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Shooting woes plague Syracuse men's basketball in 69-64 ACC opener loss at Notre Dame

Syracuse forward Chris Bell (4, Orange) chucks up one of his three misses from three point range on Saturday.
cuse.com
Syracuse forward Chris Bell (4, Orange) chucks up one of his three misses from three point range on Saturday.

Syracuse Men's Basketball (4-4, 0-1 Atlantic Coast Conference) scored a season low 64 points against Notre Dame (5-5, 1-0 ACC) in its 69-64 loss on Saturday. The Orange lost their conference opener for the second consecutive season, and this defeat also marks their fourth loss of the last five games.

For the first time since 2014, SU didn't make a single three-point shot as it went 0-9. On the other side, ND cashed in 36% of it's triples going 8 for 22. The 24 difference point difference made it even more difficult for Syracuse to keep it close with Notre Dame.

Last season, forward Chris Bell made 42% of his three-pointers. Through eight games, the junior has yet to shoot over 40% in any contest and is shooting just 27% on the season.

“He's just not in a good place right now,” Head Coach Adrian Autry said after the game about Bell.

It also didn't help that the Orange missed 8 free throws. Syracuse went 16-24 from the charity strip. This was the second time this year the Orange have missed more foul shots than the amount of points they lost by. The ‘Cuse has only shot over 70% from the line twice this season.

“I thought those were the things that decided the game,” Autry said about free throws, “we work on it, we got to be able to make those.”

Despite the shooting struggles, Syracuse kept themselves close. SU had the lead with under seven minutes left, and tied it back up with less than four minutes to go. Forwards Donnie Freeman and Jyáre Davis each totaled 20 points for the Orange, but nobody else scored more than eight.

SU forward Jyáre Davis puts up one of 12 shots down low.
cuse.com
SU forward Jyáre Davis puts up one of 12 shots down low.

SU's best three point shooter this season, Elijah Moore (who, after today is shooting 40% from beyond the arc), missed all three of his first half shots and didn't hit both of his shots from distance. The freshman didn't connect on a bucket until the clock read 2:26 in the 2nd frame.

Just because Syracuse couldn't score from deep, it didn't mean the basket was closed. ND guard Braden Shrewsberry scored a game-high (and tied a career high) 25 points on 8-15 shooting and 6-11 from distance. The sophomore also connected on a three with two minutes left that ended up being the dagger.

“Whatever happened out there, we got to flush it and move on to the next,” Donnie Freeman said after the game about his mentality moving forward.

Syracuse has a quick turn around because UAlbany visits the JMA Wireless Dome on Tuesday. WAER’s coverage starts with countdown to tip-off at 6:30 p.m followed by gametime at 7:00.