Syracuse men’s basketball shows improvement in 79-74 loss to Texas Tech

By: Skyler Wilkes | @swilkes04

Ahead of the Legends Classic, Syracuse men’s basketball was 3-0. Now, on the other side, the Orange are 3-2, capped off with a 79-74 loss to Texas Tech. But, even with these defeats, SU experienced a lot of growth defensively. So much so that it caught the eye of Red Raider head coach Grant McCasland. 

“There’s a lot of ownership to that side of the ball,” stated McCasland. “I think they’ve got some young guys that’ll continue to grow with that. You can see, some of those younger guys don’t quite understand exactly what they want to get. But, it definitely feels like there’s a pretty significant improvement in regards to their man defense and it starts with the ability to guard the ball. They’ve got a good plan.”

Obviously, it means a lot coming from the opposing coach. But, where it may mean even more, is from inside the SU locker room. 

“I think the defense clicked because we started to talk,” explained Syracuse forward Chris Bell. “When in practice, we talked about how the defense needed to communicate and that would fix a lot of problems and I feel like we’ve done that. Just realizing where we are on the court as well, being in our gaps early. I would say our low-man too because we always have a low-man down there. It shows us being well-coached and I think it’s helping us really well.”

“I think we always had it in us, but it came from within,” said SU freshman Donnie Freeman. “I think seeing a bigger opponent in front of us kind of brung it out of us.” 

Even though the Orange made some strong strides defensively, there’s still a ways to go. Tonight was the fifth straight time to open up a season that Syracuse allowed 70+ points to its opponent. That hasn’t happened since the 1971 season. SU aims to stop the offense when it hosts Cornell on Wednesday. That game is set to tipoff at 7 p.m.