If you have a strange sense of deja vu every time you watch Syracuse men’s basketball, you’re not alone. Because every single Syracuse game seems to follow a single script.
The start? Very slow. Fall behind early.
The rest of the first half? A slow climb back to contention. Donnie Freeman finds his shot. And Syracuse enters the halftime break seemingly with a chance to pull off a win.
But then in the next 20 minutes, it all comes crumbling down. Blown defense, missed shots, and more.
Syracuse’s very apparent second-half problems were on full display last night as SU suffered its worst loss yet of ACC play – an 88-68 quad one loss to NC State. According to some bracketologists, that’s the dagger – Syracuse no longer has a chance for an at-large bid.
The whole problem? SU fell apart in the second half. Again. The Orange went into the break down just four and treaded water to start the second. But then the energy shifted. NC State played with a bolt of energy, jumped out to a double-digit lead, and Syracuse looked chaotic the rest of the way. The end result? Syracuse was outscored by 16 points in the second half en route to a blowout loss.
Safe to put – it’s not a winning strategy. In SU’s eight conference clashes this year, the Orange have “won” the second half only once. Even in the ACC games that SU did win, like Pittsburgh and Florida State, the Orange allowed late runs that made the games a heck of a lot closer than they needed to be.
There are many fixes that need to be made for Syracuse to return to a prominent status in the college basketball world. But for starters, you have to play all 40 minutes.
