Syracuse men’s basketball’s flaws were exposed in its first loss inside the Dome this year against Hofstra

For the first time this season, Syracuse men’s basketball (6-4, 0-0 Atlantic Coast Conference) fell at home 70-69 at the hands of Hofstra (8-4, 0-0 Colonial Athletic Association Conference). A game where the Orange were favored double digits, slipped out of their hands especially in the final minute.

SU carried a one-point edge into halftime and grew its lead to seven a few minutes into the second half. However, the Pride answered back with vengeance thanks to a 19-4 run to give Hofstra an eight-point advantage. The lead went back-and-forth 13 different times and Syracuse looked to rally late. The Orange had their largest run of the night with under five minutes to go and jumped out to an 11-0 run.

SU head coach Adrian Autry stated that he was not shocked by what happened in the game and was upset about his team's effort.

“The things that we talked about and prepared for, we just didn’t do those things, execute those things to the level they needed to execute at. There were no surprises. Disappointed in level five effort and attention to detail, ” Autry said.

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Once again, Syracuse could not close the door in the final minute. The Orange led with under 60 seconds left after forward William Kyle knocked down a pair of free throws. Hofstra answered immediately, as guard German Plotnikov knocked down a corner three-pointer with 34 seconds left to put the Pride ahead by two.

After a foul, freshman Sadiq White was sent to the line for two shots and the opportunity to tie the game, but White went just 1-2 at the charity stripe. Up by one point Hofstra committed a costly five-second violation turnover giving the Orange the ball and opportunity to take the lead. Freshman Kiyan Anthony drove to the basket but missed the potential game-winning layup with three seconds left and Hofstra took down Syracuse for the first time in program history and picked up its second ACC win of the week.

A problem that has been at the forefront all year for coach Adrian Autry’s squad has been free throws. In this contest, the problem reappeared once again. Syracuse went 9-16 at the line, marking the seventh time this season the Orange failed to shoot over 60 percent from the charity stripe. Syracuse now has the worst free-throw percentage in all of Division I men’s basketball (361 teams) at 56.8 percent.

One player who brought a spark to the offensive was veteran guard J.J. Starling. The senior scored a team and season-high 15 points and added a season-best two threes.

“I started to realize that I am the best me when I am confident and not thinking, over-analyzing, anything like that. I just had that mentality coming into the game and it worked out,” Starling said. “He’s a guy that can get going, we need him to be aggressive. I thought in the second half he wasn’t as aggressive as we needed him to be and as he needs to be,” Autry added.

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Syracuse aims to learn from the loss and bounce back against Mercyhurst Wednesday at 7:00. WAER’s coverage begins with Remodeling Countdown to Tipoff at 6:30, which will be live right here on waer.org or on 88.3 FM.