The Syracuse Orange are now 8-4 with the final non-conference game approaching, but it hasn’t been totally pretty.
The Orange defeated Northeastern by eight points at home on Saturday, but against an opponent
that ranks sub-200 in the NET, certainly fans were expecting a more promising result coming off a not-so-convincing win the game prior against Mercyhurst.
Here are three takeaways from Syracuse’s penultimate non-con contest:
Offense improves, but defense regresses
Starting off with a positive, Syracuse’s offense did produce. Five players reached double-figures, led by a 22-point and six-assist performance from Naithan George. Kiyan Anthony (18 points on 5.6 shooting) and Tyler Betsey (14 points on 4/6 shooting) combined for all 32 of the Orange’s bench points. Nate Kingz and William Kyle each had 14, while J.J. Starling chipped in nine en route to a game where Syracuse scored its most total points all year.
That said, where the scoring took a step forward, its ability to stop the opponent from putting the ball in the basket took one backwards.
Northeastern had its way for essentially the entire game, shooting just under 47% in the first half and almost 50% in the second half. For a second-straight game, the Orange were outscored by two points coming out of halftime, this time giving up 52 points to the Huskies in the game’s final 20 minutes.
For Northeastern, that included efficient performances from Ryan Williams (team-high 20 points on 8/10 shooting), Xander Alarie (19 points on 5/13 shooting) and Youri Fritz (17 points on 7/12 shooting). And, it’s not like the Huskies totally shot the lights out from three, making just eight of its 23 perimeter looks.
Consistency from start to finish and on both sides of the ball will determine just how successful Syracuse can be against the ACC.
Not dominating at the fundamental strengths
Outside “Level 5 energy,” there’s been consistent goals for the Orange on the court: get out in transition, win the turnover battle and general plus consistent defensive intensity. Against Northeastern, it was another game where ‘Cuse either didn’t do all three or won those battles by a razor-thin margin.
In the Huskies game, the Orange had 15 points off turnovers, compared to 11 for Northeastern. Syracuse forced 13 turnovers but gave the ball up 11 times. Northeastern had 19 fast break points and 12 second-chance points. Northeastern won both those categories with 21 and 16, respectively.
Syracuse can maybe afford to lose of of those key stats, but all of them can’t be within 2-5 points.
Hip-hip hooray for free throws
There’s one early-season “crisis” that appears to at least be falling back down to earth.
Syracuse not only shot 48 times from the foul line against Northeastern, its first time getting north of 40 attempts all year, but it made 34 of them. That’s almost a 71% success rate on the freebies.
George scored more than half his points on free throws, converting 12 of his 14. Anthony (8/12) and Betsey (5/6) also made the most of their looks. The trio were the only players with more than two attempts, but again, a promising trend that can hopefully keep up during conference play.
