Observations from SU’s loss to Houston: Early dominance, free-throw disparity
Syracuse guard J.J. Starling shot 0-for-3 from the free throw line against Houston, as the Orange shot 12-29 as a team from the charity stripe. Courtesy of Joseph Alleyne | @joeyyarchives on Instagram
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LAS VEGAS — No Donnie Freeman, no problem?
Syracuse received a rude welcome to the 2025 Players Era Festival when Freeman was ruled out for the tournament due to a lower-body injury. Yet, it somehow played one of its best games of the Adrian Autry era Monday despite falling in overtime to Kelvin Sampson’s No. 3 Houston.
Fittingly, Syracuse had to battle the reigning NCAA runner-up hours after finding out the brutal injury news. But the Orange unexpectedly caught fire instantly, building as much as a 23-14 lead midway through the first half, led by an early 10-point flurry from Tyler Betsey.
Their early momentum continued throughout the contest, and a late Betsey 3 tied the game at 67-67 with 54.6 seconds left and sent SU and Houston into overtime. However, the Cougars escaped with a win after outscoring the Orange 11-7 in the extra period.
Here are some observations from Syracuse’s (4-1, 0-0 Atlantic Coast) thrilling 78-74 loss to No. 3 Houston (6-0, 0-0 Big 12) Monday at the Players Era Festival:
SU starts off inspired sans Freeman
It would have been very easy for the Orange to roll over and accept defeat without Freeman on the court. They did no such thing.
Syracuse outplayed Houston early. It played fast, knocked down 3s with proficiency — marked by forward Tyler Betsey’s 3-for-4 start from deep — and simply made big plays. Sure, the Orange struggled closing out the Cougars on the perimeter as guard Milos Uzan hit back-to-back 3s within the game’s first six minutes. But they quickly put the Cougars on upset watch.
That was marked by a brief stretch before and after the first under-12 timeout. Up 14-12, SU increased its advantage over Houston with a Betsey 3-pointer from the right wing. Syracuse made a quick stop and Betsey drew two free throws on the other end, of which he split. Then, at the 10:56 mark, Kiyan Anthony jumped a passing lane, stole a feed from Cougars point guard Kingston Flemings and charged downcourt to finish a two-handed fast break jam.
A 20-12 lead for Syracuse at that point would have seemed like a fairytale without Freeman. But the Orange made it reality. They even sent it to overtime. That alone was a win for Syracuse.
Free-throw struggles doom the Orange
Without sugarcoating it, Syracuse would have won this game if it made its free throws with any sort of consistency. Instead, SU shot horribly from the charity stripe and it directly correlated to its four-point loss.
The Orange finished 12-for-29 at the free-throw line. Houston and Syracuse both got into foul trouble early in each half, so each team generated plenty of opportunities at the stripe. The Cougars didn’t fare great, either, going just 19-for-27. But for a team like SU, whose players pledged after its win over Monmouth that they’d start hitting their free throws in the future, the output was an abysmal display.
One game later, they were even worse than their 19-for-33 mark against the Hawks.
The best example of SU’s free throw inconsistencies came with 15:39 left in the second half. Houston’s Chris Cenac Jr. hard fouled J.J. Starling on a driving dunk attempt. Starling, who went 1-for-4 from the charity stripe versus Monmouth, missed both shots and displayed a clear hesitation on his free-throw shooting motion. It wasn’t a welcome sight.
Sadiq’s 1st start
The highly-touted White’s first start began with a bang. Early on, William Kyle III posted up in SU’s halfcourt offense, pivoted around and lobbed the ball up to a soaring White, who finished an emphatic two-handed jam and let out an impassioned scream to hype up Syracuse’s traveling fans.
That dunk represented half of White’s four points on the evening. The freshman forward weathered some difficulties going up against Houston’s ferocious paint defense. He didn’t stand out as a massive factor on the glass — finishing with four rebounds — suffered from early foul trouble and rarely received opportunities in transition, which is the space White thrives in.
His “welcome to a Division I starting lineup” moment came with 7:56 left in the first half, when Cougars forward Joseph Tugler — one of the nation’s top-rated paint defenders — stuffed White at the rim on an alley-oop dunk attempt. White’s body hit the hardwood with a palpable thud as he wore a look of disbelief on his face.
White reached two personal fouls at the 4:49 mark and did not play the rest of the first half. He tallied a layup in the second half and missed a 1-and-1 free-throw opportunity. The world will never know how much better he could have played if Freeman was healthy on the opposite block, though.
Battle of the elite defenses
The Orange and Cougars entered Monday’s matchup sporting the top-two scoring defenses in the country. Syracuse’s 53.3 points allowed per game ranked first while Houston’s 53.4 ranked second — basically a dead even total for the two teams.
Things would inevitably change for both schools, but especially for SU, which played the easiest schedule in the nation over its first four games, per KenPom. And the Orange’s defense proved they’re a ways to go from reaching Houston’s level.
After SU’s 34-point first half, its second half was mostly spent in the half-court offense. That’s exactly what Sampson wanted, as Autry prefers the Orange to initiate through the fast break.
Tugler also prevented Syracuse from doing much work inside, finishing with a whopping five blocks. The Orange’s defense lacks a player like him, and at times showed.
At the same time, Syracuse’s defense was prone to lapses. Late in the first half, it had a bad box out on a Uzan 3-attempt, which Uzan himself grabbed the rebound for and eventually kicked it to Flemings at the top of the key for a drilled 3-pointer. White was late on the closeout.
To start the second half, seconds after Kyle dunked on Tugler to bring the Orange within one point, Uzan nailed his third 3 of the game — a wide-open one — to immediately wash Syracuse’s momentum away.
Perimeter defense was an overall weak point for SU, which allowed Houston to convert 11-of-27 3-pointers. Despite the Cougars starting the game 2-for-12 on shots inside the arc, the Orange’s defense could not force them inside enough. Once Uzan banked in his fourth 3 with 12:47 left in the game — a step-back jumper with Naithan George in his grill — it was clear Syracuse’s perimeter defense had hit the point of no return.
The Dion Waiters mentality
The Orange were relentlessly hucking up shots Monday, as if they were addicted to the fast-paced nature of Las Vegas slot machines. Or, maybe they were using the mindset of former SU guard Dion Waiters, who famously said he’d rather go 0-for-30 than 0-for-9, because the latter would mean he stopped shooting.
Syracuse averaged just fewer than 20 3-point attempts per game heading into the Players Era. It fired 17 3s by halftime against Houston. By the end of the game, it tried 31 3-point field goals — by far a season-high — but made 26% of them.
This strategy worked in the first half. Starling pulled a corner 3 without hesitation after Kyle won the opening tip, and SU’s senior guard splashed it. Betsey drained three 3s ten minutes into the contest. And Nate Kingz canned a huge 3 at the 5:37 mark to put Syracuse ahead 26-25. Whenever Houston got close, the Orange delivered from deep.
It continued in the second half when point guard Naithan George buried a fadeaway 3 from the left wing to put Syracuse up 43-41. And late in the game, Betsey drained a game-tying 3-pointer from the right wing to lock the score at 67-67.
Though Houston won in overtime, the Orange showed an important ability to hit clutch 3s when needed. They’ll need that to persist in order to make March.
