Syracuse men’s basketball closes regular season with loss to Miami
Cuse men's hoops falls apart down stretch of regular season finale
Despite a 30-point contribution from Buddy Boeheim, the Orange could not hold onto an early lead in their 75-72 loss to Miami. With this loss, Syracuse dips to 15-16 and 9-11 in ACC play.
Syracuse possessed the lead for 36:58 of the game, but a 15-2 run by the Hurricanes allowed them to pull ahead in the closing seconds. This gave Miami its first lead since the opening two minutes.
This loss matches the pattern for Syracuse this season. They were able to get out to a lead early, but they weren’t able to hold it. SU took an 11-point lead into the break, but they were outscored 49-35 in the second half after Miami switched to a full-court press.
“We’re not good against full-court pressure. Not many teams press, but they are a pretty good pressure team,” coach Jim Boeheim said. “Offensively, we scored enough. We stopped them enough. We lost the game because we couldn’t get the ball up the court. It’s embarrassing, and it shouldn’t happen.”
Miami closed the game out with a 10-0 run in the last minute to wipe away Syracuse’s seven-point advantage. At the forefront of this run were Hurricanes Kameron McGusty and Jordan Miller. The two combined for 44 points against the Orange. Six of Miller’s 25 points came in the last 30 seconds, including the putback layup that gave his team the lead with 12 seconds remaining.
One positive that came out of Saturday’s game is that with his 30 points, Buddy captured the ACC men’s basketball scoring title. “One day I will be proud of that, but right now, obviously pretty devastated,” Buddy said. “It’s not bad at all for a kid that was just supposed to be a walk-on.”
The Orange enter the ACC Tournament riding a 4-game losing streak. They will face Florida State at the Barclays Center on Wednesday, March 9.
“We can make a run, definitely. There’s no doubt, but it’s just closing out games,” Buddy said. “We’re a good team. We’re going to go down there with confidence and just go out swinging. We have nothing to lose at this point. This one’s going to hurt for awhile, but we got to flip the switch and get ready for Wednesday.”
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