Syracuse Basketball: Tyus Battle’s clutch play leads to critical win over Miami

Syracuse basketball star Tyus Battle was paramount in a win on the road at Miami. ITLH breaks down one of the biggest wins of the season.

The Syracuse basketball team clearly came into this game with an aggression and an apparent need to win this game, not a want. While there is four games left in the season, the Orange made it seem like this was their last.

Tyus Battle deserves a ton of credit staring into the teeth of the Canes defense and taking high level of difficulty shots in this game and cashing in. Whether he had mano vs mano matchups or he found ways to creatively get to the rim and convert.

That infectious energy clearly affected the defensive efforts with the 2-3 zone looking as good as it has all season.

After the first stanza this game was tied 25 apiece, which is fitting for this heated contest. As we suspected before this game started, this was going to be a defensive slug fest. The Orange finished the first half shooting (36%). While the U shot just (32%) from the field.

SU created some nice turnovers (six) and also won the battle of the boards (20 to 16). One thing is for sure, no win for the Orange will be easy this season.

Second half

We don’t say it enough, but Frank Howard has wicked nice touch on his tear drops in the lane. I mean there is such a finesse to his game that is super underrated. For a player who isn’t naturally a point guard it’s incredibly impressive.

While the Slovakian Slayer (Marek Dolezaj) occasionally hits that mid-range jumper and if he can

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perfect that part of his game, this Orange team is dramatically different offensively.

One of my favorite plays of the second half came with Tyus Battle attacking the rim, kicking it back out to Frank Howard and BANG the Orange get the triple and extend their lead to 36-28 with just over 16 minutes remaining in the second half.

That would only be the beginning as this team went on a 15-0 run over a five minute plus stretch, 40-28 lead with under 14 minutes to go.

Someone we haven’t mentioned but definitely deserves it is the Canadian Sensation Oshae Brissett who recorded his 10th double double of the season in this one. There was certainly big expectations for Brissett coming to SU, but no one expected the rebounding effort that he brings to the table.

HUGE PLAY: Dolezaj makes the pass to the open Brissett, Oshae misses, Dolezaj rebound behind the back pass to Oshae and then the creative finish. SU takes back the lead 45-43 with under 8 minutes and 30 seconds to go.

The clutch play of Tyus Battle was prevalent at the end of the game again. Battle canned a three with a Miami defender in his face. He also juiced the shot clock down, got fouled with 40 seconds to go. Absolute text book finishing strategy for the Cuse. That all led to a SU win 62-55.

Great win for the Orange. While fans get used to this new quadrant system, keep this in mind. This win over the Hurricanes is a guaranteed quadrant one win. That’s because SU beat Miami on their home floor (a top-75 RPI win).

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Unlike the Buffalo win for the Orange earlier this season which occurred at home, which was a quadrant one win because the Bulls were a top-30 RPI team at the time. They no longer are which means Buffalo’s a quadrant two win now. SU needs as many quadrant one wins as possible to break their March Madness drought this year. This one was key, especially on the road.