Syracuse (9-3) mauled Montana State (5-7) in the Carrier Dome on Tuesday night, 82-60. With 2:11 left in the game, the Orange’s lead peaked at 30 before interim head coach Mike Hopkins subbed in walk-ons Shaun Belbey, Evan Dourdas, Adrian Autry, Doyin Akintobi-Adeyeye and Ky Feldman.

The Orange managed to outrebound Montana State, 48-45, the second straight game SU has outrebounded its opponent. Syracuse had not gotten more boards than its opponent in consecutive games since the Orange played Elon, Charlotte and Connecticut.

The matchup with the Bobcats served as SU’s second-to-last nonconference game. Its last will be against Texas Southern on Dec. 27.

Here are three things we learned from SU’s win over Montana State.

Malachi Richardson hasn’t found his shooting stroke

Malachi Richardson had another off shooting night, going 3-of-9 from the field and 0-of-4 from beyond the 3-point arc. Hopkins praised Richardson, who corralled five rebounds, for battling down low, but in 25 minutes, the guard scored just seven points.

Before Syracuse’s game against Wisconsin, Richardson shot better than 40 percent from the field, but since, he’s shot just below 30 percent. The trend is the same behind the arc. Before SU played the Badgers, Richardson shot nearly 40 percent from behind the arc, and since he’s hit just 15 percent of his shots from deep.

In the last six games, the freshman has only hit six 3s, the same number of 3s he hit in his first two games at Syracuse. At the beginning of the season, he was supposed to be SU’s third shooter after guards Trevor Cooney and Michael Gbinije, but those two have had to carry the load for a team that was supposed to get much of its production from beyond the arc.

Against Montana State though, Richardson’s poor shooting performance didn’t hurt Syracuse as much because Dajuan Coleman, Tyler Lydon and Chinonso Obokoh outmatched the Bobcats’ undersized frontcourt.

Missed free throws continue to cost Syracuse points

Montana State picked up a total of 24 fouls against Syracuse on Tuesday, giving the Orange 24 free throws throughout the night. SU made just 11, or 46 percent. On the year, Syracuse shoots about 67 percent from the charity stripe, and the performance against the Bobcats was SU’s worst of the season.

Although Montana State came in as an inferior opponent, the same performance could hurt SU moving into conference play just over a week away. The only Syracuse players to take multiple free throws and make more than half of them were forward Tyler Roberson, who hit 3-of-5 and Coleman, who hit all three of his.

Tuesday was an uncharacteristically awful performance from a team that isn’t great at free throws already, ranking 158th in the nation.

Tyler Lydon is nearly a double-double machine

During the Battle 4 Atlantis, ESPN color commentator Jay Bilas drooled over Tyler Lydon’s pro prospects, even comparing him to Dallas Mavericks star Chandler Parsons. The hype has died down a bit since he shot 60 percent from the field, 70 percent behind the arc, averaged 15 points and nearly 10 rebounds per game in the three games in the Bahamas.

But the forward has still been averaging nearly a double-double. Against Montana State, Lydon scored 10 points and corralled nine boards. His performance dipped right after SU played in the Battle 4 Atlantis, racking up a total of just six rebounds and 11 points in two games against Wisconsin and Georgetown. Since then, his numbers have progressively gotten better, as he registered a double-double against St. John’s.

Obokoh and Coleman may have had solid performances for SU against Montana State, but Lydon’s consistent success has been and will be a key for Syracuse going forward.

Published on December 23, 2015 at 12:18 am

Contact Chris: cjlibona@syr.edu | @ChrisLibonati