Lydon hit the glass. He didn’t appear to be any stronger than usual, but he showed more effort on the glass than we are used to seeing. Couple that with Tyler Roberson’s continued ability to dominate anyone for a rebound and Syracuse was well on their way to controlling the possessions of this game.

Going a little deeper, Trevor Cooney continued his torrid January finishing as the highest Syracuse basketball player yet again with 22 points. You can check that off of the four keys to the game as well. Syracuse showed a lot of the same things in this game that they did in their victory a couple of weeks ago against Duke. The next three highest scorers for the Orange scored 15 each. Against Duke, the top four all scored 14.

Out of the four keys to the game, the only one Syracuse may not have met was the pace of the game. But, that’s just a ticky-tack observation. Neither of these teams get out and run often or with much success and there really wasn’t much of it tonight. The game was no faster than it should have been, so I would chalk Mr. Stone up with another 4-for-4 night. He’s turning out to be quite the prognostication wizard.

One more point of order on the night. Did you know that your normally awful free-throw shooting Syracuse basketball team actually went 15-16 from the stripe tonight? Well, they did. And, what a coincidence that they won by a total of 15. How about that?

Syracuse basketball is making a push. If they can keep playing inspired, mistake free basketball, while handling their fundamental like professionals, the fans just may see some post-season basketball.

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