Syracuse Basketball Survives Exhibition Opener

The Orange knocked off Indiana (PA).

In the 1st basketball activity in the Dome this season, your Syracuse Orange took down Divison II Indiana (PA) 86-68, propelled by the play of Judah Mintz and Benny Williams in the 2nd half to lead SU to victory. If you were to read that blanket statement, you’d assume that the Orange, and perhaps their two most important players, got off to a good start, and that the SU faithful that came out on a late Tuesday night for preseason basketball would walk away satisfied.

Ehhh, not so much.

The first half was nothing short of an abomination. Indiana (PA) controlled the game most of the 1st half, with IUP’s Dave Morris leading the way with 15 1st half points and an end-of-half half-court buzzer beater to put the Hawks up one going into the 2nd half. SU’s offense was not a pretty sight in the 1st half, shooting 25% from three-point land and 42% from the field, with Joe Girard looking like the only competent offensive player at times. 

Mintz struggled with shot selection, struggling with creating quality open looks, and looking like he’ll have to remove his Reggie Miller-esque leg kick from his jumper. Chris Bell took 9 shots in 13 minutes and missed all but 1, including all six of his 3’s. And Jesse Edwards, who received some less-than-stellar reviews from Coach Boheim about his passiveness in the 1st half, had 2 shots against a team whose tallest player was 6’8. All that, and yet we still won. 

Definitely not the prettiest, not the shinest, but a win nonetheless. Quadir Copeland was a spark plug of energy off the bench with his playmaking from any wing spot, and his defense and motor were evident. Benny knocked down his only 3 of the game, which looked smooth coming off his hand, and he was active and present on both ends the entire game, we rarely saw last year. Ultimately, there are more questions than answers after a very up-and-down performance, but with seven guys making their Dome debut tonight, at least the one question we can avoid is “How’d you guys lose?”.