Syracuse Basketball Stymies UConn Comeback, Looks Ahead To Colgate

The Syracuse basketball squad gutted out a neutral-court conquest of Connecticut on Tuesday night. Now the Orange prepares to host Colgate this Saturday.

I have one word, and one word only, to describe SU’s duel with former Big East foe Connecticut on Tuesday evening at Madison Square Garden.

Ugly.

Positively, unequivocally ugly.

However, despite that depiction, the ‘Cuse hoops outfit emerged triumphant.

For the moment, this is all that matters.

Still, the Orange’s 72-63 outlasting of the Huskies showcased relatively poor shooting, a ton of turnovers, an abundance of fouls, another missed dunk by a Syracuse guy, and UConn’s head coach taking an unnecessary cheap shot at his opponent’s freshmen stars of the game.

If SU hadn’t made so many silly mistakes, this affair would have amounted to a blow-out. Plain and simple.

But the ‘Cuse (7-1) allowed Connecticut (6-3) to hang around. Throughout the second half, I

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remained convinced that, ultimately, the Huskies might prevail.

Head coach Jim Boeheim’s crew displayed grit, heart and toughness, yet again, and managed to come away with the win. While UConn isn’t the same team from a few years back, when it won national championships in 2011 and 2014, besting the Huskies at a neutral site gives the Orange another solid nod on its non-conference resume.

Tremendous is how I would characterize the performance of redshirt freshman forward Matthew Moyer. Boy, oh boy, did he need that to boost his confidence moving forward.

Sophomore wing Tyus Battle continues his dominance. It’s become routine for us to expect 20 or more points from him every time out.

Freshman forward Oshae Brissett had another double-double. Mark my words: when the 2017-18 campaign concludes, he will have emerged as one of the premier freshmen not merely in the Atlantic Coast Conference, but across the entire country.

Junior point guard Frank Howard didn’t fare so hot. It happens. Howard said after the Connecticut victory that he’s learned from this experience and will achieve a higher level of execution, beginning on Saturday afternoon when Syracuse hosts Colgate (3-4 entering its Dec. 6 match-up with Marist).

Boeheim echoed Howard’s sentiments. Look, we all hope and pray that Howard doesn’t resort back to a season ago. Let’s cut him a little slack. He’s done truly wonderful things so far in 2017-18, and one bad performance isn’t a large-enough sample size to start fretting.

Our 2-3 zone, to date, appears awfully good. We are crashing the boards, producing second-chance opportunities, generating fast-break scoring, and engineering points off of turnovers. We just have to find our shooting stroke, take better care of the ball, and not commit ridiculous fouls at inopportune occasions.

Regardless, that we succeeded against UConn, factoring in Howard’s struggles and some overall sloppy work, says a bunch about our group.

Up next are the aforementioned Colgate Raiders, out of the Patriot League. SU will face this Central New York neighbor for the 170^th instance, the most in the ‘Cuse program’s storied history.

In this series, the Orange, we should note, has claimed 51 in a row. I anticipate that, following Saturday’s encounter, it will climb to 52 consecutive feats.

During the 2016-17 term, Syracuse cruised, 83-55, from the Carrier Dome. The Raiders, led by head coach Matt Langel, finished 10-22 this past go-round.

Colgate scores roughly the same number of points per contest as SU, although our defense is clearly stronger. So long as the ‘Cuse doesn’t get complacent, I predict that the Orange will improve to 8-1.

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Then, a week later, Syracuse travels to my neck of the woods, Washington, D.C., for a bruiser with Georgetown.

Bring. It. On.