Syracuse (4-0) got off to a hot start on Monday night en route to a 74-50 win over Oakland (2-2) on Monday night in the Carrier Dome. SU shot 53.1 percent in the first half, the best mark in an opening half and second-best shooting half all season. The Orange picked its hot shooting back up late in the second half, allowing it to cruise to victory.

Here are superlatives from the game:

The Big Moment: Battle and Howard icing the game

After the scorching hot start to the game, Syracuse struggled to get much going to open the second half. With 9:22 left, an Oakland 3-pointer cut Syracuse’s 14-point halftime lead to 10, with the Orange managing just 11 points in the first portion of the second half.

That’s when Syracuse’s starting guards and leaders, Tyus Battle and Frank Howard, went to work. The pair scored 14 unanswered points for the Orange, opening up a 24-point lead and effectively icing the game for SU.

Stud: Tyus Battle

The sophomore from New Jersey has had a scorching start to the season, averaging 22.3 points per game on 53.6 percent shooting. He continued that run on Monday night.

Battle was SU’s life force on the offensive end early. He scored the first bucket of the game on a stepback midrange jumper. In one stretch late in the first half, he made four straight jumpers in the span of two minutes, shaking his head after and flashing a smile after draining the third one.

Battle finished with 25 points on 9-of-17 shooting, his third-straight game of 20 or more points. 

Dud: Bourama Sidibe

The freshman center has shined early in the season. He was averaging nearly the same amount of minutes as starter Paschal Chukwu and was averaging more points.

He struggled in his limited opportunity in the first half, though. On one play he tried a running post move from the left block. He jumped up in the air, realized he couldn’t shoot the ball from where he was and just threw the ball back to nobody in particular for Oakland’s easiest steal of the night.

Later, with the offense stalling, he decided to pull up from the free throw line on a standstill jumper. SU head coach Jim Boeheim was livid, pulling him immediately while yelling, “What are you doing?”

He came in toward the end of the first half but didn’t play at all in the second half.

Highlight: Paschal Chukwu put-back slam

SU missed its first four shots and two free throws in the first four minutes of the second half. Frank Howard tried to change that on a fastbreak, eurostepping into a layup attempt.

As the ball started falling off the rim, the 7-foot-2 Chukwu charged forward, scooped it up in midair and slammed it back home. SU fans erupted in cheers and then sat down after the Orange had finally made its first shot of the half.

Lowlight: Matthew Moyer’s miscommunication

Matthew Moyer has had a rough start to the season. His minutes have dropped in every game and he hadn’t scored a point in either of the last two games. In the process, he’s drawn the ire of Boeheim several times.

To start the second half, Moyer missed an open baseline jumper from the left side of the court. On the next, Moyer set up on the right baseline, directly in front of the SU bench. As Howard split the defense down the middle, Moyer cut to the basket. Howard passed the ball exactly to where he thought Moyer would be, but the ball went over the cutting forward and out of bounds. Moyer got subbed out immediately after and wouldn’t return until the game was out of reach with four minutes left.

Published on November 20, 2017 at 9:06 pm

Contact Tomer: tdlanger@syr.edu | @tomer_langer