An 11 p.m. start on a Wednesday night on the East Coast is absolutely criminal, and Syracuse men’s basketball, just like the rest of us, were asleep to start the game. SU found some form later on, but not enough to take down Stanford, falling to the Cardinal 70-61 out in Palo Alto. Let’s dive into it.
Start To The Game – F-
I mean, you have to be kidding me, right? It took SEVEN MINUTES AND THIRTY SECONDS for Syracuse to score its first points of the game. Yeah, you read that right, over seven minutes. By the time the ‘Cuse got on the board, it was already 17-0 Stanford. A performance like that to start a game is absolutely embarrassing, and Coach Autry should be ashamed of himself for not preparing his team for a late-night matchup. It’s been somewhat of a common theme, but this is the worst we’ve seen it.
Bench Scoring – B
A rare positive from what has been a horrid season for SU men’s hoops has been the impact from the bench. In this game in particular, Jaquan Carlos had a team-high 16 points for the Orange, and the rest of the unit combined for 32 of the team’s 61. I’ve said this season that no Starling means no success, and I stand by that, but it’s nice to see that other guys can pick up the slack to keep games close. SU had no business staying in this game, but the bench unit gave them a chance to do so.
Defense – C-
I don’t think there was too much Syracuse could do on the defensive end when it came to stopping Maxime Raynaud. The ACC’s leading scorer finished with 21 points and 15 boards, but that’s not even the issue. SU continues to be extremely lazy in getting around screens, allowing for teams to shoot at will from behind the arc. At some point, we all just have to accept that this is a bad basketball team.
