Syracuse unconvincingly beats Northeastern 91-83
Syracuse won its second straight game after an upset loss to Hofstra by defeating Northeastern 91-83. Courtesy of Seth Gitner
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Adrian Autry said he’s seen “a lot of growth” and that “there’s nothing wrong” with Syracuse’s offense after it defeated Mercyhurst on Wednesday.
The third-year head coach backed his point by saying SU would be averaging around 80 points if it were making its free throws.
Three days later, the Orange (8-4, 0-0 Atlantic Coast) made a season-high 34 free throws on a season-high 48 attempts, defeating Northeastern (4-6, 0-0 Coastal Athletic) 91-83. The victory is Syracuse’s second straight after it was upset on Dec. 13 by Hofstra. It’s also SU’s first time scoring at least 80 points since it defeated Drexel 80-50 on Nov. 15.
Still, as free-throw struggles reemerged down the stretch (SU finished 70.8% from the charity stripe after shooting 13-of-14 in the first half), it was an unconvincing eight-point victory.
After building up a game-high 15-point lead with 10 minutes remaining, it looked like the Orange were finally going to break through to secure a blowout, which it hadn’t done since facing Drexel over a month ago. Instead, Mercyhurst — a newly-initiated Division I program — won the second half on Wednesday, Hofstra upset the Orange and Saint Joseph’s never let them pull away.
After SU took a 65-50 lead, Northeastern’s Ty Francis and Ryan Williams drew nylon from beyond the arc, cutting the deficit to nine and forcing an Autry timeout. Though Naithan George’s fifth of six assists resulted in an alley-oop to William Kyle III out of the break, Williams connected on an and-one before Youri Fritz split a pair of free throws. This cut the Huskies’ deficit to 67-60 at the under-eight-minute media timeout.
Despite having their lead cut down to seven, the Orange answered back with a 10-3 run, where Kiyan Anthony scored five of the points, to build their lead back to 77-63 with 5:49 remaining. However, 3-pointers from Mike Loughnane, Williams and Xander Alarie triples helped cut the Huskies’ deficit down to 79-69 with just over four minutes remaining.
Northeastern finished Saturday 8-of-23 from beyond the arc, while SU was a measly 3-of-12. Williams (20), Alarie (19) and Fritz (17) combined for 56 of Northeastern’s 83 points.
A pair of Kyle missed free throws followed by a Kingz turnover led to Northeastern scoring the next four points, cutting SU’s lead to 79-73 with under three minutes remaining. About a minute later, a second-chance Fritz bucket then cut the Huskies’ deficit to 80–75 with two minutes remaining.
George scored SU’s next four points from the charity stripe to get the lead back to seven with 1:04 remaining. Alarie proceeded to split a pair from the charity stripe to cut the score to 84-78, and after Tyler Betsey and Alarie traded a pair of made free throws, the lead remained at six with 43 seconds remaining.
Anthony then drilled a pair of free throws before a J.J. Starling steal led to George splitting a pair from the charity stripe with 25 seconds left. The make gave SU 89 before Northeastern’s JB Frankel miraculously banked in a contested 3 to keep the Huskies alive.
However, Betsey made two free throws to put the game away, sealing an eight-point win.
George’s season-high 22 points (12 of which came from the charity stripe) led Syracuse’s highest-scoring offensive output in over a month and helped offset the Huskies’ 3-point discrepancy. Meanwhile, Anthony (18), William Kyle III (14), Nate Kingz (14) and Betsey (14) all also scored in double figures.
It once again wasn’t a pretty win and was unconvincing. Nonetheless, the Orange won their second straight.
