Syracuse men’s basketball: Orange hold on for 91-83 win over Northeastern

Since defeating Tennessee, the Syracuse Orange (8-4) men’s basketball team has struggled to play a complete game. On Saturday afternoon, the offense looked better, but the defense was unable to contain the Northeastern Huskies who kept fighing back from double-digit deficits. A stronger performance from the foul line helped the Orange to the win, but it’s not going to impress the metrics or the skeptics.

Syracuse was once again without Donnie Freeman, who is expected to make his return for the ACC opener against Clemson. Freeman was participating in pre-game warm-ups with the team, so there is reason to believe that the Orange will get their top scorer back for conference play.

Let’s start with the good with this game. Naithan George found his game again as he led the Orange with 22 points, 6 rebounds and 6 assists on the afternoon. It was the type of game that the Orange haven’t seen from George in weeks and his 12-14 free throw shooting was critical down the stretch. William Kyle had 14 points and 8 rebounds while Kiyan Anthony (18) and Tyler Betsey (14) combined for 32 points off the bench.

The Orange started slow and found themselves down 14-9 after 8 minutes of play, but a 14-2 run pushed them in front at the next television timeout. Syracuse’s offense was awake and looked like they could finally pull away from a lesser opponent. Yet, the Orange didn’t get that separation even though they ended the half up 41-31.

After the half, it was another stretch where Syracuse could not get the stops to pull away. Northeastern hung around for a bit, then Syracuse pushed out to a 65-50 lead and finally we thought maybe this would be the 20-point win to make fans feel a little better. Instead, a 10-2 run by the Huskies got fans right back to sweating out another game that shouldn’t have been this close.

Over the final minutes, Syracuse hit enough free throws- 21-34 in the 2nd half to keep from a complete collapse and once again Kyle’s defense made a difference. With the Orange holding a 79-73 lead, Kyle got two blocks on the same possession and Syracuse avoided a disaster.

Unlike previous games, this one fell on the defense. Northeastern was 1-7 from 3 in the first half, but they caught fire in the 2nd half hitting 7-13 from beyond the arc. The Huskies were led by Ryan Williams 20 points in just 24 minutes.

Syracuse did win the rebounding battle 38-33, but shot just 3-12 from 3 and only had 8 assists as a team. After the game, Adrian Autry expressed disappointment with his inability to get the team to lock in on the gameplan.

The Orange are back in action on Monday night when they host the Stonehill Skyhawks (3-9). Tip is 7:00 from the JMA Dome.