A Boston College halftime buzzer-beater seemed to take the air out of Syracuse, but they responded with a 24-7 second half run to pull out their first win away from home, 79-71. The Orange (8-8, 2-3 ACC) claimed their second straight win in conference play while the Eagles (9-7, 1-4) dropped their second in a row.
Kyle Cuffe Jr. had all ten of his points in that game-changing run for SU, while J.J. Starling added eight of his game-high 26 in that span. Lucas Taylor made his first four shots for ten points in the first half, then added five free throws in the final minute to finish with 15. Jyare Davis added 12 points and eight rebounds starting for Donnie Freeman, who missed his second straight game due to injury, while Eddie Lampkin had logged back-to-back double-doubles with ten points and 13 boards.
Syracuse made 9-of-13 shots in that comeback surge and ended up shooting 57.1 percent from the field in the second half to finish at 49.2 percent overall. The Orange also went 13-of-14 from the foul line in the second half, including 11-of-12 in the final two minutes of play to keep Boston College at bay.
SU started well on offense, jumping out to a 10-4 lead just over five minutes into the game. BC came right back at them, eventually running off seven straight points in under a minute to take their first lead at 13-12.
Taylor and Jaquan Carlos ended that Eagle run by combining to connect on three in a row from behind the arc with Taylor hitting twice. Carlos’ swish made it nine straight points for the Orange, giving them a 21-13 advantage midway through the opening half.
The Syracuse offense went into the deep freeze, missing ten straight shots and going more than five minutes without a point. Boston College took advantage, gradually chipping away at the margin and pulling within 21-20 with just over five minutes until halftime.
The Orange bigs started muscling up, as Lampkin scored twice inside around a Davis post-up for a 6-0 burst and a seven-point lead. SU went to the 2-3 zone for the last couple minutes of the half and got burned, giving up three straight scoring possessions to BC to close a 9-1 Eagle run. Three Chris Bell free throws gave Syracuse a lead, but a last-second three from the hosts made it 32-32 at half.
Boston College rode the momentum of that buzzer-beater into the second half, grabbing their biggest lead at 41-36 before the four-minute mark. The Orange came right back, scoring six of the next eight points to draw within a marker.
The hosts came back, stitching together an 8-2 run to push the lead to 51-44, then nudged it out to 54-46 for their largest lead of the day with just under nine minutes on the clock. SU replied with ten unanswered points for their first lead of the second half at 56-54 with under six minutes to play.
The Eagles knotted the score with a bucket, but Cuffe hit a pair of 3-pointers around another BC score to start a 12-4 Syracuse run. Lampkin slipped a pass from a crowd off an offensive board for a Starling lay-up, then added both ends of a one-and-one to give the Orange a 68-60 lead with just under two minutes on the clock. The center’s foul shots began a parade of successful trips to the line, as Taylor went 5-of-6 to go with Lampkin and Starling each adding a pair from the stripe to ice the victory.
Donald Hand Jr. led the Boston College effort with 20 points and nine rebounds. Joshua Beadle and Chad Venning were the only other Eagles to reach double figures, as they each piled up 17 points. Elijah Strong chipped in with eight points.
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