What Adrian Autry said after Syracuse's 81-73 OT loss to Boston College

After winning its first two ACC road games at Georgia Tech and Pittsburgh, and with a little more momentum from taking care of business in the home win over Florida State, this past week, the Orange upon the first talk of perhaps slowly inching towards, gulp, the NCAA Tournament bubble, fell flat late and in OT to a winless BC team that wanted the game more when it mattered.

The NCAA talk is done for now, the fan base's discontent with Adrian Autry is back cooking on the burner at high flame, and with two home games coming up against quality ACC teams, it is yet another crossroads point for an SU team(12-6, 3-2) that has yet to find the right footing after five league contests.

The one bright spot for the Orange Saturday was forward Nate Kingz, who finished with a career-high 27-points and six rebounds.

Autry admits the winless-in-conference Eagles were the tougher team with the game on the line

This was simply a "no excuses" loss. Syracuse led by five at halftime, but Boston College out-scored the Orange by six in the second half, including the long, tying three-pointer by the Eagles Donald Hand Jr. with seven seconds left to force the extra session. SU had a shot to win, but seemingly did not have a set play for a potential winning shot.

Overtime was all BC, outscoring the 'Cuse 17-9, the dagger being an alley-oop dunk with 2:43 left for a four-point lead and the game was essentially over. Syracuse's 18 turnovers (seven apiece for both Naithan George and Donnie Freeman) did the Orange in, with BC scoring 22 points off those miscues.

"They won the margins, they got the loose balls, they got the extra shots," a glum Autry said afterwards. "They fought harder than us, which I don't like to say that, but that's just the facts."

"Our attention to detail was not there," Autry continued. "There's going to be close games like this all year, and we have to be able to come through and get those done (wins), but we didn't come through tonight."

Syracuse was NET Ranked #63 entering Saturday's game against a BC team NET Ranked #182

If you thought the home loss to Hofstra was bad, this road loss in conference play to the Eagles was worse, in terms of Quad 1-2 wins/losses on the team's resume, come any sort of eventual consideration for the tournament at this point in mid-January.

Autry says he's frustrated losing a game like BC, one he does not think his team should lose, but thinks more about simply trying to win every game with a slim margin of error.

"I know everyone is caught up in Quad 1, Quad 2, I'm caught up in wins and losses and how my team is playing and how we get better," Autry said when asked about the analytics of losing to the league's last place team (entering play).

"Today we allowed (BC) to get back in the game, and to finish the game. We didn't do what we were supposed to do and it's very frustrating to lose any game, whatever (Quad) it is."

Up next is a home game Wednesday at 9:00 p.m. vs. Virginia Tech which may be sparsely attended

One of the most alarming factors of how far the program has fallen in this four year streak of missing the NCAA Tournament, is the decline in home attendance, most notably last season and so far this year, which is just as alarming to the university's coffers with a loss of home ticket revenue.

While there may be a smaller size crowd on hand Wednesday, Autry sees the game as the first of many opportunities left on the schedule for the team to back up his words on the court.

"There's a lot of season left, and we have a lot of great opportunities ahead of us," Autry maintained. "At the end of the season, the only way you can try and do what you want to do (make the NCAA's) is win games. This year we're fortunate our conference is strong, so we have a chance to go out and win (quality) games."

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