Syracuse 107, Buffalo 96: Alan Griffin saves the night as Orange escape in OT

After shooting terribly from the three point line last game against Northeastern, we expected to see the Syracuse Orange bounce back. They were up against Jeenathan Williams and the Buffalo Bulls. Williams, who is the leading scorer for the Bulls, once had Syracuse as his dream school growing up in Rochester, NY. Now that he was up against them, he wanted to use this as an opportunity to show Jim Boeheim that he deserved a spot on his team while trying to get his squad the fourth win.

To start the game, Syracuse hit their first four shots, going 4-4 from the field. They were led by Buddy Boeheim, who scored a quick 8 points.

Things looked like there were going smoothly until the nightmare of the night began. The Orange started building a house with bricks from deep. While they couldn’t hit a three, Jeenathan Williams and Josh Mballa combined for 23 points and they took the lead.

After coming out the second half, Boeheim’s squad came out with more fire but the Bulls responded right back. Mballa continued to torch the Orange and the Orange continued their drought from downtown. It was as if they were playing an away game.

It wasn’t until the Candyman, Quincy Guerrier, took it upon himself to knock down Syracuse’s first three that they began building momentum for a surging comeback. He kept attacking the paint too while Buddy Boeheim started heating up. This was bad news for Buffalo.

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After applying the press and using the momentum they’ve built offensively, Syracuse were forcing more turnovers and those turnovers led to points on the break. Kadary Richmond played a big part in doing that with his presence on the perimeter. It was only a matter of time until Alan Griffin found his shot and made it a three point game with 6:24 left in the second half. The score was 75-72.

Moments later Syracuse tied the game at 78 after a Marek Dolezaj bucket. Just when you thought things couldn’t get worse for the Bulls, they were pressured into using their last timeout with three minutes remaining in the game.

With almost a minute left, Guerrier willed his way to an and one on the break. A couple moments later, the Orange got a stop and then Alan Griffin scored on a putback bucket.

Ronaldo Segu came down right away and hit a three to tie the game at 87. There was 13.4 seconds left in the game and Boeheim drew up a play after calling a timeout.

After inbounding the ball, Syracuse turned over the ball and the Bulls had a fast break attempt to win the game. It was Jayvon Graves who had the ball in his hands to score a layup but out of nowhere it was Alan Griffin with a chasedown block.

Quincy Guerrier recovered the ball near the half-court line and shot the ball but it was off and the game went into overtime.

In the extra period, the Orange dominated. it was Guerrier who put his stamp on the game. He was scoring in the paint and hit a big three in the corner. Griffin was also reliable in overtime getting to his shot and getting to the free throw line. He ended the game with 24 points while Guerrier had 27 points and 11 rebounds.