TAMPA, Fla. — Thanks to a stellar shooting day from Brandon Triche and a 17-point performance off the bench from James Southerland, No. 7 Syracuse pulled away late for a 55-44 victory inside the Sun Dome against South Florida on Sunday, securing coach Jim Boeheim’s 904th career win.
Behind Triche’s game-high 20 points, the Orange (14-1, 2-0 Big East) overcame an early scare to hand the Bulls (9-4, 0-1) their first conference loss of the season, as South Florida jumped out to a 17-7 lead midway through the half. Timely defense helped the Orange escape with the win, as three Syracuse defensive stands late in the second half stymied the Bulls, who turned the ball over twice on shot clock violations in the final minutes.
The ninth-best scoring team in the nation, averaging just over 80 points per game (81.7), Syracuse survived a day of stagnant offense, which included a 1 for 13 performance from guard Michael Carter-Williams.
“Offense was really bad. That’s all I can tell you, really, really bad,” Boeheim said to ESPN after the game. “If you can’t score on a 4-on-1 fast break, there’s something wrong with what we’re doing. We came off probably 20, 25 minutes of the best basketball we played all year against Rutgers the other day. There’s just no possible explanation for the way we played today.”
South Florida junior Victor Rudd led the way for the Bulls, scoring a team high 15 points and snagging 11 rebounds to finish with a double-double. Senior Jawanza Poland also added 12 points and five rebounds, along with a vicious, one-handed dunk that brought the capacity crowd to its feet.
Despite the distance between the two schools, Syracuse appeared to have more fans in attendance, as fans in Orange shirts packed into the upper deck of the USF Sun Dome, which is usually peppered with fans wearing the school colors of green and gold. University officials said it was the first sellout of the season, and likely due to the strong turnout of the Orange faithful.
“We had 3,000, 4,000 people here. You look around up there, they were all orange shirts. We get great support down here,” Boeheim said. “They’ve done an unbelievable job with this arena. I mean, it’s a beautiful arena. It’s as good as any of the places in the league. They did an unbelievable job fixing this up.”
With Syracuse departing the Big East for the Atlantic Coast Conference (ACC) at the conclusion of the this season, today’s game was likely the last time the Orange will face off in the Sun Dome against the Bulls as conference foes.
