Syracuse Offense Insufficient in Loss to Pittsburgh

By Kerry Bretti

Photos by Lindsey Horsting

 

SYRACUSE, N.Y.- In front of the largest crowd at a college basketball game this season, the Pittsburgh Panthers turned a close game into a rout in the last few minutes, beating Syracuse 66-52 at the Carrier Dome, Saturday afternoon.

 

Pitt completed a home-and-home sweep of the Orange with the win and the Orange finished a week of consecutive double-digit losses which began at Louisville Wednesday night. 

“Tonight they were better than us," SU's Michael Gbinje said. "I think part of being good is making shots. You know they made more shots than us and, obviously, I think they played better than us during stretches of the game.”

“We just have to make some shots for us to be successful,” Syracuse head coach Jim Boeheim said. “If you don’t make shots sooner or later it just wears you down. We’re not doing any of that right now… We gotta make shots. That’s the bottom line.”

Still, a DaJuan Coleman dunk with 7:15 left, tied the game at 45.

Twenty-four seconds later Jamel Artis put Pitt ahead for good with a three and the crowd of 28,696 saw Pitt outscore Syracuse 21-7 the rest of the way.

“The difference really was they made some offensive plays down the stretch," Gbinije said. "Offensively, we gave up too many opportunities, couldn’t get to the basket at times.”

Shooting struggle

Pittsburgh shot 46-percent  from the floor, finishing 24 of 52 while converting on ten of 15 foul shots. The Panthers hit 8 of 23 from three-point range and capitalized on Syracuse’s shooting trouble.

The Orange hit only 19 of 51 shots from the field and seven of 26 threes. Syracuse came out flat in the second half, dropping its field goal percentage from 48-percent in the first to 3-percent in the second. The Orange's three-point percentage also dropped from 43 percent in the first half to just eight percent in the second.

Lydon a lonely scorer

Freshman Tyler Lydon carried the Orange on offense with a career-high 21 points on eight of 12 field goals. He connected on four three-pointers including two in the last minute of the first half, cutting Pitt's lead to 30-28.  But Gbinije got only ten points for the Orange while the rest of the team was even quieter. Malachi Richardson had six and Trevor Cooney just three.


“It just happens," Lydon said. "Everyone goes through a little stretch. I understand. We just just need to make shots.”

“Lydon shot the ball well at practice yesterday,” Boeheim said. “That’s not always an indication but he certainly kept us in there tonight. Got us back in it at halftime. But we need Mal and Trevor to score for us.”

“Lydon got some shots but we wanted to keep those guys under control and we did to a certain extent,” Pittsburgh head coach Jamie Dixon said.

Artis lights it up

Artis led Pitt in scoring, also with 21 points. He hit seven of 11 shots overall and 50-percent (3-6) from three-point range. James Robinson was Pitt’s second leading scorer with 13 points.

Rafael Maia, the 6'9" grad student from Brown, started at center for Pitt but wound up playing only four minutes.

“Rafael didn’t play as much,” Dixon said. “We kind of like him against a big inside post presence and they don’t have that really when Coleman’s out so we went with our more active and skilled guys against the zone.”

Bad day on the boards

As it had in the earlier loss at Pitt, Syracuse had plenty of trouble with rebounding, offensively and defensively. Pittsburgh grabbed nearly two-thirds off the boards, tallying 43 rebounds to Syracuse’s 23. Pitt scored 12 second-chance points to Syracuse's four. 

In the loss at Louisville on Wednesday, the Orange was outrebounded 41-30.

“Louisville is the best rebounding team in the league and Pitt might be the second best,” Boeheim said. “It’s not all the sudden that we started rebounding then stopped rebounding.”

 

Notes:

The loss drops Syracuse to 18-10 (8-7 ACC) with three games left.  

Asked about the Orange chances of making the NCAA Tournament field, Boeheim, as usual, was not about to bite. “We’re just trying to win our next game." he said. "You guys worry about that.”

The Orange has a week off before its next game, hosting North Carolina State at 2:00 p.m. on Senior Day. Two night later, it's at North Carolina, then at Florida State on March 5.

 Pittsburgh improves to 19-7 (8-6 ACC). A tough week ahead for Pitt which hosts Louisville on Wednesday and Duke on Sunday

 

Syracuse's 1995-96 team. which lost in the NCAA final to Kentucky, was honored at halftime. It was that team, led by John Wallace, that came up with the chant "The 'Cuse is in da house," during its unlikely run to the final.