For the first time since November 18, when Syracuse’s starting lineup was announced, its leading per-game scorer on the season was part of it. After coming alive and nearly willing the Orange to victory
in the second half on New Year’s Eve against Clemson, Donnie Freeman played the best game of his Syracuse career on Tuesday.
The sophomore forward scored a career-high 27 points, grabbed nine rebounds, and blocked three shots. He had the final field goal for the Orange, a dunk that essentially closed out the game with a minute and a half to play, and then made the final two free throws to seal it as well. Syracuse walked out of Atlanta as 82-72 winners over Georgia Tech (10-6, 1-2 ACC) after nearly giving away a 20-point lead. The Orange — who were the last team in the country to play their first true road game — improved to 1-0 on the road, 1-1 in the ACC, and 10-5 on the season.
Syracuse started the game with an alley-oop from JJ Starling to William Kyle, setting the tone for the first half of dominance at the rim.
The Orange threw a few more alley-oops in the first half, and also drained five threes. When Kiyan Anthony checked in the game, he made an instant impact, drilling a three to put Syracuse ahead. Anthony continued to score as Syracuse separated itself later in the first half. It was one of his best halves of the season, as he finished with 11 points on 4-8 from the field.
With Anthony going, Syracuse’s offense hummed to the tune of 1.2 points per possession and 44 points, the highest first half total of the season. Additionally, the Orange defense started to assert itself physically around the rim, especially when Georgia Tech junior Baye Ndongo got hurt with four minutes left.
The Yellow Jackets were already playing without five-star freshman big man Mo Sylla for the second consecutive game, and without Ndongo for the last few minutes of the first, Georgia Tech couldn’t match Syracuse, and SU pushed the lead out to 14 at halftime.
But when Ndongo returned to start the second half, he scored a few baskets to reestablish his presence before picking up two quick fouls and going to the bench. In the six minutes that he say, Syracuse went on a monster offensive stretch, scoring 15 points. Freeman was the catalyst, scoring nine points in a row to extend the lead from 11 up to 20, capping it off with a trailer three on the break that forced a Georgia Tech timeout.
Freeman scored the next four points for Syracuse as well, but it was sandwiched between a few Georgia Tech buckets. It felt like the Yellow Jackets couldn’t combine stops with scores on the other end, and couldn’t get a stop following a score. An Akir Souare and-1 summed up the vibes with 12 minutes left, as the Orange led by 18. However, after Tyler Betsey made a corner three to extend the lead back to 18 with 11:29 to play, Syracuse didn’t make another field goal for nearly six minutes.
Who needs to append all stops with scores when you just get stop after stop? Syracuse made just one field goal in the ten minutes after Betsey’s three, allowing Georgia Tech to stage a charge to make it a five-point game with three minutes left.
Anthony was on the bench for much of the second half, Starling shot just 2-10 in the game, and Syracuse’s offense had ground to a halt. Needing a score with under three to play, Syracuse got the ball down low to Freeman, and he drew a foul. He made just one of two, but came down and saved a broken possession with a downhill slam the next trip down the floor to all-but seal it.
The Orange made 74% of their 31 free throw attempts, including going 16-22 in the second half. Mercifully, SU is no longer dead last nationally in free throw percentage, now ranking 360th out of 365. It made its free throws to close out the game, having enough to hold off the push.
Syracuse’s next game is at the Peterson Events Center against a reeling Pittsburgh (7-8, 0-2 ACC) team on Saturday at 2 p.m. It will be on ACC Network.
