Once again the Orange give away a game with sloppy play
The Syracuse Orange (11-14, 5-9) let the Miami Hurricanes (6-18, 2-11) control the majority of the game last night and pull away for a 91-84 win for the U. It was a game that Syracuse needed to win and they simply gave it away. Let’s get to the takeaways….
Defense didn’t travel
Miami shot 55% from the field, 50% from 3 and most of those shots were wide open. Syracuse let Matthew Cleveland dominate this game and constantly let him drive to his right and get to the rim. After the Orange took a 61-58 lead with 10 minutes to go, Miami went 4-4 from beyond the arc with everything clean and in a key possession, both JJ Starling and Lucas Taylor stayed away as Eddie Lampkin was matched on Matthew Cleveland 20 feet from the rim….you can guess how that turned out.
Point Center Eddie Lampkin
After logging nearly 50 minutes on Saturday, Lampkin came back and was Syracuse’s best player last night. He had 22 points on 8-12 shooting (6-6 from the line), 13 rebounds and 6 assists with 0 turnovers. Lampkin was more patient in the post as he took what Miami gave him and then passed to open shooters when they sent a double-team
10th double-double of the year ✔️
Eddie Lampkin led the Orange with 22 points and 13 rebounds for his tenth double-double of the season while adding six assists@Cuse_MBB | @Cuse | #GoOrange | @crushsoda pic.twitter.com/9hPjRP5WM3
— ACC Digital Network (@theACCDN) February 12, 2025
Miami collapsed on him in the second half and the Orange didn’t take advantage as they went side to side and struggled to get the ball inside. After scoring with 9:26 to go to give Syracuse a 61-58 advantage, Lampkin got two shot attempts in the next 7 minutes as Miami raced out to a 78-71 lead…..which leads us to the final takeaway
A bad time to relapse
Miami’s shooting had kept Syracuse chasing the game from the early minutes, but the Orange finally locked in on both ends and had that 61-58 lead. The Canes called timeout and it looked like Syracuse was poised to take control.
Here’s what happened out of that timeout:
Miami got a 3 to tie.
Carlos drove behind a nice screen from Lampkin and passed on a reverse layup to feed an open Starling who missed the corner 3.
Lampkin got whistled for a foul that didn’t appear to be much of anything and Jalil Bethea hit two free throws.
Starling forced a shot and missed.
Miami turned it over
Petar Majstorovic tried to feed an open Chris Bell and throw it to Torrey Ball in the 4th row instead.
Then came a tv timeout and Miami never let the Orange closer than three the rest of the way.
While Miami did a good job of denying Lampkin, Syracuse lost focus and patience on offense and gave the Canes the opening to get control again.
As we’ve seen time and time this season, one poor stretch is enough to doom this group and they will have less margin for error if they want to make the ACC Tournament.