Syracuse Outlasts Wake Forest in ‘Tremendous’ Overtime Win, 86-83

Story and photo by Emily Dick.

Syracuse, N.Y.—The Syracuse Men’s basketball team has had its fair share of dramatic “down to the wire” games in ACC conference play this season.

Tuesday night was no different.

Syracuse came back from a nine-point second half deficit to beat Wake Forest, 86-83 in overtime, but only after Cornelius Hudson's desperation three-quarter court shot rimmed out as time expired.

The announced Carrier Dome crowd of 23,367 let out a collective sigh of relief.

Head coach Jim Boeheim said he was happy the team was able to play through fatigue after beating Florida State, 70-57, just two nights earlier.

“We were tired,” Boeheim said after the game. “Sunday night at 8 p.m. (against Florida State), then coming back Tuesday is difficult. I think it's very difficult to ask players to do that. I thought we did get tired, but even when we were tired we made plays. We made really good plays.”

“I thought we overcame a lot today in this game. I thought it was a tremendous, tremendous win.”

The win was fueled by an incredible offensive performance by senior Rakeem Christmas, who scored a career-high 35 points.

The key for Christmas? He said he doesn’t pressure himself to score and lets it come naturally.

“You don't really think about it (scoring),” Christmas said. “I’m just out there helping my teammates by going out there and being aggressive. Trying to give it my all.”

The Syracuse big man is known for contributing rebounds (nine against Wake), but it was his clutch overtime free throws that made the difference Tuesday night.

Another Close One

 

With 2.4 seconds left in the first half, it looked as if Syracuse would go into the locker room with a 2-point lead, but the Demon Deacon’s Codi Miller-McIntyre had a different plan.

McIntyre threw up a near-half court shot to give Wake Forest a 37-36 lead at the half.

Wake took that momentum into the second half, extending its lead to as much as nine points early on. The Deacons kept their lead until a Tyler Roberson jumper tied the game at 58 for Syracuse with less than seven minutes left in regulation.

Christmas buried two free throws at the 1:41 mark to put Syracuse on top. At 14 seconds left, Wake Forest answered with a Hudson 3-pointer that tied the game, 71-71.

SU junior guard Michael Gbinije got free for a drive to the basket as time ran down but missed the layup and after a Deacons' heave missed, the game went into overtime..

Syracuse got out to an early lead in overtime, but quickly went back and forth with Wake Forest in a game that saw 14 lead changes. Gbinije scored a quick five points to secure the Orange lead with two minutes left. All Syracuse had to do was make foul shots.

Christmas, who’s been shooting 73 percent from the line all season, then made six straight free throws to keep the Deacons from coming back a final time.

Team Effort

Christmas wasn’t the only one who stepped up late in the game. Gbinije added 17 points, even with a slow start. The guard scored only one point in the first half.

“We challenged Mike (Gbinije) at halftime,” Boeheim said. “We can't win when Mike disappears like that. He was much more aggressive in the second half, and some of it came because he had the ball at the point.”

“We need Mike," redshirt junior Trevor Cooney said after the game. "We need Mike to score, we need Mike to do what he can do,”

Cooney scored 21 points of his own, including five 3-pointers, and caused four Demon Deacon turnovers.

Sophomore Ron Patterson also got some time in the second half. The guard started a Syracuse run with a 3-pointer, followed by a steal that led to a Gbinije 3-pointer seconds later.

“We wanted to get somebody that would get something going to the basket,” Boeheim said of his reason to sub Patterson in late in the game. “(Patterson) made some plays. It doesn’t show, his numbers don’t look good, but he made some plays that led to something else.”

Holding off the Demon Deacons

For much of the game, the Syracuse defense had no answer for Wake Forest freshman Konstantinos Mitoglou, a 6’10” forward from Greece.

Mitoglou was averaging just 7.6 points per game this season, but Tuesday night he came off the bench to score 26 points.

At one point in the second half, Mitoglou was 9-9 from the field, 3-3 from 3-point range, and 2-2 at the line. That’s shooting 100 percent in every shooting category.

Eventually though, Mitoglou did miss.

Miller-McIntyre added 24 points for the Deacons and Hudson stepped in with some late-game heroics. The only basket he made all game was the 3-pointer that sent the game into overtime.

However, Miller-McIntyre missed a crucial one-and-one free throw with 11 seconds left in overtime that would have narrowed the margin for Wake.

The Demon Deacons fell to 9-9 for the season and 1-4 in the ACC.

Up Next

The Syracuse Orange (13-4, 4-0 ACC) will take on the Clemson Tigers (9-7, 1-3 ACC) in Littlejohn Coliseum this Saturday, January 17 at 4 p.m. ACCN will broadcast the game.