Texas A&M added a meaningless lay-in at the final horn and the Battle 4 Atlantis title went to the Orange.
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Many expected UConn and No. 10 Gonzaga to meet in the championship game.
Texas A&M: Had 36 bench points…. The freshman played with a poise rarely seen at any level, let alone someone playing his 5th collegiate game. Had 18 assists on its 27 field goals. But UConn’s inability to finish shots around the basket cost them, and Syracuse (5-0) had a big shooting day, shooting 49 percent in the first half, and almost 60 in the second half.
The truth is UConn wouldn’t have deserved that extra opportunity. “We can’t get out on the break and attack it and beat the zone down the court”. When LeVert was on the floor, MI outscored UConn by three points. The Huskies did more dribbling than passing, and then took ill-advised shots.
“We’re disappointed. We came here to get a win”.
“I hope these are all areas we can grow from”, Beilein said. “This year has been good for us, we had some tough games since we’ve been down here, and now we know how to battle in those situations”. All involved looked especially hapless and helpless during a game-changing eight-minute stretch of the first half when LeVert sat with two fouls. The former SMU transfer scored 16 points in the opening half, hitting seven out of nine shots from the field. But still, guard Rodney Purvis tried to soak in the meaning of the game even if there wasn’t much time to do it.
Two Syracuse players made the Battle 4 Atlantis all-tournament team.
That happened once again to the Huskies. At left is Syracuse’s Trevor Cooney. Syracuse went ahead 65-55 and then it was the 3-point shooting of the Orange that UConn couldn’t control.
MI is 2-1 on the season and 1-1 against the spread while CT is 3-0 overall and 1-0 against the spread. Neither side led by more than four for a majority of the half as the teams traded buckets and stops in a game that had a grind-it-out feel. The perimter game will be a big factor in UConn taking this one. The big man was forced to the bench with his fourth foul during that run by Syracuse.
The Aggies led by two at halftime.
Syracuse would stage a late rally with back-to-back threes from Richardson and Gbinije, who would also come up with a late steal and force a trip to the free throw line where he made two of three to take a 35-33 deficit into the half.
It was a moment that’s grown common through these early weeks of Michigan’s 2015-16 season – when the Wolverines’ execution just can’t seem to catch up with its talent. The score was tied at 40-40 when Tronny Trocha-Morelos scored putbacks on consecutive possessions to push the Aggies lead before Richardson converted a three-point play to keep pace. More often than not, these 3-pointers would drop, but if not, there were Musketeers left and right grabbing offensive rebounds. House and Tyler Davis combined to go 9-of-12 from the line and Alex Caruso and Jalen Jones each made a pair as the Aggies finished with a nine-point advantage at the stripe, where Texas A&M is 70.6 percent as a team.TIP-INS 1.
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Tyler Roberson got the burst started by kicking a pass out to Trevor Cooney for a three-pointer late in the shot clock.
