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A sullen Donnie Freeman slowly paced from his locker toward his chair to sit down and greet the media following a 3-for-14 shooting performance. Dressed in a zipped-up black puffer and a grey beanie, he bore a bone-chilling facial expression. Frankly, he probably didn’t want to be there. You wouldn’t, either.

The star 6-foot-9 forward blamed himself for Syracuse’s 76-74 loss to Virginia Tech Wednesday. Same goes for SU’s previous defeat, an overtime stunner on the road against Boston College, where he claims he cost his team the game. He spoke at a volume that felt muted; a quiet, defeated tone akin to a whisper.

There are plenty of reasons why the Orange couldn’t beat the Hokies. Or the Eagles, for that matter. But Freeman wants to be different. He wants to be the player who can rise above the faults around him. With 10 points and four turnovers on Wednesday night, he wasn’t.

“I can’t really speak for everybody else, but with complete transparency, I feel like I’m feeling the most (pain), obviously,” Freeman said postgame. “In my opinion, these last two games, I’ve pissed them away. It hurts, obviously.

“It’s nobody else’s fault but mine.”

Freeman had his worst game of the season in SU’s (12-7, 3-3 Atlantic Coast) defeat to VT (15-5, 4-3 Atlantic Coast) in the JMA Wireless Dome. As he said, though, “it happens.” Time will tell how much stock can truly be put into his performance. More importantly, it was an indicator of how fragile the Orange can be when Freeman’s not on his A-game. Still, he wears the heavy expectations placed upon him as a badge of honor, taking full accountability when he can.

“I missed a lot of bunnies,” Freeman said about his 21.4% shooting night, a season-low and the second-worst of his SU career. “Sime rim-out 3s, pull-ups, jump hooks, like I missed a lot of easy ones. Three-for-14, it just wasn’t my night. It’s part of the game. But, it can’t happen again.”

In a season where third-year head coach Adrian Autry’s job is likely on the line, talking to Freeman would make you think his job was teetering off the edge, too.

He notably said postgame that he “can’t speak” for Autry when asked about the head coach’s visible frustrations and if they have resonated with SU’s locker room. He can only speak for himself — the nonstop critic in Freeman’s head of lofty aspirations.

“I feel I’ve let my team down and the fans and everybody around me these past two games. And that’s not an easy pill to swallow,” Freeman said. “It’s time to put this one behind me and get a big win against Miami on Saturday that we desperately need.”

“Every game from here on out, we’ve got to play for desperation,” Freeman continued. “I just got to be better for us and the fans.”

It was a grim projection for the sophomore to give after SU had fallen to .500 in ACC play. With the amount of missed opportunities Syracuse has left on the table this season, arguably none worse than this current two-game losing skid, time is running out to build an NCAA Tournament resume.

Each winnable game lost shrinks SU’s margin of error. And what confidence could this Orange team possibly have right now to beat the ACC’s blue bloods that loom on their schedule?

If you ask Freeman, that doesn’t matter. Not one bit. He wants to be this team’s Superman. But after Virginia Tech took away his right hand — a strategy Hokies head coach Mike Young said helped limit Freeman and force him into jacking up 3s — he looked ordinary.

“Donnie has a dominant right hand drive, and he can go left,” Young said. “But (if you) cut that right hand off, you cannot let him catch the ball face up from 15 feet, where he is really, really good.”

Young said VT forwards Amani Hansberry and Tobi Lawal fared nicely when guarding Freeman. They made him chuck contested 3s by giving him uncomfortable positions to drive against. This was one of the least-aggressive games Freeman has played. Not by lack of effort, but by design.

“He’s going to be on the top of the scouting report,” Autry said of Freeman. “You know they were going to double-team him. He took a couple of (3-point) shots, but when he did go to the basket, I thought they were physical with him. He didn’t finish around the rim like he normally does.”

Freeman said taking more 3s was the result of taking what the defense presented him. It still disgusts him that he couldn’t overpower his opponent. He carries himself with an attitude and set of expectations where he’s the guy other teams can throw the scouting report out when facing him. They should know what they’re going to get — Freeman’s best version is scary.

Before SU’s current two-game losing streak, he was replicating it game after game. Freeman dropped 20-plus points in the Orange’s first three ACC wins after returning on Dec. 31 from a nine-game absence due to a right foot injury. On that New Year’s Eve day, Freeman nearly willed Syracuse to overtime against Clemson with 18 second-half points, but SU fell short.

He’d been virtually unstoppable since then. And against BC, though he says the loss is on him, he dropped 19 points with 14 rebounds. It wasn’t his fault.

The Virginia Tech game, however, showed that Freeman is indeed human. He can’t put the Orange on his back every time. More concerningly, what does it say about SU that Freeman’s teammates couldn’t shoulder the load themselves?

Just as it was in Las Vegas, Syracuse is lost without Freeman hooping like a lottery pick.

“I’ll make ‘em, I’ll make ‘em,” Freeman said, vowing to improve. “They just didn’t fall for me tonight.”

Published on January 22, 2026 at 2:40 am
Contact Cooper: ccandrew@syr.edu | @cooper_andrews