Syracuse basketball got an improbable win thanks to some unlikely heroes vs Wake Forest. Here are all the details from HC Jim Boeheim.
Syracuse basketball is 14-9 overall, 7-5 in the ACC after defeating the Wake Forest Demon Deacons on Saturday night in the dome.
The Orange got some late-game heroics to snatch victory out of the jaws of defeat. No, it wasn’t Elijah Hughes who averages north of 19 points per game, no it wasn’t Buddy Boeheim who drilled five three-pointers, it was a pair of unlikely freshman heroes.
Jesse Edwards saw the ball bounce off the cylinder spiked the ball in the direction of Brycen Goodine who laid in the basketball with 1.7 seconds remaining on the clock to give the Orange the lead.
That would end up being the dagger as Syracuse’s season was saved by a pair of freshmen who have barely played all year.
.@Cuse_MBB's Brycen Goodine with the GAME WINNER❗️ pic.twitter.com/zSfxPlyUZO
— ACC Network (@accnetwork) February 9, 2020
According to the ESPN analytics, Edwards and Goodine have combined to play just over 15 minutes per game on average this season.
When you take a closer look at those minutes during conference play, it’s even smaller: Brycen (2.1 minutes per game since January 4) and Edwards (3.9 minutes per game since January 4).
"“The fight at the end in those last four minutes was amazing. What an amazing win to be down four with all those guys out of the game, I mean our probability to win that game wasn’t very good.I’m so proud of these guys and it’s fitting that Jesse (Edwards) gets the ball to Brycen (Goodine) to get the basket. That was a heck of a play between two freshmen who don’t play very much.Again I’m so proud of these guys they dug down there and honestly, I’m not sure how they did it. To be in that situation, we’ve lost two games in a row you’re down a little bit, we had the week off to stew, this was a really good win.”"
To recap the reason those two were in the game was due to foul trouble (Bourama Sidibe and Quincy Guerrier both fouled out about nine seconds apart with a lot of time left in the second half) then Marek Dolezaj fouls out on the technical late in the game.
On top of Jesse and Brycen stepping up to the plate, Buddy Boeheim was forced to play forward in this game due to all the foul trouble.
Jim revealed after the game that Buddy actually volunteered to do it (despite never really playing any forward in practice) and he showed some hutzpah there. So much so in fact that his father said he may experiment with that lineup possibility in the future.
This was a must-win game for the Orange and they got the job done. Perhaps this is the spark Syracuse needed to go on a late-season run to punch their ticket in to March Madness. Buckle up Orange fans we’re in for another crazy finish with eight games left to play in the regular season.