Three takeaways from Syracuse basketball’s win over Wake Forest

The Syracuse Orange men’s basketball team got back in the win column Saturday night, taking down the Wake Forest Demon Deacons by a final score of 75-73 inside the Carrier Dome. A game-winning put-back with 1.5 seconds remaining by Brycen Goodine allowed the Orange to escape with the win on Saturday.

Syracuse now moves to 14-9 on the season and 7-5 in the conference.

The Orange had three front-court players foul out and were out-rebounded 44-34. Wake Forest’s Olivier Sarr was the only Demon Deacon player to foul out. Syracuse shot 7-21 from deep while Wake shot 6-27 from distance.

Buddy Boeheim and Elijah Hughes scored 23 and 20 points for Syracuse, respectively.

Mark Konezny-USA TODAY Sports

Front court foul trouble

The Syracuse front court got into a bit of first half foul trouble, as Marek Dolezaj picked up two quick ones while Quincy Guerrier and Bourama Sidibe were whistled for three each.

Guerrier provided a big lift off the bench by scoring 10 points and grabbing 3 offensive rebounds in the first, but he would’ve put himself in position for more had he not picked up a third foul.

In the second half, all three of them fouled out. Dolezaj was the last of the front-court players to foul out as he was disqualified on a technical. That meant Buddy Boeheim was forced to play forward in the zone and important minutes down the stretch for freshmen Jesse Edwards and Brycen Goodine.

Speaking of...

Mask on, mask off

How about Brycen Goodine? The freshman guard did not play in the Duke or Clemson losses last week. He only earned playing time against Wake when the Syracuse bigs fouled out.

Goodine did not even record a statistic outside of a foul until the last play of the contest. So we knew there was no way he’d have the game-winning put-back. Right?

Wrong.

That’s a masked man, folks.

Huge credit to Edwards fighting for position on the Hughes miss. His tap to Goodine allowed the bucket and kudos to Goodine for being in the right place in the right time.

Good for Goodine. That’s a moment he’ll remember for the rest of his life.

March Madness hopes alive... for now

Syracuse came into the night as the No. 66 team in the NET. The Orange moved up two spots in NET. A win over Wake Forest at home qualified as a quadrant three victory. That doesn’t move the needle as far as building an NCAA Tournament résumé goes, however, it does allow Syracuse to avoid a bad loss at home.

The Orange are outside of the bubble as it stands now, but a loss to Wake, barring an ACC Tournament run, would’ve required a near flawless finish to the season. The win means Syracuse is still devoid of a “bad loss” on the season, at least as far as the NET is concerned.

Syracuse’s record by quadrants (by NET) is broken down below:

Q1: 3-4
Q2: 1-5
Q3: 4-0
Q4: 6-0

Syracuse remains in the hunt for an NCAA Tournament bid, but the Orange still have a lot of ground to make up. SU will need a marquee victory or two down the stretch to make the field of 68.

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