Syracuse Basketball: Cardiac Cuse runs out of gas losing to Wolfpack
The Syracuse basketball squad gets over .500 in conference with a must win over the NC State Wolfpack. ITLH breaks down the Valentines Day showdown.
The Syracuse basketball team started this one sloppy. Several unforced turnovers from Tyus Battle: dribbled off his foot out of bounds and a bad travel play. But Battle wasn’t the only one who had the case of the cough drops.
Oshae Brissett was also affected and had a bad turnover (unforced). It’s a shame because over the last three games the Cuse have done such a good job of taking care of the ball. In the first half alone the Orange had double digit turnovers. Prior to this recent stretch, SU had gone 12 straight games with double digit turnover games.
Speaking of turnovers, the Orange did themselves a favor by creating easy offense. When they forced the Wolfpack into turnovers, they made them pay by converting in the transition.
While the Orange got a boost from Matthew Moyer off the bench. Moyer missed the last outing against Wake Forest from what Jim Boeheim called a parental decision.
The Wolfpack average nearly 81 points per contest and you could see why in this first half. They’ve got so many different weapons that can attack you and in so many different ways offensively. NC State attacked from outside and was able to penetrate the 2-3 zone and got in the paint.
Then to make matters worse, the Orange were stagnant to end the first stanza. Tyus Battle was kept in check in the first half being held to six points. Battle averages over 20 points per contest this season.
Second half
But here’s the thing, Tyus Battle can’t be stopped, he can only hoped to be contained. I just don’t understand why Battle isn’t being talked about in mock drafts around the country. His game is so developed, he has a swagger, and so many different offensive tools he can go to.
While a big theme in this game was the zebras. I try not to blame refs or talk about bad calls because in theory it goes both ways, but man oh man there were a ton of bad calls in this game and I have no idea what they were looking at.
Calling travels when they didn’t happen, mysterious offensive fouls, it was puzzling to say the least.
Although we’ve said this in the past… Oshae Brissett is the best Canadian in college basketball. But on top of that factoid, he’s a straight up beast. I thought I was watching a highlight reel of NBA Jamz, he was slam dunking it left and right.
But he also showed that he can shoot from beyond the arc as well which kept the Orange in the game in the end.
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Unfortaltye for the Orange, they ran out of gas at the end of the game. Now their tournament hopes are on life support after this loss. NC State now is above the Orange in the ACC and the Wolfpack picked up a quadrant one win by beating the Orange on the road. SU is now going to have to make some serious noise against stiff competition to make the March Madness tournament. Up next a road trip to Miami on Saturday with tip-off set for noon.