Syracuse escaped with a 74-72 win over Colgate on Tuesday evening.

Here are the key takeaways from SU moving to 2-0 on the season.

On offense, sometimes things flow with cutters, screeners, and passers. Other times, the offense stagnates and a player will simply decide to play one-on-one, more often than not settling for a mid-range jumper. SU went 5-for-10 on shots outside the key and inside the arc with three of the field goals coming just outside the paint.

On the official shot chart, Syracuse was listed as missing 12 lay-ups in the game, plus two other shots inside the restricted area.

The defense features players getting beaten off the dribble and poor rotations behind them. Colgate was listed with 25 attempted lay-ups and one other shot inside the restricted area.

In short, on both ends of the floor, this team looks like they are still trying to figure out how to blend a bunch of new faces with three players who carried over from last year. (Yes, three. Kyle Cuffe Jr. gets mentioned later.)

For the second straight game, albeit against a smaller opponent, SU won the battle of the boards. They outrebounded the Raiders, 45-36, including giving up only five offensive rebounds to the guests.

Of concern, though, is that there is not much behind Eddie Lampkin Jr., Jyare Davis, and Donnie Freeman. Lampkin and Davis grabbed 21 rebounds and Freeman snagged five more in only 16 minutes. Beyond that, there is not much help because this is…

While Le Moyne was a poor matchup for him due to their lack of a traditional big man, the presence of Colgate’s Jeff Woodward should have created the opportunity for Naheem McLeod to play. McLeod did not hit the floor.

If McLeod is not going to play when he will have to chase shorter, more mobile players, that is fine. He struggles in space and can easily get brought out from under the rim when covering an active player who can shoot outside. That said, if McLeod is not going to play against more traditional players like Woodward, when is he going to play?

I ask this because McLeod’s rim protection would help a team that is giving up 26 shots there to a team like Colgate.

After a game in which his team had just been outscored in fast break points, 22-2, head coach Adrian Autry noted that he wanted to play at a faster tempo.

While scoring some easy points would obviously help, this team is not structured to create transition opportunities. They had two steals and five blocked shots in the game after getting seven steals and five swats against Le Moyne. The live ball turnovers just are not there and this team is spending most of its defensive possessions rebounding the ball or taking it out of the net.

I also do not know if, since it looks like they are going to count on Lampkin for heavy minutes, running a bunch is the best strategy. Yes, the big man can trail on offense to become part of a halfcourt set if nothing comes out of transition, but he does not seem to be an up-and-down-the-floor player.

And it seems like SU needs him a lot.

After two games, one bench role is clearly set. Jyare Davis is the sixth man, replacing Donnie Freeman. Against Colgate, Elijah Moore was the second player off the bench for the Orange, flipping roles with Lucas Taylor from the opening game.

Davis plays with energy and emotion, as did Moore against the Raiders, which may be part of the reason he jumped over Lucas Taylor for this game.

Taylor did get a long stretch on the floor in the first half, then only got off the bench after the break for the final 42 seconds to replace Moore for defensive purposes. Petar Majstorovic played a short burst in each half and Cuffe had a brief cameo in the first half.

When January comes along and the rotation is even tighter, remember these tight early games that kept the Orange from really developing their bench players.

If Starling wants to be the guy with the ball in his hands late in the game, he must stop fouling or he will not even be in the game.

SU is shooting 12-of-45 (26.7 percent) from 3-point range through two games. It looks like the word is out on running Chris Bell off the arc, as he is 3-for-10 from deep in two games. Starling is 3-of-9 and no other Orange player has made more than one.

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