Syracuse Basketball Loses to Georgetown 79-72

Syracuse basketball lost an ugly game to Georgetown today, 79-72 at the Verizon Center in Washington, DC.

What can I say about today’s game against the Hoyas? It was brutal to watch. For the second consecutive game, Syracuse came out completely flat and lacking any hustle. In fact, that’s been a problem for them all season.

They are a small team and I’m certainly not expecting them to win the rebounding battle every game, but they aren’t even trying to grab rebounds. At one point in the first half, Georgetown missed a three and Malachi Richardson literally watched their guard cut in front of him and get the rebound. He sat there and watched it. Gbinije did the same thing a play later. Roberson and Lydon were both culprits of sitting and watching at times as well.

I get the fact that Georgetown is a pretty good team that’s lost 3 games by a combined 8 points, but the reason they built such a huge lead in the first half was due to nothing more than hustle. They hustled on defense, they hustled on offense, they hustled on the boards. They won every 50/50 ball and attacked the zone with quick passes and constant players cutting through the lane. They moved the ball constantly.

On the other side, Syracuse completely lacked effort for the first 35 minutes of the game. They were lazy with passes, they were slow to get back, they didn’t move on offense. There was not one positive thing I could take away from the first half and even the first six or seven minutes of the second half. It was ugly, and they were lucky to only be trailing by 12 at the half and even by 20 early in the second.

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Malachi Richardson had himself a really awful game. He couldn’t get anything going. He took a number of bad shots and even the good shots that he took looked extremely tight and tentative. Now that the shots aren’t falling you can see that he’s starting to get tentative and that’s exactly what we don’t need him to do.

Cooney, once again, played a mostly solid game. However, I’m getting so tired of him making one shot and then immediately jacking 2-3 horrible, off-balance shots because he thinks he’s on fire. Seriously, just take the shots you know you can make. Don’t try to be a hero. It cost us a number of possessions when we were trying to make a comeback and it was incredibly frustrating to watch as a fan.

The effort definitely shifted as the game got out of hand and Syracuse picked it up, but it was too little too late. Syracuse had dug themselves a huge hole and had no chance of crawling out of it. Especially not with how porous their interior defense was all game.

I hate to say it, but Tyler Lydon just can’t be playing the middle of the zone against any team with a halfway decent center. He just gives up way too much size. On top of that, he’s also not a great post defender. He doesn’t have years of experience going up against big men, so he doesn’t know how to react, and it showed today. Instead of fronting the man in the low post he often laid off and gave him an easy entry pass. That turned into an easy 4-6 foot baby hook on countless possessions. Tyler is an excellent player, but he can’t guard a good center. We need the size of Coleman.

Speaking of Coleman, not everything in the game was completely negative. Dajuan Coleman continues to show improvement. After seeing almost no playing time against Wisconsin for some ridiculous reason, he saw plenty of time against Georgetown. He played very admirably, scoring 10 points and grabbing 4 rebounds. He made all his free throws and was aggressive on the offensive end.

Michael Gbinije had another typical superstar-like game. Although he started slow and had only 7 points at the half, he erupted in the second to score 16 including a pair of ridiculously deep 3’s. He also managed to grab 5 rebounds and dish out 5 assists, while grabbing 2 steals, a block, and just one turnover. His second half was a thing of beauty. Unfortunately, it was too little too late.

Another positive was Franklin Howard, who saw more playing time this game than he has all season. He was aggressive with the ball and attacked the rim in the set offense and on the break. He ended up with just 4 points and 4 rebounds before fouling out, but his aggressiveness was a big factor in Syracuse closing the gap late. He also looked like an absolute rock handling the ball.

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Tyler Roberson also played well, scoring 15 points and grabbing 8 rebounds. Honestly, I don’t even know what to say about Tyler anymore. One game he looks like a complete ghost, and the next he plays well. He’s been so up and down this year.

Overall, it was an abysmal game to watch as a fan. Especially against Georgetown. I hate Georgetown. Two straight losses is never something you want to see, but hopefully this will wake up Syracuse and make them realize that they aren’t as good as they thought they were. Here’s hoping that realization comes soon and they get back to work, because if they lose against Colgate in their next game, they could be in full “mayday” mode.

I still believe in this team and think they can right the ship. They’ve got far too much talent on this team to completely collapse. Look for a bounce back game against Colgate and an opportunity to gain some confidence. Check back later in the week for full coverage of the Colgate game.