Syracuse struggles to close out game vs. Georgia Tech: ‘We got careless’
While Syracuse escaped Atlanta with an 82-72 win over Georgia Tech, it gave up a late 9-0 run and nearly squandered a 20-point second-half lead. Courtesy of Georgia Tech Athletics
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To finish off a game that had gone so well for Syracuse, the Orange did everything possible to lose it.
That proposition seemed impossible with over 16 minutes left of its battle against Georgia Tech, when SU forward Donnie Freeman drained a 3-pointer from the top of the key. Syracuse led by 20 at that point. It was running the floor faster than it has all season, shooting with proficiency and flexing its muscles on defense — the brand of basketball head coach Adrian Autry wanted to instill from Day One.
From then on, the Orange’s once-commanding lead slowly evaporated into a two-basket deficit for the Yellow Jackets with less than three minutes left. What should have been a convincing win became anything but that.
After Syracuse (10-5, 1-1 Atlantic Coast) posted a season-best 44-point first half against Georgia Tech (10-6, 1-2 ACC) on the road Tuesday, 11 second-half turnovers and ice cold shooting nearly cost SU in its 82-72 victory. The Orange’s first conference win of the campaign was somewhat overshadowed by their inability to close out the game cleanly, giving the Yellow Jackets life when they were on the brink of being squashed.
Freeman’s career-high 27-point night and Kiyan Anthony’s 11 first-half points spurred a dominant showing over the opening 20 minutes. Syracuse’s half-court offense looked better than it has all season. So did its ball movement. And at times, its defense appeared impenetrable.
What changed?
“I thought we stopped moving like we were in the first half,” Autry said of SU’s struggles late in the contest. “In the second half, we didn’t move to get open (on offense) and they started ramping up the pressure and they disrupted our timing. And in particular during their run, we got careless with the ball.”
Many of Syracuse’s late errors were due to its penchant for coughing up the ball. Georgia Tech guards Lamar Washington and Kowacie Reeves Jr. made life miserable for SU’s Naithan George and Nate Kingz, who each turned it over four times in the second half alone.
Washington and Reeves often executed a full-court press defense initiated by GT head coach Damon Stoudamire. It caused Syracuse to have a hard time playing with the same fiery pace it displayed in the first half. The Orange couldn’t get into their half-court sets as cleanly.
There were also silly mistakes. In the final minutes, George dribbled a ball off his kneecap for a crucial turnover when SU could have wrapped things up.
Without much rhythm from Syracuse’s backcourt late, it only tallied five assists in the final 20 minutes and shot a brutal 10-for-27 (37%) from the field. Washington and Reeves also locked up the Orange’s perimeter game, as they were limited to three 3-point tries in the second half after 16 in the first.
“I feel like maybe we just needed to slow it down a little bit more,” said SU center William Kyle III. “I know we’re going to look back at it more on film, but I felt like we just reset a lot. Our pace was too fast at times, where maybe we could have slowed it down and maybe kicked it out and got a better shot (instead).”
Essentially, the Orange went away from everything that made them successful early.
“A lot of our offensive struggles in that stretch (were) just because we didn’t move, we didn’t get open and we weren’t strong with the ball,” Autry said.
Syracuse’s defense didn’t hold up as well, either. Kyle’s foul trouble caused him to miss a few crucial stretches where Georgia Tech took advantage of the Orange inside. Yellow Jackets big man Baye Ndongo finished with 20 points on 8-for-13 shooting, proving to be a pest for SU’s defense.
Though the Orange did come through at the end — a ferocious drive to the cup and two-handed jam from Freeman with 1:29 left made it a 75-67 game — their late-game issues erased the chance to secure their first wire-to-wire victory against a Power Four team this year.
And while Syracuse’s biggest takeaway from Tuesday night is that it finally developed the inklings of an offensive identity, it didn’t do much else to improve its No. 90 overall ranking in the NCAA’s NET Rankings.
