7 takeaways from Syracuse's 82-76 win over Louisville

Syracuse swept its season series against Louisville, winning on the road, 82-76, on Saturday evening.

Here are the main takeaways from the win.

The excitement surrounding Syracuse’s late hot streak to keep its NCAA Tournament hopes on life support is understandable. But it is hard to see the Orange getting an invitation to the dance without continuing to win, including Tuesday at Clemson and at least two games in the conference tournament.

While things will almost certainly change by the end of the regular season, the Orange can hang onto the four seed by defeating the Tigers on their senior night and Wake Forest losing to at least one of Georgia Tech and Clemson at home (their sweep of Pittsburgh ensures they would finish ahead of the Panthers).

Even if things break that way, SU would play one of those three teams in the quarterfinals. They have lost to both Clemson and Wake Forest already this season and their sweep of Pitt was concluded right before they took off on their current stretch of nine wins in a dozen games.

And then, either North Carolina or Duke would be looming as a reward for advancing.

Judah Mintz was whistled for a technical foul in the second half, then drew the ire of head coach Adrian Autry for persistently talking back to him in an animated fashion. Autry originally was going to leave Mintz in the game, then sent in Quadir Copeland for Mintz after their sideline chat.

Justin Taylor jump started the Orange offense early in the first half.

Taylor made a short turnaround in the lane to get into the scoring column, then notched steals on the next two possessions, both leading to SU dunks.

He deflected a pass and came up with the ball for the first, then tossed a lead pass for a Chris Bell one-handed windmill. Taylor then poked the ball away from behind his man and took off for two-handed dunk while getting fouled.

Bell also set a career-high with seven rebounds in the game. His three blocks were one shy of tying his best of four, set earlier this season against Cornell.

Both teams’ defenses were porous at times. SU had shooting stretches of 7-of-8, 5-of-6, and 7-of-7 in the game. The Cardinals’ longest streak was three straight, but they had two stretches of 4-for-6 shooting to go with 7-of-9 and 7-of-11 streaks.

The Orange had their rotation tightened by both things in and out of their control.

They could do nothing about the illness that sidelined Peter Carey. J.J. Starling committed his second foul just over seven minutes into the action, only to be replaced by Copeland, who needed just over five minutes to commit three of his own.

Copeland would eventually foul out after playing 11:02 in the game.

Syracuse (20-10, 11-8 ACC) will be the first team to close its conference schedule, wrapping the slate on Tuesday night when they also finish its home-and-home set at Clemson. The Tigers (20-9, 10-8) had won six of seven games before falling at Notre Dame on Saturday, 69-62.

Clemson won the first meeting between the two squads on February 10 by a 77-68 final. Former SU player Joe Girard III reached the 2,000-point plateau in his collegiate career by posting a game-high 18 points and led four Tigers with at least 13 points in the game. P.J. Hall, who leads the team in scoring (18.6 pts/game) and blocks (1.7/game), had a 15-point, ten-rebound double-double with three rejections in the game.

Chris Bell and J.J. Starling each had 16 points to lead the Orange in the first meeting with Bell connecting four times from behind the arc in the game. SU forced 21 turnovers in the game, including piling up 14 steals, but allowed Clemson to shoot almost 61 percent in the game and also got routed in the rebounding battle, 41-24.

Tuesday’s rematch between Syracuse and Clemson is slated for a 7:00pm Eastern tip-off with ESPN2 handling television responsibilities.

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