It didn’t matter that he was 3-for-15 at that point or that he had been on the floor for all 40 minutes and scored 11 points. That he had been minimized to a performance well below his averages for the second time this week, disguised by an opposing defense something lesser than himself.

With the score tied and the seconds closing to zero, Tyus Battle was taking that shot. He waved away teammates offering a pick-and-roll and did it all himself.

He missed. The game went into overtime, and he missed twice more during the five extra minutes of Syracuse’s 60-57 loss against St. Bonaventure in the Carrier Dome on Friday night.

“I shoot those shots every day,” Battle, SU’s star sophomore guard, said. “The step-backs, I thought they were good. Floaters, I thought they were good. Just wasn’t going in.”

And at a frightening rate. Battle finished the day 3-for-18 from the field. He made one of his nine attempts from deep. All this came after a 13-point effort earlier in the week.

Battle wasn’t alone. SU (10-2) shot 30 percent from the field as a team and 15.8 percent from three-point range in a 60-57 overtime loss to St. Bonaventure (10-2). Junior guard Frank Howard led the way with 17 points, but even he made less than a third of his shots. Same goes for freshman forward Oshae Brissett, who added 15 points. The Orange missed dunks, had and-1s erased by charges and let an encouraging defensive day go to waste.

SBU had 40 points at halftime largely because of an outburst from its best player — point guard Jaylen Adams — but finished with just 60. Adams’ only points after intermission were the last two free throws to ice the game.

“This team fought,” head coach Jim Boeheim said. “They did everything they could to get back in it. But it’s hard to win when you shoot 30 percent from the field and 15 percent from the 3-point line.”

For someone with an NBA future and the fate of a team’s season partially carried on his shoulders, Battle was in decent spirits after the game. He did not dance around the cause of the loss. He missed shots, and a game like this, he said, was bound to happen eventually. When you average 20.7 points per game, some days will produce more and some days, less.

“I’m not worried about the loss,” Battle said. “It’s basketball. You gotta keep on playing. You gotta put down the rearview mirror and keep on going on to the next game.”

Howard, too, found positives in SU’s first home defeat of the season, citing the fact it lost because of its own shortcomings. He would have liked to seen possessions allow more time to develop, instead of a quick shot or immediate pick-and-roll.

“We beat ourselves,” Howard said. “Fix that up, and it’s a good day.”

Howard added, and freshman forward Oshae Brissett echoed later, what SBU did Friday is what SU is going to see from defenses moving forward. The offense goes through those two and Battle, primarily. Teams know they can’t give the guards too much space, and that opens opportunities to attack the rim. Today, a crowded lane made finishing those attacks difficult, Brissett said.

“If we’re ever in this situation (again),” Brissett said, “we know what to do now.”

Published on December 23, 2017 at 12:09 am

Contact: jtbloss@syr.edu | @jtbloss