Indianapolis – The Sweet 16. This is what Syracuse and West Virginia were competing on on a sunny afternoon here at the NCAA Tournament.
SU, the 11th seed, faced the 3rd Mountaineers at Bankers Life Fieldhouse. Orange took a 35-29 lead in the half-time locker room. Final nail biting score: Syracuse 75, West Virginia 72.
For Sweet 16. Bubble Life continues for Orange, which eliminated two teams with higher seeds.
Here’s what happened:
Buddy Boeheim got hot. Stop me if you’ve heard this before. Guard Orange struggled a bit in the first half, but it was money (again) when SU needed it.
He scored 22 points in the second half. Sometimes, he somehow escaped the scrutiny of West Virginia and got open eyes from 3. He also made hard shots with Mountaineers on his face.
He also drained 3 of 4 free throws to help close the deal for SU. Boeheim finished with 25 points in this one. Buddy mythology continues.
Syracuse achieved a 28 to 14 lead in the interval. Orange, once again, mistook a team from the NCAA tournament early on for their zone. The Mountaineers turned him over (11 times in the first half). They missed their kicks (32% at halftime). They just looked a little uncomfortable.
Sean McNeil kept West Virginia at an attack distance by making two incredibly deep 3-point kicks.
The previously robust 14-point lead decreased to 35-29 in the interval. Syracuse was leading, but the advantage seemed tenuous.
The problem for SU came up mainly in the second half, when West Virginia became Orange and capitalized on those turns. West Virginia surpassed the SU 21-4 in points of losses. One of those turns happened in the final minute, when Marek Dolezaj made a wrong pass.
Joe Girard was very good in the first half. He scored 12 points at the break and drained 4 of 6 from the 3-point line. He seemed confident in handling the ball against Deuce McBride’s constant pressure. And he helped make up for a difficult start for Buddy Boeheim (1-to-6), who was so magnificent in the postseason. (West Virginia has properly perceived and protected him.)
As West Virginia was pushing hard, Orange in general and Girard in particular broke free to find other teammates. SU moved the ball well, looked well against the Mountaineers. But at the end of the semester, relatively easy shots did not happen for Syracuse.
Later, in the second half, when SU needed defensive stops, he went to Kadary Richmond. Richmond was also solid with the ball. Against all pressure from the Mountaineers, he slipped away from the double teams and found free space on the floor.
The Mountaineers put Girard on the free-throw line with 12.4 seconds left. He missed the front end of a 1 and 1 that could have frozen the game and SU fans were stunned.
Syracuse encountered problems in the first half. West Virginia does this with the teams. Marek Dolezaj took three fouls in the first half, the last in the seconds before the break. (One of those fouls was basically an intentional bump to avoid a counterattack, which probably seemed like a good idea at the time.) Quincy Guerrier and Alan Griffin both committed two fouls in the first half.
It got worse in the second half. Dolezaj increased his fourth goal about 15 minutes from the end of the game when he drove and a West Virginia defender camped out on the track to draw. About two and a half minutes later, Dolezaj’s replacement, Jesse Edwards, suffered the fourth foul.
Then Dolezaj came back in. With many minutes left. And he somehow managed to stay in the game until the final bell rang.
Sean McNeil was a problem. The West Virginia guard found open spots in the orange zone and made 3-point shots. Some of them were ridiculously deep. But some were options for catching and shooting, derived from the smooth movement of the Mountaineers’ ball.
He was Buddy Boeheim’s version in West Virginia and really hurt SU with his aim. McNeil finished with 23 points. He had 7 of 13 from the 3-point line.
This and that: Bankers Life is the home of the Indiana Pacers and has a distinctive corporate touch. There are luxurious ostentatious boxes, many wooden panels on the upper levels. It is not as collegial as Hinkle Fieldhouse, where SU defeated San Diego State on Friday night. And because of the size of the arena and the small size of the socially distant crowd, each scream seemed muffled. … This was a difficult physical game. Not for the weak or weak at heart. … Robert Braswell played significant minutes for SU and drained a corner 3 that put SU ahead by 68-59 and allowed all Syracuse fans in the gym to expire (more or less). … West Virginia dominated the glass and was the best team to recover on Sunday. It was a problem throughout the season for Syracuse, although Orange has been doing better in that department lately. … SU was less than great at the end of the game. Orange struggled to get the ball and left all Syracuse fans (and the entire SU bank) a little nervous until the final bell rang.
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