Duke shut down the Orange to win a tenth straight game over its northern ACC counterpart.
Rich Barnes-Imagn Images
SYRACUSE, N.Y. — The Syracuse Orange men’s basketball failed to solve the Gourdian Knot that is Duke Blue Devils, falling by a final score of 83-54 inside the JMA Wireless Dome on Wednesday night.
The Syracuse defense was diced by a balanced Duke offensive attack, giving up 56.6% shooting from the floor. The Orange (10-13, 4-8) offense ran into a bulwark on the other end, stalling out against the Blue Devils (20-2, 12-0) by shooting 38.3% from the floor and 26.1% from three.
Tyrese Proctor led the way with 16 points while Cooper Flagg finished with 11 points on just seven shots. Jyare Davis and JJ Starling both scored a dozen points for Syracuse while Naheem McLeod scored ten.
Donnie Freeman was once again unavailable for Syracuse with a right foot injury. He was seen in street clothes from the Syracuse bench along with Chance Westry.
Duke and Syracuse both predictably opened in man-to-man defense, with Davis drawing the assignment of Flagg while Lucas Taylor picked up Kon Knueppel. Starling started the offense for the Orange, nailing his first jumpshot from mid-range. He’d then score on a floater to tie the game at four by the first media timeout. Syracuse transfer Maliq Brown was first off the bench for Duke; he was given a warm welcome by Syracuse fans in the form of boos.
Jaquan Carlos was first off the bench for Adrian Autry, replacing Elijah Moore. Duke picked up full court from there as Chris Bell and Petar Majstorovic checked in for Davis and Taylor. McLeod was inserted into the game thereafter and Syracuse went 2-3 zone.
The zone was by and large a failed effort, to put it mildly. Duke’s Isaiah Evans drilled a triple on Syracuse’s first zone possession. Proctor and Sion James both followed suit on the next two plays and buried threes as Duke jumped out to a 20-9 lead. Autry called timeout and went back to man defense. The Orange answered with a three from Bell and a score inside by McLeod. Jon Scheyer countered with a timeout.
From there Duke started to create some separation. Proctor nailed another three as a Syracuse defender went under a ball screen. Then Knueppel was fouled on a three point attempt and made all of them to open up a 28-16 advantage. Kyle Cuffe checked in for Syracuse to round out the rotation.
Duke and Syracuse would trade stops and scores throughout the last stretch of the first half and Scheyer’s club went into the break with a 37-23 lead. Flagg attempted just four first half shots and went into the break with seven points. The Orange had seven first half turnovers to Duke’s one; the Blue Devils owned an 8-0 points off turnovers advantage.
Out of the intermission, Duke extended its lead to 45-27 despite two low-post jumpshots from Davis. Taylor was called for an intentional foul on Brown and Autry turned to McLeod early in the second half. Then Flagg found Brown on a roll as the former Orange player skied for an above-the-rim dunk. Autry called his second timeout of the game in attempt to turn the tide. To no avail, however. It was all Duke the rest of the way.
The Syracuse defense started to collapse from there as Duke diced the man-to-man for open looks at the rim. Brown finished another layup inside off a nifty feed from Sion James, Caleb Foster scored at the rim and Flagg threw down a raucous dunk that opened up a 21 point lead. McLeod had some nice moments on offense in this game. He flushed a dunk with Flagg coming across to help to stop the bleeding. It wasn’t nearly enough to combat Duke’s high powered offense.
The Syracuse starters sat from the mid- to late-second half until Starling was reinserted into the game with around five minutes left. Moore would join him briefly but without serious threatening a chance at a comeback the Syracuse bench closed things out.
With the game out of reach late, Evans got out in transition for Duke, throwing up a lob to Khaman Maluach for a dunk and then throwing down a strong flush that all but put the game to bed. Duke led 77-46 at that point at the last media timeout before inserting its walk-ons late the Blue Devils walked away with its tenth straight victory over the Orange.
Stats
Duke had a 23-7 points off turnovers edge and had 12 steals on the game to the Orange’s four. Duke shot 30-35 from the floor while Syracuse was 23-60. Five Blue Devils scored in double-figures. Brown finished with six points, eight rebounds and three steals in his first game back in the dome since transferring.
