Syracuse Wins at Louisville for Fifth Victory in Six Games
Syracuse controlled the action from start to finish in a 82-76 win at Louisville Saturday night. With the win, the Orange improved to 20-10 (11-8) on the season. Next up for Syracuse is its regular season finale at Clemson Tuesday night. That game will tip at 7:00 p.m. Eastern and be broadcast on ESPN2.
The game started with both teams trading blows through the first eight minutes or so. The Orange held a four point lead when it went on a quick 7-2 run to gain a bit of separation. Syracuse would maintain that lead throughout the rest of the half, capping it with a fantastic highlight reel play.
With just five seconds left in the half, Syracuse called timeout to draw up a play. The Orange inbounded the ball and Judah Mintz had a running start when the ball was passed to him. He sprinted the length of the court and slammed it home with no defensive resistance to push the lead to 11 entering the locker room.
Louisville, though, would try to make things interesting in the second. The Cardinals trimmed the lead to five with 13 minutes remaining. Syracuse would respond immediately with a Chris Bell three pointer that sparked a 12-0 run over the next three minutes to push the advantage to 17. The Cards had another run in them though, using a 10-0 spurt to cut the lead to seven with a little over three minutes remaining.
Syracuse still appeared to be cruising to victory until a turnover after a stop led to a layup for Louisville and that was followed by a three pointer with 39 seconds left to cut the Orange lead to just four.
Forced to foul, Just Taylor was sent to the line. After going just 1-5 from the charity stripe previously, he sank four of six free throws to seal the deal.
Taylor was one of five Syracuse players in double figures. He scored 11 while Maliq Brown and JJ Starling each added 10. Chris Bell led all scorers with 23 to go along with seven rebounds and three blocks. Judah Mintz added 21 points, five assists and two steals. Brown had a double-double with 10 rebounds to go along with his 10 points. He also had four assists and three steals.
Syracuse shot 58% from the floor overall compared to just 44% for Louisville.
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