The Syracuse Orange basketball team looked as if it had finally found a rhythm early in the second half against St. John’s on Wednesday night.
SU (7-5) had been trailing the Red Storm since the 11-minute mark of the opening period and was struggling on both ends of the floor. But, the Orange cut its deficit to just 10 in the eight minutes following halftime and seemed poised for a run.
Then, with 12 minutes remaining, Red Storm guard Malik Ellison [9] caught the ball just behind the 3-point line and pump-faked, sending an Orange defender flying past him. He proceeded to take one dribble, square his shoulders and nail a 3-pointer to put St. John’s up, 59-46. The game would never be that close again
From there, St. John’s pulled away from the Orange and turned the match-up into a rout. The Red Storm’s lead ballooned to 37 with just over two minutes remaining and St. John’s cruised to a 93-60 victory.
“I have to coach better and we have to play a lot better,” SU head coach Jim Boeheim [10] said. “We have a lot of games left, a lot of difficult games left. The way we are playing right now, we cannot win a lot of those games.”
For the second straight year, St. John’s picked apart SU’s signature 2-3 zone. The Red Storm moved the ball across the perimeter and also found holes on the inside, resulting in easy looks all game long.
The Red Storm nailed 12 3-pointers—led by four from freshman Shamorie Ponds [11]and three from Ellison—and shot 53.1 percent from the field in the contest. Ponds finished with a game-high 21 points for the Red Storm, while Ellison added 16.
St. John’s also made 12 3-pointers in its 84-72 victory over the Orange at Madison Square Garden a season ago.
“We did not execute on defense,” Boeheim said. “We thought we knew what they were going to do. We didn’t do what we wanted to do on defense.”
One game after scoring a season-high 105 points in a victory over Eastern Michigan, the Orange struggled offensively. Syracuse shot just 32.8 percent from the floor and a season low 16.7 percent from 3-point range, hitting just 4 of its 24 shots from behind the arc.
“We thought we could get stuff inside and we just weren’t good enough in there,” Boeheim said.
After leaving in the first half against Eastern Michigan with a leg injury, Tyler Lydon [12] returned and led the Orange with 16 points and 10 rebounds, his sixth career double-double.
But, Syracuse’s leading scorer, Andrew White III [13]—who entered the game averaging 16.2 points per contest—shot just one of six from the field and finished with two points. White reached double-figures in every other SU game so far this season.
“It is up to us to go out and get the win,” White said about the team’s performance. “You have to be determined, you have to play hard, you have to do things to put yourself in the position to win.”
Syracuse has now lost five of its last eight and combined to go 0-5 against teams from the AAC, Big East, Big 10 and SEC in the non-conference portion of its schedule.
“Up is the only way we can go,” said SU guard Frank Howard [14] who finished with four points on two-of-nine shooting. “I don’t think you get any worse than this. I feel like we have this conversation a lot, about what we have to do. We are going to figure it out. That’s all I can say”
The Orange will conclude its non-conference schedule [15] on Tuesday against Cornell. Tip-off is scheduled for 7 p.m. at the Carrier Dome.
