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<\/p>\nLas Vegas \u2015 The Syracuse Orange, playing without its leading scorer, almost pulled off an upset of the third-ranked Houston Cougars on Monday here at the Players Era Festival.<\/p>\n
With starting forward Donnie Freeman watching from the bench with his right foot in a boot, the rest of the Syracuse players gave the Cougars everything they wanted and more before falling 78-74 in overtime.<\/p>\n
Despite being short-handed, Syracuse took the fight right to Houston from the opening tap. <\/p>\n
The Orange led by as many as nine points in the first half and refused to back down even when Houston went on runs of 10-3 and 9-0 in the second half.<\/p>\n
With 1:54 left in the game and Syracuse trailing 67-62, a \u201cLet\u2019s Go Orange\u201d chant broke out at the MGM Grand\u2019s Garden Arena.<\/p>\n
Syracuse center William Kyle answered with a dunk and then Tyler Betsey tied the game with his fourth 3-pointer of the night.<\/p>\n
Syracuse had a chance to win at the end of regulation, but Orange center William Kyle had his shot blocked by Houston\u2019s Joseph Tugler at the buzzer.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
1\/29<\/p>\n
Players Era Festival: Syracuse battles Houston at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas<\/p>\n
Houston turned away Syracuse\u2019s upset bid by relying on Emanuel Sharp and Milos Uzan, two key players back from a team that played in last year\u2019s NCAA championship game. Sharp and Uzan both scored 26 points. Uzan and Sharp scored all of Houston\u2019s points in the overtime.<\/p>\n
But while Houston got the win, Syracuse\u2019s effort was the story of the night.<\/p>\n
Freeman had averaged 17.8 points in SU\u2019s first four games. He was also the Orange\u2019s second-leading rebounder. He figured to be a key against Houston\u2019s rugged frontcourt.<\/p>\n
Syracuse showed it had the kind of fight that makes for some of Vegas\u2019 best heavyweight bouts. The Orange matched Houston\u2019s intensity throughout.<\/p>\n
This wasn\u2019t a one-man effort either. Six Syracuse players scored in double-figures paced by Betsey\u2019s 16 points.<\/p>\n
Syracuse neither shot the ball extraordinarily well or relied on a bunch of Houston turnovers.<\/p>\n
The Orange finished 8-for-31 from 3-point range (27%) and shot a woeful 12-for-29 (41%) at the free throw line.<\/p>\n
Still, Syracuse hung with Houston for the entire night.<\/p>\n
Syracuse took a 43-41 lead on Naithan George\u2019s 3-point shot with 16 minutes left in the game. The game was tied at 44 a few minutes later.<\/p>\n
But Houston went on a 10-4 run highlighted by freshman center Chris Cenac\u2019s 3-point shot and then a traditional three-point play. The burst gave the Cougars a 54-47 lead.<\/p>\n
Syracuse clawed back to within two points on Nate Kingz\u2019s transition layup plus a foul that narrowed the margin to 56-54 with just over nine minutes left.<\/p>\n
However, another 9-0 run from Houston with veteran guard Emanuel Sharp driving for a bucket and then hitting a 3-pointer ended Syracuse\u2019s hopes of an upset. <\/p>\n
Freeman was officially ruled out for Syracuse\u2019s entire run here in Las Vegas just over an hour before Monday\u2019s game. <\/p>\n
It\u2019s unclear just how serious Freeman\u2019s injury is or when he might be able to return.<\/p>\n
Syracuse freshman Sadiq White stepped into Freeman\u2019s spot for the first start of his college career.<\/p>\n
A dogged effort kept Syracuse in the game throughout the first half despite being short-handed.<\/p>\n
Syracuse\u2019s defense forced Houston to take difficult shots. The Cougars made only 35% of their shots in the opening half. <\/p>\n
At the other end of the court, Syracuse did a good job of attacking Houston\u2019s pressure defense and double-teams. Syracuse center William Kyle had assists on each of the Orange\u2019s first two baskets. Orange guard JJ Starling found success driving and kicking to shooters like Betsey and Kiyan Anthony.<\/p>\n
Starling had four assists in the first half, while Betsey and Anthony scored 11 and nine points, respectively.<\/p>\n
The Orange led 23-14 midway through the half after Betsey drained a 3-pointer. At that point, Syracuse was 5-for-9 from 3-point range.<\/p>\n
But Syracuse\u2019s shooting went cold as the Orange went 1-for-10 from beyond the arc for the rest of the half.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Las Vegas \u2015 The Syracuse Orange, playing without its leading scorer, almost pulled off an upset of the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":63710,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[33244,56,58,57,188,33245,154,33246,33247,33248],"class_list":{"0":"post-63709","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-houston","8":"tag-editorial","9":"tag-houston","10":"tag-houston-headlines","11":"tag-houston-news","12":"tag-new-york","13":"tag-post-standard","14":"tag-sports","15":"tag-syracuse","16":"tag-syracuse-com","17":"tag-trimble"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/63709","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=63709"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/63709\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/63710"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=63709"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=63709"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=63709"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}