There is no other way to put it- Syracuse was out-played for 55 minutes yesterday and didn’t “deserve” to win the game. But, they found a way to steal a win in overtime and move to 1-1 on the season.
As we said during the game, it was hard to see a path to 6 wins without winning that game and Fran Brown’s squad found a way to gut it out in overtime. I’m not going to sit here and pretend that players and coaches were on top of their games, but once again the culture Brown is looking to instill rose
up against adversity and took advantage of their opportunities.
We knew coming into the season that the schedule would be difficult. We warned people that UConn wasn’t going to be an easy game, and for three quarters the Orange kept making things harder on themselves. Four first-half red-zone trips only netted six points. Then, the offense just went from struggling to downright ineptitude. As Christian kept saying in the Slack it felt like the Rutgers game from 2021…right up until the Orange caught a break.
Who knows what that play will mean in late November, but for now it gives the Orange more hope. Maybe it gives them some confidence. Maybe it knocks some weight off their shoulders and let’s them loosen up. We don’t know. Last year we thought the loss to Stanford would be devastating and even though that one and the one at BC were “bad losses”, Syracuse had one of the best seasons in 30 years.
The defense held the door open a crack the entire 2nd half until the offense woke up. Steve Angeli shook off a miserable middle two quarters to make plays and freshman Antoine Deslauriers had the game-saving defensive play while in coverage. Those are things the staff can try to build upon as the season progresses.
Programs aren’t built or turned around in a year. There will be peaks and valleys in the process and what yesterday showed is that if this group buys in to DART and plays like they are capable, they can be successful. We’ll spend some time this week looking at what and didn’t work in this one, but unlike many Orange teams of the past, this one got it done. Winning ugly is certainly better than losing… but let’s not make Friday night’s game so close shall we?
