It was a game Syracuse men’s basketball will want back.
The Orange suffered a frustrating 85-69 defeat to the Florida State Seminoles on Tuesday night at the JMA Wireless Dome. Even though the visitors came in with wins in five of their last six games, it was Orange who beat itself in this one.
Syracuse (13-6, 4-4 in the ACC) shot just 1-of-14 from three, committed 16 turnovers, missed a string of free throws in the early going, and scored just nine points in the final eight-and-a-half minutes of the game.
It marked the first home loss of the season for the Orange and the program’s first loss against a non-Quadrant 1 opponent.
“They wore us down,” Syracuse head coach Adrian Autry said. “They outplayed us once they got the lead. They made shots and we picked the worst time not to make anything. We couldn’t make free throws, 3-point shots, but the biggest thing was we that we stopped defending.”
Florida State (12-7, 6-2 in the ACC) entered the game ranked 92 in the NCAA’s NET evaluation tool, meaning this will go on the books as a Quadrant 3 loss for Syracuse—something that could be potentially damaging when the NCAA Tournament comes around.
The defeat also continues a trend of lopsided margins of defeat for the Orange. Syracuse’s six losses have come by more than 16 points.
Syracuse led by as much as seven in the second half, but the Seminoles converted on back-to-back alley-oops to grab a 57-54 lead and force an SU timeout with 10 minutes remaining. FSU extended its lead to 67-60 with 7:20 remaining after Jamir Watkins hit a pair from the foul line.
Instead of a rally, a string of turnovers gifted the visitors more easy buckets. A dunk from Cameron Cohren and a putback layup from Jalen Warley put FSU up 76-62 with five minutes remaining and left the Orange with too tall a task with too little time on the clock.
“Once we had a couple of empty possessions, we started letting it affect our defense,” Autry said. “We may be able to get away with it in a zone, but you can’t get away from it in man-to-man.”
Judah Mintz shouldered the scoring burden for the Orange. He finished with a game-high 28 points on a 9-for-14 shooting performance and went 10-for-15 from the foul line.
J.J. Starling was the only other SU player in double-figures with 10 points.
“When shots aren’t falling, it kind of drains you a little bit,” Starling said. “Especially when they’re scoring and you’re not. We have to work on having that next possession mentality and not letting our offense dictate how well we play defense.”
Syracuse shot 44 percent from the field. Syracuse’s 16 giveaways came against just seven assists. The Orange went 22-for-33 from the free-throw line on the evening.
Jamir Watkins had 27 points and 11 rebounds for the Seminoles. Autry credited FSU’s 10-man rotation and intense defense as factors that wore the Orange down.
The Seminoles ended the game on a 31-18 run that spanned the final 13 minutes.
Despite shooting 1-of-9 from 3-point range and 11-of-19 from the free-throw line, Syracuse erased an early deficit thanks to some poor offensive execution from the Seminoles.
A putback from Maliq Brown tied the game at 26 with 4:05 left in the half, and Starling managed to knock down a pair of foul shots just before the first-half buzzer to send the Orange to the locker room with a 36-35 lead.
SU looked like it might take control of the game early in the second half, going up 46-39 with just under 16 minutes left in the game, but the Seminoles scored nine of the next 11 points to level the game at 48 a few minutes later.
The Orange will have another Quadrant 3 game on Saturday when it hosts NC State. Tuesday’s loss means there will be added importance to the game against the Wolfpack.
“This game came down to toughness and we didn’t have a lot of that today,” Starling said. “We’re going to look forward to bringing that and being ourselves against another really good team on Saturday.”