The ball bounced off the backboard and dribbled loose toward the scorers table where Tyus Battle scooped it up and headed on a fast break. The Orange’s leading scorer darted down the right sideline before edging his way inside on an Eastern Michigan defender for a transition layup.

On the next possession, Marek Dolezaj kicked the ball out to Battle on the wing, where he drained his final 3-pointer of the night, to cap off his 22 point performance. The crowd of 21,925 rose to its feet as Syracuse’s lead expanded to 19, its largest of the night.

Battle’s 3-pointer was part of a 16-point second half in which he and the Orange scrambled to make amends for its first-half woes against Eastern Michigan’s (8-4) stout defense in an eventual 62-47 win Wednesday in the Carrier Dome. EMU’s defense, which ranks 13th in the nation in steal percentage and 33rd in block percentage, per Kenpom.com, puzzled SU early. Syracuse settled for 3-point shots, where it shot 2-of-12 in the first half. Then, out of the break, it all flipped. The ball moved faster, possessions grew shorter and Syracuse outscored Eastern Michigan 38-23 in the second half.

“(In the second half) we were just getting in the paint more,” Battle said. “That led to more open 3s because they had to converge a little bit more and they had to guard someone so it got open.”

In his fifth appearance at the Carrier Dome since leaving his position as a Syracuse assistant, Eastern Michigan head coach Rob Murphy employed the 2-3 zone on the man its been made famous by his mentor, Jim Boeheim. The EMU defense shifted quickly to passes, daring the Orange to shoot 3-pointers. At first, the Orange took the bait.

On Syracuse’s first possession of the game, Tyus Battle gathered the ball at the top of the key as the shot clock dwindled. SU’s leading scorer eyed his defender, who played a few steps inside the three-point line. With four seconds left on the shot clock, Battle clanked a 3-pointer off the back of the rim. The ball bounced off center Paschal Chukwu before eventually making its way to Frank Howard. He missed too.

“In the first half we settled,” Howard said. “We didn’t get a lot of movement.”

Fewer than two minutes later, Syracuse worked the ball into the soft spot of the 2-3 zone, the elbow, where the paint meets the free-throw line. Marek Dolzaj never fully received the pass, bobbling it before coughing it up to Eastern Michigan’s Jordan Nobles. Eagles center James Thompson IV finished the possession with a layup on the other end. The next possession, he caught a missed three-pointer and dropped it in to extend the EMU lead.

Even when Syracuse thought it was finding its groove in the first half, it wasn’t. After a Frank Howard 3-pointer extended the SU lead to its largest of the half, three, the junior guard turned the ball over. Eastern Michigan scored down the other end and SU’s lead sank to one.

On the ensuing possession, SU’s offense stalled until the shot clock drizzled dangerously low. That’s when Howard Washington moved forward to draw a defender and dished to Battle, who sank a 3-pointer. But, the basket didn’t count as the shot clock had expired.

“Anytime you play against a zone, you have to get something inside,” Boeheim said. “But at the end of the day you have to make something. Once we started making shots the game changed.”

After entering the half knotted at 24 with a team ranked outside the top 150 by Kenpom, Syracuse’s offense opened up. After racking up four points off free-throws to start the half, Oshae Brissett flung a pass to a darting Howard who laid in the basket.
On the next possession, Battle kicked it out to Howard beyond the 3-point line. Howard jabbed to his right. Gaining a step on his defender, he brought his feet back even and launched a 3-pointer, SU’s first make of four from beyond the arc in the second half.

Murphy called timeout.

“Frank and Tyus they’ve got to grind this ship,” Boeheim said. “Frank made some really good plays in the second half getting in the lane, it’s a really good zone defense, it’s a tough defense. We aren’t making shots so we have to work to get inside and I thought we did that.”

With fewer than seven minutes remaining in the game and Syracuse clinging to a six-point lead, Howard sent the ball back to Dolezaj at the elbow. As quickly as the Eagle defenders tried to collapse on him, the freshman slipped the ball further down low. Chukwu finished the play with a two-hand slam.

The next possession, Howard drove right. As the ball was tapped by a trailing defender, Howard found a lonely Oshae Brissett. Again, Syracuse’s movement resulted in an easy basket as Brissett’s layup pushed the Orange’s lead to double digits for the first time all night.

“I think our forwards and our bigs were moving a lot more and a lot better,” Howard said. “Marek came in, he’s a very smart player, some of those screens and those little slips were just him playing basketball and that kind of opened things up for me to get in the lane for kick-outs in stuff.”

Syracuse never looked back on its lead and finished the game, much liked it took care of business through most of nonconference play. A year ago, the Orange lost five nonconference games on its way to the NIT Tournament.

This year’s nonconference schedule was different. In a year many expected SU to flop before it even reached conference play, it pushed through.

“We’ve had a lot of tough games and I think we’ve survived it,” Boeheim said. “That’s what we try to do, try to get through it, try to get a little better. We pulled out some games that could’ve gone the other way.”

Published on December 27, 2017 at 9:15 pm

Contact Josh: jlschafe@syr.edu | @Schafer_44