By PAUL GOTHAM
INDIANAPOLIS, IN — Buddy Boeheim scored 22 of his game-high 25 points in the second half, and the No. 11 seed Syracuse Orange survived a late surge to defeat No. 3 West Virginia, 75-72 in Midwest Region action of the NCAA Tournament.
After connecting on just 1-of-6 shots during the first 20 minutes, Boeheim hit 7-of-11 after the break including 5-of-8 from behind the 3-point arc.
“Just credit to my teammates,” said the son of head coach Jim Boeheim. “They knew that I needed to get some clean looks early in the second half to get going, and they did a great job.”
Teammate Marek Dolezaj led Boeheim for his first trey of the second half and a 43-31 lead with 18:14 remaining in the contest. Less than two minutes later, Dolezaj found Boeheim for his second straight triple.
“My first two shots were wide open, and that’s all credit to Marek giving me a handoff and finding me in the corner. They knew eventually I was going to start making shots. First off I got a lot of clean looks that I was frustrated about.”
Boeheim credited assistant coach Gerry McNamara with encouragement during halftime.
“G-Mac came up to me at halftime and said, ‘keep going. I don’t care if you miss 200. Just keep shooting.’ I said, ‘all right, if I get clean looks, I’m going to have to take them, and I’m going to start making them.’ “
With the win, Syracuse advances to the Sweet Sixteen for the 24th time in program history and 20th under Jim Boeheim.
“He’s one of the best coaches in college sports, no doubt about it,” Buddy Boeheim said of his father. “There’s no one better, and he continues to prove that. There’s no better feeling than helping bring him to another Sweet 16 and just shows how great he is and the continued greatness he continues to have.
“I saw a lot of stuff on Twitter talking about him and just crazy stuff, how he’s been not doing well the last ten years. Do you know how many people would dream about going to two Sweet 16s, two Final Fours and an Elite Eight? In ten years, that’s pretty good. He’s never had a losing season, and he continues to do it.”
Syracuse advanced to the Sweet Sixteen as an 11-seed for the second time in three years. This after the Orange reached the Final Four as a 10-seed in 2016.
“These guys deserve all the credit in the world,” Jim Boeheim said of his team. “I mean, they’re a tough bunch. They’ve really — they’ve earned — it’s hard to make the Sweet 16.
“Look around. Look at some of the teams that are out. It’s really hard to get to the Sweet 16. When I started coaching, we thought that was — you’re supposed to do that. I think we went to 14 or 15 Sweet 16s, and some of them, I don’t even think we celebrated, probably ten of them, I don’t think we even celebrated. We just figured that’s what we’re supposed to do. But it’s very hard. There’s so many good teams. You watch all these teams that are winning that nobody knows that much about, and it’s not an accident. There’s just a lot of really good coaches. There’s a lot of really good players.”
Syracuse led 70-59 with 2:23 remaining when Dolezaj led Quincy Guerrier for a dunk.
Fueled by full-court pressure that created two turnovers, West Virginia outscored Syracuse 9-2 over the next 1:42. Gabe Osabuohien‘s layup with :05 remaining cut the deficit to two at 74-72.
“West Virginia is a great defensive team,” Buddy Boeheim said. “They’re known for their press. First off, we had a good — we had Marek bringing it up, and then he got trapped and threw it away. I think, when that happens and you turn it over once, we kind of start thinking too much. We seem to do that a little.
“It was tough for us getting it in. They did a good job denying and trapping hard.”
The game featured two of the all-time winningest coaches in NCAA history. Boeheim has 1,082 victories while West Virginia’s Bob Huggins has 828 wins.
“We ran what we needed to run,” Huggins said. “We just didn’t score it. How many shots inside of three, four feet did we miss to start the game? They had a lot to do with that, but I mean, you catch it and going at the basket from three or four feet, we’ve got to make one. We didn’t make any.
“And then they shot it extremely well. They shot it — it seemed like everything they shot up went in, and they shot it from deep, and we just wanted to make them bounce it, and we didn’t. We let them get too many step-in shots.”
Dolezaj, Guerrier and Joe Girard III scored 12 points apiece in the win.
Syracuse (18-9) will play No. 2 Houston in next Saturday’s regional semi-final.
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