Syracuse men’s basketball: Orange struggle down the stretch and lose 90-74 to Florida State

0-3 in the ACC

The Syracuse Orange (6-8, 0-3) dropped a 90-74 decision to the Florida State Seminoles (10-4, 1-2) in Tallahassee tonight.

The game marked the return of JJ Starling to the Orange line-up. He was joined by Lucas Taylor who took Chris Bell’s spot in the starting five. Starling knocked down his first two shots and his return helped Syracuse get off to a better start on the road, but JJ struggled the rest of the way going 5-16 in his first game in over a month.

Turnovers were still a story in the first half as the Orange were careless with the ball and let the Seminoles get out in transition. Syracuse’s bench gave them a lift and three free throws from Chris Bell gave the Orange their first lead of the game at 21-19. Bell followed that up with his first 3 in almost a month and the game stayed close through the end of the half.

The first half was a game of runs as Florida State held leads of 6 and 5 but the Orange were able to fight back thanks to some solid spurts of their own.

Florida State took a 36-34 lead into the break after a Daquan Davis 3. The Orange enjoyed a 21-17 advantage on the glass, which helped offset the 7 turnovers. Petar Majstorovic brought energy and activity as he grabbed 5 rebounds in his 9 minutes. Starling ended the half with 7 points on just 3-10 from the field with Bell and Donnie Freeman chipping in 6.

It was another one of those runs to start the second half as Florida State hit their first three shots and extended to a 46-39 lead at the first media timeout. The Orange couldn’t get going on offense. until a Kyle Cuffe 3 and then a drive and 1 made it 50-45.

The Noles kept threatening to pull away but Cuffe and Chris Bell kept the Orange alive until once again turnovers, poor shot selection and lazy defense let FSU go on a 10-2 run to push it to a 68-55 lead.

Bell and Freeman kept Syracuse in range but the Orange kept fouling Florida State and allowed the Noles to extend to 76-66 just over four minutes to play. The Seminoles defense controlled down the stretch and the Orange kept watching the lead grow over the final stretch.

Chris Bell and led the Orange with 18 points, hitting four three-pointers. Donnie Freeman added 16 points and 10 rebounds to get another double-double. Starling (12), Taylor (10) and Cuffe (10) all finished in double-digits. Syracuse knocked down 10 of 15 from deep in this game but they didn’t get much going inside the arc in the 2nd half as they were only 5-12.

Daquan Davis led Florida State with 18 points. Jamir Watkins added 16 and did most of his damage from the foul line as Syracuse did a good job on him, but not on the Seminoles frontcourt.

The Orange will return home to face Georgia Tech on Tuesday night at 7:00.