SYRACUSE, N.Y. — One could’ve easily forgiven Syracuse Orange head coach Red Autry for wanting to keep the ball away from William Kyle on the team’s final possession of the game against Tennessee. It had
been a winning possession for opponents to put Kyle on the foul line, where he was shooting just 41%. In a tied game and with time on the clock for a real possession for the opponent, Syracuse risked giving Tennessee the final say if Kyle got the ball.
It was no surprise that when J.J. Starling fed a rolling Kyle with 15 seconds left, Tennessee’s Bishop Boswell made sure to foul him. Every Syracuse fan held their breath. None were shocked when the first one clanged off the rim and out.
The second went straight through. Yes, Tennessee’s offense would get a chance at the final say, but Syracuse needed just one stop.
And Syracuse would get that stop. Kyle cut off a driving Ja’Kobi Gillespie at the block, then recovered to the other side of the paint to stonewall Jaylen Carey, and force a short jumper falling away from his leaping grasp. When Sadiq White came down with the rebound, Syracuse was about to secure arguably its biggest win in the Autry era, and Kyle’s two-way play paved the way for it. He scored 10 points, grabbed seven rebounds, and blocked six shots, impacting every aspect of the game for the Orange.
For as nervous as the 19,657 spectators at the JMA Wireless Dome were when Kyle stepped to the line, he didn’t feel anything.
“Nothing (was going through my mind),” he said after the game. “Obviously, it’s a big free throw, but I mean I just got up there. I’m proud of myself, because past times I’ve caught myself just thinking about everything going up to the line. But just going up there, trusting the routine that I do with Coach Dan (Engelstad) every day, taking my dribbles, and just letting it go. Not thinking too much about it, just really happy with the result and the work I put in.”
Free throw shooting is still a concern for the Orange — which shot 13-22 as a team on Tuesday night — but winning the game despite that is a positive sign. And winning it at the line is huge.
Kyle’s presence around the rim helped hold the Volunteers to 44% inside the arc, and has been a huge factor in Syracuse’s 8th-ranked nationally 2-point defense. His six-block performance means that he has now surpassed Eddie Lampkin’s season-long block total from last year in just eight games.
Despite only scoring three field goals, Kyle is the type of player that can shift a game’s momentum with one play on either end. He made two hook shots, and threw down a monster fastbreak transition alley-oop slam in the second half that extended the Orange’s lead to eight points.
That dunk was his 20th of the season, a tally that includes three each against Houston and Kansas. He’s a huge part of the reason why the Orange are already at over 66 percent of last season’s dunk total as a team, with 40 to last year’s 58. The 20 dunks is tied for 9th in the country with Georgia’s Somto Cyril. However, he’s just 5th in the ACC.
No SU player had more than 16 last season.
It’s hard to deny that Kyle has been Syracuse’s most impactful two-way player this season, and Tuesday night proved that.
