Story & Video By:
Robin Deehan
Photo courtesy: cuse.com
SYRACUSE, N.Y. – Michael
Gbinije’s last second heroics propelled the Syracuse Orange to a 72-70 comeback win over the Virginia Tech Hokies Tuesday night at the Carrier Dome.
Gbinije scored the final six points of the game, including
the game-winning shot with one second left on the clock, to lift the Orange to 15-7,
6-3 in the ACC and drop Virginia Tech to 9-13, 1-8 in the ACC.
“That was one of the best experiences of my college career,
my first college game winner, and I’m not going to lie - it felt good," Gbinije said. "I’m happy
to have it.”
“They took the guy off Mike [Gbinije] so we wanted to get it
right back to Mike and let Mike go,” head coach Jim Boeheim said.
“I thought he didn't settle for an off-balance jumper, he spun back and he made a great play, that man made a great play one of the best plays in that situation that I've seen.“
“I thought he didn't settle for an off-balance jumper, he spun back and he made a great play, that man made a great play one of the best plays in that situation that I've seen.“
The Final 40
Trailing 34-30 after a sloppy first half of turnovers, missed shots and bad
defense, Virginia Tech came out with a strong second half shooting performance
scoring six-consecutive three-pointers to extend its lead to 11 with five
minutes left to play.
The Orange chipped away at the lead, thanks to outstanding
defense by Rakeem Christmas and Kaleb Joseph, it wasn't until the last 40
seconds that Syracuse finally took control.
“With four minutes left to go
we had to gamble,” Boeheim said. “We got a couple turnovers on our
full-court press and we had a couple in our traps at half court. We had a
couple steals and we still did not convert them all but we did convert enough
to get within distance.”
Gbinije started his game-winning scoring streak after
Virginia Tech’s Justin Bibbs made both ends of a one-and-one to give the Hokies
a four-point lead with 37 seconds left to play.
On the next possession, Gbinije drove the lane and was
fouled on the shot, the basket was good but Gbinije failed to sink the free throw, leaving SU still two points behind.
After running an aggressive full court press, the Orange
forced the Hokies to turn the ball over, and with 19 seconds left the
Hokies fouled.
Only a 48-percent free throw shooter, Gbinije made both clutch free
throws to tie the game at 70.
On the last Hokie possession, Trevor Cooney forced a back-court violation and Syracuse got the ball back with seven seconds on
the clock.
SU in-bounded the ball to Gbinije who drove, shook off a
defender, and pulled up for a jumper that sailed in as time expired sending the
22,928 fans in attendance into pandemonium and the Orange into the locker room with
the win.
“I thought our guys did an amazing job, I mean I've been in
a lot of games and I’m probably going to overstate this but, the way we were,
where we were, they've got four guards out there, we’re a little tired, this
comeback ranks up there with any that I've ever been a part of,” Boeheim said.
Other Key Players
Seven different players scored for the Orange in the win but
as usual it was Christmas, Cooney and Gbinije who stood out, combining for 51 of the
team's 72 points.
Cooney and Gbinije each finished with 18 and
Christmas finished with 15 points and 12 rebounds to record his eighth
double-double of the season.
Ron Patterson came off the bench strong, scoring eight points,
grabbing four rebounds and dishing out two assists in his 23 minutes on the
court and Tyler Roberson tallied six points and 11 rebounds of his own.
The Orange missed 13 of 29 free throws in the game and until those last two, Gbinije had been 4-8. The Hokies took only eight free throws in the game and made seven.
Up Next
Syracuse will head to the Peterson Events Center this Saturday,
Feb. 7 to take on Pitt (15-8, 4-5 ACC).
No comments:
Post a Comment