Syracuse Blown Out at Virginia Tech
Syracuse came into Saturday night's game at Virginia Tech needing a big quad one win to keep its slim NCAA Tournament hopes alive. Instead, the Orange was dominated from start to finish in a 85-70 loss to the Hokies. With the loss, Syracuse falls to 13-9 (6-5) on the season. It does not get any easier as next up is a Big Monday matchup against Virginia in the Dome Monday night.
Syracuse made a change to the starting lineup, inserting Maliq Brown in place of Benny Williams, and it did help prevent another slow start. Syracuse has routinely fallen behind by double digits in the early going, but was down just 10-9 in this one. That is when things took a turn.
Virginia Tech made nine of its last 10 three pointers in the first half with crisp ball movement that resulted in wide open looks. That combined with Grant Basile and Justyn Mutts carving up the zone inside allowed the Hokies to pull away. For the game, the Hokies had 26 assists on 32 made baskets.
Virginia Tech shots 62.5% from the field in the first half and 55% from three point range to take a 52-33 lead into halftime. The Orange would not seriously threaten in the second half. The lead did get trimmed to 12 once as the press helped force a couple of turnovers and speed up Virginia Tech. The lead was too much to overcome, however.
On top of the Hokies hot shooting, the defense on Joe Girard was also extremely impressive. Girard had just two points and did not make a field goal in the first half while only attempting two shots. He finished with just seven points.
Judah Mintz led Syracuse with 21 points and eight assists. Jesse Edwards was in foul trouble all night and played only 24 minutes. He had nine points, five rebounds and three steals. Justin Taylor scored 12 points off the bench on four made three pointers. Brown had 11 points, six rebounds and two blocks in his first career start.
Basile led Virginia Tech with 24 points, eight rebounds and five assists. Mutts had a fantastic all around game with 11 points, 12 rebounds and eight assists. Hunter Cattoor scored 20 points including six made threes and dished out eight assists of his own.
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