The Orange coming off recent studies headed down to John Paul Jones Arena to play the streaking Virginia Cavaliers in a heavy weight battle to determine the ACC regular season champion. This was marked as one of Syracuse's most difficult games of the season. From the opening tip of the game Virginia attacked the Orange zone on all cylinders getting the ball inside to their bigs leading to many dunks and offensive rebounds especially from Cavalier big man, Akil Mitchell. Despite these issues Syracuse was able to head into halftime with a one point lead. In the second half things just completely fell apart for Cuse. They could not get into and offensive rhythm forcing many three point shots that were not falling for them. On the other end Virginia had completely figured out the 2-3 zone and was able to score on the inside as well as shoot the lights out from behind the arch. The Orange could have had a chance to stick around in the game, but with Virginia shooting both 50 percent from three point range and overall field goals gave Cuse no chance. Mike Tobey of Virginia was a handful down low finishing with 11 points and 8 rebounds. Also Malcolm Brogdon in the back-court actually outplayed Tyler Ennis scoring 19 points, 5 assists, and 5 rebounds. C.J. Fair did not play poorly with 13 points and 6 rebounds, but most likely eliminated any hopes he had of chasing down Doug McDermott of Creighton for the John R. Wooden Player of the Year. Syracuse ended up losing the game by a final score of 75-56.
This loss leaves many people questioning true heart of this Syracuse team where they start undefeated then lose three out of four games. This is not the way Syracuse wants to be ending their regular season. They have no momentum going into the conference tournament and need to pick things up if they want to make it far in both the ACC and NCAA tournaments. They end their regular season against Georgia Tech and Florida State and if they were to lose to either of those teams many people will concerned for this team coming into the post season.
Trevor Cooney
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