By BILLY HEYEN
When Elijah Hughes crossed right to left on the left wing less than three minutes into Saturday’s game, he created plenty of space to rise up and shoot. He was already feeling it, having made three 3-pointers already. It wasn’t the toughest shot he’d ever attempted, but the audacity to crossover and pull up could still be described as a heat check.
Swish.
Buoyed by a hot start, Hughes finished with a career-high 33 points as Syracuse (5-4, 1-1 Atlantic Coast) snapped a three-game losing streak Saturday. The Orange beat Georgia Tech (4-3, 1-1), 97-63, in Atlanta. Hughes shot 10-of-15 from the floor, 6-of-11 from 3-point range and 7-for-7 from the foul line. He was supplemented by a career-high 26 points from Buddy Boeheim, who worked in tandem with Hughes’ 26 first-half points by scoring 20 of his own after the break.
“Elijah got us going and Buddy got us going the second half,” SU head coach Jim Boeheim said postgame Saturday.
READ MORE: Syracuse’s 3-point recipe shows promise at Georgia Tech
Syracuse entered Saturday’s game with a record it’d never had before in Jim Boeheim’s 44 years as head coach: 4-4. The Orange had probably had to deal with a tougher schedule than in many of those seasons, taking on four high-major opponents in those first eight games. Boeheim himself has said that it’s not the ideal year to have such a schedule, with SU only returning one full-time starter from a year ago.
The results had shown as much — those four high-major opponents had all beaten the Orange. Saturday’s game didn’t only represent a chance to end a three-game losing streak. It was also an opportunity for Syracuse to show it can play with an opponent somewhat like themselves. Georgia Tech won’t be mistaken for a basketball blue blood, but a conference win over a strong defensive opponent that handled SU a year ago had the potential to answer some doubts.
“You’re gonna have some ups and downs,” Boeheim said postgame Saturday. “… I just think our movement was good and we made shots.”
The Orange and Hughes burst out of the gates. Hughes nailed those four quick triples — right wing, right corner, right wing, left wing. Then he assisted on a Buddy 3 in the left corner, too. A Bourama Sidibe rebound dunk and Joe Girard III pull-up jumper had Syracuse ahead 19-7 at the first media timeout, and then a backdoor pass from Marek Dolezaj to Hughes set up a tomahawk righty slam. Hughes added a righty runner moments later to score 16 points in the first seven or so minutes.
Syracuse’s leading man didn’t stop coming, either. A pump fake in the left corner earned him three shots at the foul line, and he cashed all three to put SU up 29-10 with 10:30 to play in the first half. Later in the half, Hughes swished a 3 from the top of the arc before drawing offensive fouls on back-to-back possessions.
Tyus Battle shouts out Elijah Hughes on his Instagram story pic.twitter.com/lEw2nXl2oK
— Billy Heyen (@BillyHeyen) December 7, 2019
Hughes closed out the first half with a couple of foul shots, a huge righty swat and, just to prove he’s human, an airball. So the Orange went into the half up 48-28, Hughes with 26 of those SU points, while the GT fans found the voice to chant “air ball” toward the player with two fewer points than the Yellowjackets.
“Elijah got us off to a great start,” Jim Boeheim told Matt Park at halftime. “We played smart. We moved the ball.”
It wasn’t that Hughes hadn’t already shown a willingness to step into the role of top offensive option vacated by Tyus Battle. He’d scored a previous career-high 28 points in SU’s loss to Oklahoma State. But this was different: In a game that Syracuse stomped all over its opponent, Hughes went for the first-half knockout punch, again and again.
Whatever Hughes ate before the game, Buddy must’ve had at halftime. Buddy nailed three 3-pointers and a curling elbow jumper in the first four minutes of the second half. Hughes was content to distribute for a stretch as Buddy got hot.
“They were gonna get back in the game, but Buddy hit that streak and that was it really,” Boeheim said.
Hughes finally took his first second-half shot about eight minutes in as Syracuse broke the Georgia Tech press to set him up for an easy two-hand slam to tie his career-high with 28. Even as Hughes soared in to slam, the “air ball” chants persisted.
Midway through the second half, Hughes cut backdoor for a Dolezaj dish and two-handed slam, reaching his career-high of 30 points. The next possession, Hughes swished a 3-pointer from the right wing before skipping back down the floor.
Hughes was the last Syracuse starter to check out of the game. As the buzzer sounded for the game’s final media timeout, Hughes pantomimed a euro-step layup. It was his last on-court action. If he’d had the ball, he probably would have made that shot, too.
Leave a Reply