GAME #23 RECAP - Duke 83, Syracuse 54

And it didn't feel that close

Feb 06, 2025

Syracuse played another high-level opponent last night and it was the same result, outside of the Texas and Texas Tech games in Brooklyn, as it has been all year.

The Orange were obviously overmatched, out of their element, and never really a challenger.

Here’s a look at Syracuse against top 50 KenPom teams this season:

70-66 loss to (31) Texas
79-74 loss to (8) Texas Tech
96-70 loss to (4) Tennessee
87-60 loss to (18) Maryland
85-61 loss to (28) Louisville
86-72 loss to (30) Clemson
77-73 loss to (45) Pittsburgh
83-54 loss to (2) Duke

There are a few close games in there, but the majority of those games are “beat the breaks off” domination type performances from opponents.

In this game, Syracuse played close for a few minutes but Duke slowly started to pull away and turned the game into a joke. The Orange couldn’t keep up on all levels of the game and ended up finishing the game out against the Duke walk-ons/deep deep bench.

Is Duke better than Syracuse and a national title contender? Yes.

Does that make it okay how Syracuse goes about playing and competing? No.

Let’s look at numbers:

ANALYTICS/NUMBERS

Here are Syracuse’s numbers after the loss to Duke (and in comparison to their numbers before they played):

KENPOM: 118th (113th)
KENPOM OFFENSE: 123rd (125th)
KENPOM DEFENSE: 155th (139th)
GOOD STATS (top 100)
- 28th in Defensive Rebounding % (23rd)
BAD STATS (sub 200)
- 349th in Defensive Turnover % (348th)
- 282nd in Offensive 3P% (271st)
- 266th in Offensive FT% (259th)
- 267th in Defensive 2P% (248th)
- 232nd in Defensive Effective FG% (208th)
- 225th in Offensive Turnover % (207th)

3 THINGS/THOUGHTS

This game sure did make me miss Maliq Brown. I’m well aware this would be a struggle of a season with him, but Syracuse just doesn’t have anyone relatively close to what he does to help teams win games. He had 6 points, 8 rebounds, an assist, 3 steals, and an insane amount of deflections/tip outs.
Duke shot 70% from 2 last night…just wow.
Syracuse continues to be unable to turn teams over. The Blue Devils only had 6 turnovers on the night and Syracuse remains one of the worst teams in the country at turning teams over.

BONUS THOUGHTS:

None.

STATS

Biggest difference makers:

Duke dominated every asset of the stat sheet outside of offensive rebounding. Syracuse actually did a solid job on that one.
Duke got to the line more at a staggering rate (Syracuse couldn’t even get past the initial line of defense to get fouled), in all offensive efficiency metrics, and the game in general.
Most impressive? Assist/turnover ratio of 3.00 for the Blue Devils and 60% of their made shots assisted.

PLAYER BREAKDOWN

JJ Starling had a hot start for Syracuse, but cooled off significantly as Duke adjusted. This seems to be somewhat of a pattern. He ended up playing 34 minutes and scoring 12 points on 5-13 shooting. He also had 3 rebounds, 2 assists, and 2 turnovers.

Jyare Davis looked good in flashes in this one. I thought he competed, did well on Flagg in the first half when the game was still reachable, and did some nice things in the mid post (where Syracuse needs to play much more out of). He played 25 minutes and scored 12 points on 6-8 shooting. I’d say he was one of few bright spots.

Eddie Lampkin just looked overmatched in this one. The athleticism, length, and explosiveness of Duke really bothered him. The big man wasn’t playable to the point that Naheem McLeod got 20+ minutes (and made the most of them) - he only got 18 minutes. He scored 2 points, grabbed 7 rebounds, and had 2 turnovers.

Lucas Taylor was a non-factor in this one as well. Outside of his flagrant foul on Maliq Brown, he was very quiet. He played 17 minutes and hit a 3.

Elijah Moore got a garbage time bucket, but outside of that he was (another) non-factor in this one.

Jaquan Carlos had some underrated quality minutes in my mind. He wasn’t efficient from the floor (1-5), but I thought he did what was asked of him.

Naheem McLeod had his most surprising night of the season. The center played 22 minutes and scored 10 points. That was not on anyone’s Bingo card last night.

Chris Bell was 3-6 from 3 in this one and scored 9 points. Outside of hitting some shots though, he struggled. Regardless, it’s good to see him finally making shots.

Petar Majstorovic got 15 minutes (mostly when the game was out of reach). He played hard (as usual) and ended up with 6 rebounds…and 3 turnovers.

Kyle Cuffe had an absolutely HORRENDOUS 12 minutes of action. He was 0-8 from the field with an assist and turnover. I don’t even know how you come off the bench and fire away at that rate but hey…that’s Syracuse hoops.

WHAT’S NEXT?

A few quick notes about the remaining schedule:

Syracuse should be fine in making the ACC Tournament but if they drop Boston College and/or Miami…it’s going to get dicey.
The Orange have 3 top-50 opponents left, 3 in the 100-160 range, and Miami/BC

Here are the next 5 for Syracuse.: