|
RECAP
|
BOX SCORE
RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) -- These are just the kind of games Syracuse (No. 8 ESPN/USA Today, No. 12 AP) has been winning all season -- and North Carolina State
losing.
|  | | Damone Brown hit the game-winning shot for Syracuse with 17.6 seconds left. |
Preston Shumpert scored 25 points and Damone Brown got the
game-winning layup with 17.6 seconds left as the Orangemen escaped
with a 54-53 victory Saturday over the Wolfpack.
"We've got a lot of character, a lot of heart, and we had a lot
of guts because we had no business coming back at the end of that
thing," Syracuse coach Jim Boeheim said.
The Orangemen (18-3) shot 29 percent in the first half and
trailed by 11 points with 5:26 left, but went on a 16-4 closing run
to pull it out on the road.
Syracuse was 17-for-50 from the field before making 6-of-8 down
the stretch.
"I've said all along I don't know if we're very good or not but
we're going to keep trying," said Boeheim, who moved within seven
wins of 600. "We couldn't get anything going for 35 minutes except
for Preston. He kept us hanging around."
The Orangemen, who normally play zone defense, went to
full-court pressure down the stretch to help force three Wolfpack
turnovers in the final 4:44.
"That's not our game," Shumpert said when asked about
employing pressure. "The press was out of desperation."
"Then all of the sudden we made a couple of shots, too,"
Boeheim said.
The Wolfpack (10-10) fell to 0-6 this season against ranked
teams and have lost 10 straight games to Top 25 clubs dating to
last season.
"People handle adversities and hardships differently,"
Wolfpack coach Herb Sendek said. "Some people go jump off a
bridge, other people keep getting back up and fighting."
Sendek said he felt confident his club would not back down over
the final month of the Atlantic Coast Conference regular season.
"If you dismiss everything and say we're just snakebitten then
you can't correct the things that are under your control," he
said.
Shumpert, who also had nine rebounds, made two 3-pointers over
the final run, while DeShaun Williams had six points before the
dramatic closing seconds.
The decisive play was designed for Shumpert to come off a
screen, but he was guarded and fired the ball inside to Jeremy
McNeil, who almost lost it out of bounds. But McNeil made a nice
save and got the ball to Brown for the winning shot.
"On the last play Preston penetrated and couldn't get anything
and I don't know how he got it to Jeremy, and I don't know how
Jeremy got it to Damone," Boeheim said. "It certainly wasn't any
play I drew up. I wish I had."
N.C. State's final shot by Clifford Crawford was a bad one -- a
driving banker that didn't draw iron with three seconds left as the
Wolfpack lost another close one. Coming in, N.C. State's five
losses to ranked teams were by an average of six points.
Syracuse won despite registering a season-low point total and
matching a season-high with 22 turnovers.
"More than not we felt like we were going to lose this game,"
Shumpert said. "But as we started getting closer and closer we
started feeling more and more that we could win it. When we cut it
to one we knew we could win it."
Brown added 12 points and 12 rebounds for the Orangemen.
The Wolfpack got 11 points from Crawford, but shot 35 percent
and also turned it over 22 times in a defensive struggle.
"We've lost three tough games this week, three teams that have
been in the top 10," Sendek said of North Carolina, Wake Forest
and Syracuse. "We've played all three to the wire. I don't know
that that's the earmark of a bad team."
The Wolfpack had held the Orangemen to one field goal over a
12-minute span at the end of the first half and the beginning of
the second, and led by as many as 12 points in the second half
before Syracuse's finally rally.
Shumpert had 15 points in the first 15 minutes, but he was
almost all of Syracuse's offense.
The Orangemen led 18-17, then went cold, getting just one basket
over the final 9:54 of the half as the Wolfpack took control.
Syracuse was 1-for-13 and turned it over seven times during its
awful offensive stretch.
The Wolfpack could have been up by more than 11 points at the
break, but missed six of 13 free throws and coughed the ball up
five times during its 15-3 run.
|
|
ALSO SEE
Men's College Basketball Scoreboard
Syracuse Clubhouse
North Carolina State Clubhouse
|
