Las Vegas \u2013 Naithan George stood in a hallway of the MGM Grand\u2019s Garden Arena with his back against the wall and a look of both exhaustion and disappointment on his face.<\/p>\n
The Syracuse Orange had just pushed the 3rd-ranked Houston Cougars to the brink of the biggest upset in college basketball so far this season before dropping a 78-74 decision in overtime here at the Players Era Festival.<\/p>\n
The Orange had their chances to win, especially on the final possession of regulation with the score tied. They also had plenty of times when they could\u2019ve have folded, especially when down by 11 points with five minutes left in regulation.<\/p>\n
Syracuse had fought, had shown more grit than any SU team in a long time, had played a team with three potential first-round picks in next year\u2019s NBA draft while playing without its own leading scorer in Donnie Freeman and was right there up until the final horn.<\/p>\n
So had Syracuse earned respect; a dreaded moral victory? Or had the Orange let one slip away?<\/p>\n
\u201cWe let one get away, for sure,\u2019\u2019 George said.<\/p>\n
Ever since he took over as Syracuse\u2019s head coach, Adrian Autry had a vision for how he wanted the Orange to play. He preached the idea of an aggressive approach, a harassing defense, a team that would play with intensity. <\/p>\n
For maybe the first time in his tenure, the Orange played the way Autry wanted.<\/p>\n
\u201cOur culture gave us a chance to win this game,\u2019\u2019 Autry said. \u201cWe came up short. No moral victories here, but, you know, we started to continually work hard, play at a Level 5, stay together, and keep pushing through.\u2019\u2019<\/p>\n
The Orange\u2019s effort made up for the absence of Freeman and more. <\/p>\n
Syracuse didn\u2019t shoot the ball well, making only eight out of 31 attempts from the 3-point line. The Orange\u2019s awful free throw shooting \u2013 12-for-29 at the line \u2013 should have precluded any ideas of an upset.<\/p>\n
But Syracuse didn\u2019t back down against Houston\u2019s pressure defense, hung with the Cougars on the boards (the rebounds were 49-43 in favor of the Cougars) and forced Houston into a 36 percent shooting night from the field.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m sure Coach Autry and his staff and the Syracuse kids are disappointed that they lost,\u2019\u2019 Houston coach Kelvin Sampson said. \u201cThey should be. But they should not be disappointed with their effort and how tough they played. They played good.\u2019\u2019<\/p>\n
The Houston Cougars have earned a reputation for their intense, relentless defensive effort. Defense is the calling card of Sampson\u2019s program. The Cougars came into Monday\u2019s game ranked second in the country in points allowed at 53.4 per game.<\/p>\n
Syracuse entered the ring ranked first \u2013 53.2.<\/p>\n
To keep from getting swamped by Houston\u2019s defenders, Syracuse had to match the Cougars\u2019 effort.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s not even about matching that. It\u2019s about what we do,\u2019\u2019 Autry said. \u201cWe feel like we\u2019re one of the best defensive teams in the country, right? So it wasn\u2019t about a comparing game. We just had a game-plan to play our game (and) to do what we need to do.\u2019\u2019<\/p>\n
The halls in the MGM Grand\u2019s Garden Arena are adorned with the promotion photos of the boxing matches that have been staged here. The faces of Evander Holyfield, Mike Tyson, Manny Pacquiao, Julio Cesar Chavez, Oscar de la Hoya and other legendary fighters stare at those who pass by. <\/p>\n
At some point on Monday, Houston vs. Syracuse turned into prize-fight.<\/p>\n
In the game\u2019s second half, Houston hit Syracuse with offensive runs of 10-to-3 and 9-0. The latter gave Houston a 65-54 lead with 5 minutes left in regulation.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe knew this was going to be a fight,\u2019\u2019 Autry said, \u201cand we got ourselves off the ropes and we swung back.\u2019\u2019<\/p>\n
In a huddle, George said the SU players reminded themselves what they had talked about before the game.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe knew that they were going to fight (and) we were going to fight as well,\u2019\u2019 George said. \u201cSo just keeping our composure and just continuing to fight. That was the main message.\u2019\u2019<\/p>\n
The Orange held Houston to just two points in the final five minutes. Tyler Betsey tied the game on a 3-pointer with 51 seconds remaining.<\/p>\n
But on a final possession, George got the ball to SU center William Kyle down low. But Houston\u2019s Joseph Tugler blocked Kyle\u2019s shot to send the game into overtime.<\/p>\n
That would prove to be Syracuse\u2019s best chance to get the upset victory. The Orange never led in overtime.<\/p>\n
Houston\u2019s veteran guards; Emanuel Sharp and Milos Uzan, scored all of the Cougars\u2019 points in overtime. The two finished with 26 points apiece.<\/p>\n
Syracuse; now 4-1 on the season, walked out of the arena with a loss, but more hope for the future than any of its first four wins had offered.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou know what I take and what these guys take is what we pride ourselves in,\u2019\u2019 Autry said. \u201cIt\u2019s our culture. Our energy. Our connection. Our toughness. Our fight.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat\u2019s what we talk about,\u2019\u2019 he continued. \u201cWe work hard. It\u2019s a hard-working program. I was just proud that these guys had a chance to actually see it and experience it, and they know that as we move forward, we\u2019ll continue to get better.\u2019\u2019<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Las Vegas \u2013 Naithan George stood in a hallway of the MGM Grand\u2019s Garden Arena with his back…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":63813,"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-63812","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\/63812","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=63812"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/63812\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/63813"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=63812"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=63812"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=63812"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}