Despite Syracuse basketball loss, Benny Williams, students and SU shined

Syracuse basketball is struggling through the 2021-22 season. It’s cold in Central New York. We’re still in the midst of the Covid-19 pandemic.

Yet on Saturday night inside the Carrier Dome, 31,803 fans cheered on the Orange despite a blow-out setback to No. 7 Duke. That marked the largest crowd in college basketball to date in 2021-22.

What’s more, a record was set as there were 8,335 fans in the student section, which is a testament to just how awesome Syracuse University students were on Saturday evening.

As I said on Twitter more than once following the ‘Cuse 97-72 loss to the Blue Devils, I’m a really proud alum. The Orange community and student fan base proved tremendous this weekend.

In his post-game press conference, head coach Jim Boeheim praised SU students and the entire crowd for showing up and showing out versus the Blue Devils. Boeheim, understandably, was disappointed in how his team performed with such a stellar – and large – group of people in attendance.

Syracuse basketball simply couldn’t slow down top-10 Duke.

The Blue Devils (25-4, 15-3), a squad that could be ranked No. 1 nationally in the next round of top-25 polls after an upset-driven Saturday in collegiate hoops, bolted out of the gates early with some hot shooting and never looked back.

At one point in the first half, Duke was up by 30 points. The Orange (15-14, 9-9) went on a nice run to cut the deficit to 17 points at the intermission, but the Blue Devils were just too good on both ends of the floor for the ‘Cuse to keep up.

As has been the case throughout 2021-22, Syracuse basketball was woeful on defense. The Orange got crushed on the boards, although the team did take care of the ball well, committing only seven turnovers.

Senior shooting guard Buddy Boeheim and junior point guard Joe Girard III combined for 41 points, but the other three starters were not good, and they only took a combined seven shots. That sort of imbalance is a problem.

In two bright spots, graduate student center Bourama Sidibe registered 11 points, four rebounds and three assists, while freshman forward Benny Williams had easily his best output so far in a Syracuse basketball uniform.

Williams earned 30 minutes of run and tallied 14 points and six boards. He went 5-of-7 from the field and 4-of-5 from the charity stripe.

The five-star recruit coming out of the IMG Academy showed flashes of wonderful athleticism with a brilliant reverse layup that made it on the ESPN SportsCenter top-10 list.

Jim Boeheim said that Williams is starting to understand the ‘Cuse system better, and the head coach added that his freshman forward may be starting to turn a corner a little bit. That’s great to hear.

I’ll end with this. It’s unfortunate that the Orange got smoked by Duke in the last time that Blue Devils head coach Mike Krzyzewski traveled to the Hill, but Syracuse University creating an annual scholarship in Coach K’s honor is a perfect example that humanity and kindness always, always win out, no matter what the scoreboard read at the end of this Atlantic Coast Conference clash.