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WASHINGTON — Down one point with five minutes left, Syracuse needed to find a bucket to retake the lead against Georgetown. The Orange turned to their leading scorer, Buddy Boeheim, to try and score. As the guard gathered the ball on the wing, two Georgetown defenders initiated a double team.

Behind the double team, Jimmy Boeheim made a backdoor cut and raised his hands, calling for the pass. Buddy passed the ball over the defense to Jimmy, who flew up through contact for a contested layup. But as Jimmy came back down to the floor, the ball didn’t. It was lodged in the narrow space between the rim and the backboard, stuck, with no chance of going in.

“I felt like it might’ve been a foul, but it’s a tough game. You can’t rely on that,” Jimmy said. “I got to make a better play and finish that at the end of the day.”

Jimmy’s shot was representative of Syracuse’s (5-5, 1-0 Atlantic Coast) shooting woes in the second half on Saturday, as the Orange couldn’t make the tough shots Georgetown (5-4) drained during the latter stages of the 79-75 loss. The defeat dropped Syracuse to five nonconference losses for only the second time in program history, the last time occurring in 2016-17 when SU missed out on the NCAA Tournament.

“I think the game swung a little bit (at the) start of the second half,” head coach Jim Boeheim said. “We’ve got to be more efficient on offense. First half, we were. Second half, we weren’t.”

Syracuse entered halftime with a 10-point lead, shooting 41.7% from 3 and 17-for-32 overall from the floor. Joe Girard III led the team with 13 points and four assists and was 100% from the free-throw line.

But out of halftime, the Hoyas began to slowly chip away at Syracuse’s lead. The Orange started off with two offensive turnovers on their first two possessions. The Hoyas capitalized with a 3 after the first turnover but missed the ensuing layup after the second.

Buddy tried to reply with a 3 after the miss. As his shot traveled through the air, it went over the rim and fell to the ground for his second air ball of the game. Georgetown made its layup on the other end, and within two minutes, SU’s lead was cut in half.

“(I) wasn’t waiting for the best shot and just kind of rushed it,” Buddy said.

Still, the Orange managed to hold on to a small lead for the first six minutes of the second half. Up by two, Jimmy tried to make it a two-possession game but turned the ball over with an offensive foul. Aminu Mohammed drew a foul on the next possession and drained two free throws to tie the game.

Frank Anselem had a strong performance off the bench against Georgetown. Syracuse University Athletic Communications 

After Mohammed’s shots, Girard tried to regain the lead. But as Girard and the Orange shuffled the ball around the offense, seconds began to slowly bleed off the shot clock. Eventually, Girard found himself with the ball deep on the right wing with no time left to shoot. He jumped in the air, but when his defender jumped too, Girard had to double-clutch and heave a shot in the general direction of the basket. It landed nowhere near the rim and fell harmlessly to a Georgetown player in the paint.

“Our offense really hurt us in the second half,” Boeheim said. “The whole second half. We have to score. We’re not stopping people really.”

Still, the two teams traded buckets back and forth, the lead never growing to more than six for either team. In the final 11:33, Georgetown shot 8-for-12, while the Orange shot 9-for-23, including a three-minute stretch of six straight misses.

Despite the poor shooting, Syracuse was down just two when Cole Swider fouled Donald Carey as the Orange pressed for a turnover. Carey was awarded a one-and-one and drained both free throws to make it a two-possession game with 16 seconds left.

Girard grabbed the inbounds pass and sprinted up the court. Jesse Edwards set a high screen, and Girard flew by into the lane. The guard rose for the layup, and as his contested shot rolled into the rim, the referee blew his whistle and awarded Girard a free throw and a lifeline to cut the Hoyas’ lead to just one.

Entering today’s game, Girard had missed just two free throws all season. Girard practiced his form as the referee bounced him the ball. The noise in Capital One Arena rose as Girard brought the ball up and hit its crescendo when the ball clanged off the rim and dropped into the hands of the Hoyas.

“I just don’t think we’re capable right now of playing the way we have to,” Boeheim said. “Even if we would’ve won, it wouldn’t matter. We’re not playing good enough basketball right now.”

Published on December 11, 2021 at 2:27 pm

Contact Gaurav: gshetty@syr.edu