The Syracuse basketball team finally got their first top-25 conquest of the season. ITLH breaks down the dramatic win for the Orange.
A lackadaisical pass from Frank Howard led to arguably the easiest basketball for Clemson this season. That led to a Jim Boeheim timeout, five seconds into the game, yikes. Howard is having the best season of his Syracuse basketball career and he’s gotten the Cuse out of a lot of jams, but the turnovers have been prevalent throughout the 2018 campaign.
Although Howard is like an Alex Smith type quarterback he takes all of the blame and rarely gets any of the credit.
While as the first half progressed we saw some aggression from players outside the ‘big three’ for the Orange (Tyus Battle, Howard, and Oshae Brissett). Which was a huge relief for this team with Paschal Chukwu blocking a Tigers shot and Marek Dolezaj showing some uncharacteristic scoring prowess with a nice spin move getting to the rim.
The 2-3 zone after a couple lapses this season, really showed fight in this game. The zone collapsed on the ball handler and created multiple turnovers.
While a weird thing I noticed in this first half was some Slovakian discrimination! Dolezaj was getting whacked around but the referees swallowed their whistle for whatever reason. He absorbed contact and should’ve gone to the charity stripe on several occasions.
The Orange played some great team basketball. The hustle plays came early and often and you can tell that this team wanted this win.
It took a while for the Orange’s best player to score (16 plus minutes to be exact), but Battle finally hit a triple.
They key to that first half for the Orange was stifling defense, inconsistent offense (SU went on a seven plus minute scoreless stretch and Clemson went on a 10 plus minute scoreless stretch). This certainly isn’t what we saw at Boston College on Wednesday.
Clemson finished the half strong to take the lead going into intermission.
HALFTIME: Frank Howard has 6 points and 4 rebounds for the Orange pic.twitter.com/JWwgMHTWei
— Syracuse Men’s Basketball (@Cuse_MBB) March 3, 2018
Second half
After struggling to score in the first half, Battle hit a quick three and started to get his mojo going. He also scored his 1000th point just a few moments later, becoming the 62nd player to do so in program history.
In what has been a low scoring game, the Orange have received help from all levels of the team. If the Cuse wants to go on a magical run in Brooklyn, they’re going to need more than the big three.
Ultimately basketball is a game of runs and that what this second half was. Clemson fought back with a 7-0 run to knot things up at 43 with under 9:30 to go.
Syracuse’s offensive rebounds can’t be understated in this game. They were a real difference maker providing the Orange with multiple second chance opportunities. Some clutch free throw shooting from Paschal Chukwu were absolutely vital. But perhaps his prowess for blocking shots was even more important.
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The Orange have finally accomplished a top-25 victory on the season, which took long enough. Now the Cuse must do some damage in the ACC Tournament to truly have a chance at March Madness. SU wins 55-52 in dramatic fashion to wrap up regular season conference play.