The Syracuse basketball squad picked up their first conference victory with an impressive 62-40 drubbing of Boston College at the Carrier Dome.
Yes! Finally! Everyone can take that collective sigh of relief as the nightmarish start to conference play for Syracuse basketball has come to an end. After four consecutive losses, SU finally comes away with a win, and an impressive one at that. After a rocky start, Syracuse pulled away for a big win over BC in front of a very small crowd.
Regardless of crowd size, this was a solid game for Syracuse, especially on the defensive side. Syracuse held Boston College to just 31.9% shooting and and even more impressive 23.1% from 3-point range. BC certainly wasn’t a potent offense coming in, but those are some impressive numbers for a team that had lost four straight conference games.
After a rocky start, Syracuse started to pull away late in the first half on the back of Michael Gbinije’s 12 points in the first 20 minutes. Gbinije looked very impressive taking the ball hard to the rim and converting on layups in traffic. At halftime, Syracuse was up 30-15 and in full cruise control.
The second half was another rough start for the Orange, and Boston College got the lead down to as few as seven points before Syracuse was able to reassert their dominance and close out the game. The second half was pretty much the Malachi Richardson show, as he scored 13 points and looked like an athletic monster out there on the court. He made a number of slick drives to the hoop, including a very savvy euro step layup that almost juked a Boston College player out of his shorts.
Aside from Richardson and Gbinije, who finished with 15 and 14 points respectively, Tyler Roberson and Dajuan Coleman also had excellent games. Roberson recorded a double double with 10 points and 12 rebounds, and Dajuan Coleman played his second straight solid game with 11 points and 5 rebounds. He also went 3-3 from the line to improve his season total to 24-29, by far the best on the Syracuse team.
I was incredibly impressed with Coleman in this game. He really held his own on both ends of the court. He really showed some promise and is starting to make me believe that he’s not the lost cause everyone thought after seeing him for the first third of the season. He also played a season-high 30 minutes this game and did not looked fatigued at all. Maybe it has just taken him this long to shake off the rust and this will start to be the norm for him. One can only hope.
Trevor Cooney had a tough shooting game, going just 2-9 from the field and 1-7 from 3, but he played some absolutely outstanding defense and was a big reason BC shot so poorly from the perimeter.
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MVP of the game was probably a toss-up between Gbinije ad Richardson, both of whom played very solid. Richardson added 3 rebounds and 3 assists to his point total, while Gbinije hauled in 6 rebounds, 2 assists, and whopping 5 steals. He would probably get the nod from me, simply because he had zero turnovers to Malachi’s five, and truly played within himself the entire game.
The only real negatives I can take away from the game were the poor 3-point shooting from Syracuse, as they hit just 23.5% of their outside shots. Even so, a 22 point win when you make that few from outside is undeniably impressive, and gives promise for the future. They also outrebounded Boston College 35-27, which makes 3 straight games with a positive rebounding margin. That certainly makes fans everywhere happy.
Syracuse’s next game is on Saturday at Wake Forest. Wake is 10-5 on the year, but just 1-2 in the ACC. This could be another opportunity for Syracuse to build on their momentum, but as we all know, road games in the ACC are anything but easy. Just ask Duke and Louisville. Check back later in the week for full coverage of the Wake Forest game.