Syracuse thumped 77-62 by Louisville in 4th consecutive defeat
Syracuse fell on the road to Louisville Tuesday night, allowing 14 3-point makes from the Cardinals in a 77-62 loss. Courtesy of Louisville Athletics
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LOUISVILLE, Ky. — Even without the opponent’s best player on the floor, Syracuse’s end result remained inevitable Tuesday night.
In their final road game of the 2025-26 regular season, the Orange (15-15, 6-11 Atlantic Coast) got crushed by Louisville (21-9, 10-7 Atlantic Coast) 77-62 in the KFC Yum! Center. The Cardinals didn’t have freshman phenom guard Mikel Brown Jr. And it barely mattered. They led by as much as 21 points in the first half and made 14 total 3-pointers. SU shot 21.1% from beyond the arc. This was an all-around poor performance from the Orange, who have slim-to-no chance of making the NCAA Tournament.
Syracuse is now on its second four-game losing streak of the season. That never happened once during head coach Adrian Autry’s first two years on the job. Nor during Jim Boeheim’s 47-year tenure.
But in this once-promising campaign that’s unraveled into a sad state of affairs, it seems what can go wrong, will go wrong for SU.
To begin, though, the Orange showed some encouraging signs. One game after Autry ripped his own players by saying they’re not “tough” enough and didn’t give a consistent effort on defense, they blocked four of the Cardinals’ shots within the first four minutes. How’s that for effort?
Syracuse just forgot to play offense during that stretch, shooting 1-for-5 to start.
Its starting five held up quite well against Louisville’s. SU’s defensive effort was unabating, and it got enough buckets here and there to stay knotted with the Cardinals.
Then Autry put the bench in: Tyler Betsey, Kiyan Anthony and Sadiq White Jr. After those three came in, the Orange’s defensive tenacity depleted as they switched to a 2-3 zone. Louisville started having success inside and out. Star guard Ryan Conwell hit a pair of early 3s and 6-foot-11 center Sananda Fru threw down two alley-oops. All the while, SU couldn’t score.
By the time Isaac McKneely splashed a fadeaway 3 through contact from Betsey, drawing a foul for a four-point play, the Cardinals had completed an 11-0 run halfway through the first half and led 21-10.
From there, Louisville kept dominating Syracuse’s predictable 2-3 zone, especially from beyond the arc. It seemingly had an open look on every possession.
White proved to be the Orange’s biggest bright spot. The freshman forward tallied six points on 3-for-4 shooting in the first half and helped spur a few defensive stops. White suffered a left shoulder injury late in the half, per an SU Athletics spokesperson, but he still finished the game.
However, there was nothing else for Syracuse to hang its hat on. At halftime, the Cardinals were 6-for-17 on 3-point attempts. The Orange were 0-for-11 — and trailed by 18.
Their 21 first-half points were their fewest in a half all season.
A litany of stone-faced expressions from players and coaches alike trudged out of SU’s locker room tunnel as they took the floor for the second half. They looked defeated. Lost. As if they didn’t know what hit them.
Searching for a momentum-booster to begin the second, Syracuse point guard Naithan George catapulted an alley-oop lob for a soaring William Kyle III. If anything could turn this Orange team around, it’d be a memorable moment from their resident posterizer in Kyle.
Kyle’s dunk ricocheted off the back iron, though. George’s face squished into an agonizing expression; another missed opportunity.
Soon enough, Louisville’s J’Vonne Hadley canned a 3 from the left corner, which put the Orange down 47-23.
Once the Orange found the bottom of the net on a 3-pointer for the first time all night — courtesy of Nate Kingz at the 15:19 mark — they stared down an intimidating deficit. Though it got within 11 points of the Cardinals late, Syracuse never stood a realistic chance to come back and win.
