Three takeaways from Syracuse’s 63-55 OT win at No. 18 Virginia

CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va. — The Syracuse Orange men’s basketball team picked up its biggest win of the 2019-20 season on Saturday, a 63-55 overtime victory at No. 18 Virginia.

Both teams struggle to shoot the ball throughout the contest, but once the ball was tipped in extra time, Syracuse couldn’t miss from deep. That was the edge the Orange needed to earn the victory.

See that, and other takeaways below.

Late 3s

If not for extra time, Syracuse would’ve finished shooting just under 30 percent from three-point land (7-24) against Virginia. The Cavaliers make it tough defensively on opponents with its pack-line defense; Virginia has the No. 1 adjusted defense in KenPom. Coming into the night, Virginia held opponents to 26.7 percent shooting from distance.

But Syracuse was able to find success in extra time by going 5-6 from deep (with a little help from a banked in bomb from Buddy Boeheim at the end of the shot clock). Tony Bennett said Syracuse got those looks in transition and due to his team having their hands down.

The hot overtime shooting gave the Orange finished 12-30 (40 percent) from distance.

Pack it in against UVA

Usually its Virginia packing things in on the defensive end, but Syracuse came into the night focused on Mamadi Diakite and Jay Huff down low. As such, the Orange placed extra attention on the two bigs and allowed a 27 percent shooting Virginia team to get looks from the perimeter.

Following the game Syracuse coach Jim Boeheim said they battled down low and that was the difference in the game. Bourama Sidibe had 9 rebounds and fouled out. Marek Dolezaj had 11 rebounds and 4 fouls. Elijah Hughes stepped up big on the glass with 9 rebounds himself.

When asked if the Orange were trying to pack it in, Hughes said they were concerned with Diakite and Huff.

“They’ve got those two twin towers down there, Jay Huff and Mamadi,” Hughes said in the post-game locker room. “We tried to keep it away from them as much as possible and they still got some open dunks and put-backs.”

Huff and Diakite combined for 29 points and 18 rebounds and 8 fouls themselves. It was a battle down low on Saturday, but the Syracuse guys held their own.

In total, the Cavaliers only had a slight edge in the rebounding battle 47-44.

Boeheim’s jacket

Kevin is our resident Jim Boeheim Jacket Toss Tracker, but we’ve reached new ground on the Boeheim jacket front.

What kind of Boeheim inception do we have here? If you zoom in, you’ll notice the squares on the inside of Boeheim’s jacket are photos of him ripping off his jacket inside Cameron Indoor Stadium. That was the 2014 game at Duke where Tony Green whistled CJ Fair for a charge in the game’s final moments. Boeheim was T’d up and tossed from the game.

Great to see Boeheim with a sense of humor over this whole thing.

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