St. Louis, Missouri (WBNG Binghamton) A second-half surge by the No. 10 seed Syracuse (20-13) helped the Orange knock off the No. 7 seed Dayton (25-8), 70-51, on Friday afternoon at the Scottrade Center in the first round of the NCAA Tournament. They will have the most senior starters in the Archie Miller era: guards Scoochie Smith, Kyle Davis, Charles Cooke and forward Kendall Pollard.
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LOUIS Jim Boeheim is back where he feels most comfortable this time of year, glad-handing a countless stream of well-wishers as Syracuse prepared to play Dayton in the first round of the NCAA Tournament.
The Flyers are expecting a different result after their 82-79 loss to Saint Joseph’s in the 4 of the Atlantic 10 tournament.
This is still one of the best defensive teams in college basketball, and they have the shooters to contend with the 2-3 zone that will be thrown at them all game long. The Orange defeated Texas A&M on a neutral floor earlier in the year and also took down the Duke Blue Devils on Duke’s home floor, so they clearly have the ability.
“I watched eight games and in every one she did something that made me go, ‘Wow, ‘” Hillsman said.
Up next will be No. 15 seed Middle Tennessee State, a surprising victor against second-seeded Michigan State, on Sunday for a spot in the Sweet 16. “Not making shots and people just hesitating to take shots-and I think it rolled over to today”. Now that you’ve experienced an early loss, you know how motivated you have to be to get back and be better.
“Anytime we’ve had an opportunity to play against a Power 5 team, I think it raises our guys’ interest level”, Miller said. Tyler Roberson finished with 10 points and 18 rebounds. In many cases they weren’t good enough to play at a lot of those places, and you’re dealing with a team that’s always literally trying to prove themselves.
The game was only in its opening minutes, Syracuse led just 3-2, but the Orange press had held the Black Knights backcourt on two of its attempts to get over the halfcourt line and it was only going to get much worse. “They were just doing it to be cute and that’s – we don’t need to react to those things”. Syracuse advanced to face 12th-seeded Albany on Sunday in the second round of the Sioux Falls Regional. It’s not that easy to get into it, and to win a game and advance is not that easy.
The freshman shot just 29.4 percent from behind the arc and only eclipsed the 14-point mark once in the last six games, including the ACC tournament defeat against Pittsburgh. At one point he had 17 rebounds and the Flyers had 20.
Syracuse continually cut off the baseline and swarmed entry passes, putting pressure on Dayton to hit open 3-pointers and tough floaters.
At Oklahoma City, JeQuan Lewis had 21 points, eight assists and seven rebounds as 10th-seeded Virginia Commonwealth won its first NCAA Tournament game since 2013 with a first-round victory over No. 7 seed Oregon State.
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The Orange were picked to win in 48.2 percent of brackets.
