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No. 10 Syracuse renews a traditional Big East rivalry on Saturday in the first round of the NCAA Tournament. The Orange (7-5, 2-4 Atlantic Coast) travel to a neutral venue at Maryland’s Capital One Field to take on No. 5-seed Georgetown (12-2, 9-1 Big East) at 7:30 p.m. on Saturday. It will be SU’s 13th-straight year in the NCAA Tournament, though it hasn’t made it out of the first round since 2017.

Here’s what you need to know about the Hoyas.

All-time series

Syracuse leads 17-5

Last time they played

It’s been over eight years since Syracuse last met Georgetown. Their last matchup was in the second-to-last regular season game the Orange played in 2013 and the final of a five-game stretch in which each game SU played was decided by a single goal. Syracuse traveled to Washington, D.C., and went down a goal at halftime but stormed back with four goals in the third quarter. Luke Cometti’s early fourth-quarter marker pushed the Orange to a 9-6 lead. SU survived Georgetown’s late comeback bid to hold on for a 9-8 win. After the win, Syracuse went on to win the Big East tournament and reach the final of the NCAA Tournament, where it lost to Duke.

JoJo Marasco and Derek Maltz led the way with three points each against the Hoyas, and Cometti added two goals. Dominic Lamolinara didn’t make a save in the first quarter, but 10 stops the rest of the way helped preserve the Orange lead.

The game capped the end of what had been an annual matchup overlapping three decades between two programs traditionally in the Big East for other sports. Syracuse and Georgetown battled every year on the lacrosse field from 1995-2013. But since the Orange’s move to the ACC, the rivalry has disappeared in lacrosse.

The Georgetown report

While Georgetown’s offense can be deadly, as it showed in putting up 20 goals twice this season, it’s the Hoyas’ defense which makes them so dangerous in the NCAA Tournament. They allow just 7.93 goals per game, the best mark in the nation, and a large part of their success comes from not allowing shots to begin with. Georgetown’s opponents this year have averaged just 34.9 shots per game, which is just a tick above what Notre Dame holds opponents to. Goalie Owen McElroy leads the country in save percentage (.604) and he’s tied for 34th in saves per game (11). That being said, McElroy’s recent stretch of games has shown why he’s one of the best goalies in the country. He made a career-high 24 saves against Providence while allowing just four goals. Then in the Big East Tournament, McElroy made 17 saves against Villanova and 15 against Denver to help the Hoyas be crowned champions.

The Georgetown offense doesn’t move the ball around quite as quickly as Notre Dame and North Carolina, but it will swing the ball around instead of staying stagnant. That’s proved troublesome in the past for SU’s defense. The Hoyas have an assortment of dead-eye sharpshooters from the outside in Jake Carraway, who leads the team with 46 goals, playing alongside Graham Bundy Jr., Declan McDermott and Dylan Watson. Carraway and Bundy Jr. are the two more versatile of that group in terms of having the ball in their sticks to dodge, but with how free-flowing the Hoyas offense is, don’t expect them to always initiate through those two guys. TJ Haley, a freshman, is an interesting cog in what Georgetown likes to do offensively. He leads the team with 47 assists, more than double anyone else on the Hoyas, but isn’t always the go-to playmaker. Much like Pat Kavanagh for Notre Dame, he can work within the offense to find off-ball cutters.

How Syracuse beats the Hoyas

The Orange need to prepare better for how they’ll handle not having the ball. Georgetown won 58.7% of its faceoffs this year, 12th best nationally, so SU can’t necessarily rely on its faceoff unit for possessions. A lack of time with the ball has cost Syracuse dearly so far this season. In their five losses, the Orange offense only had the ball for 39.7% of the game, compared to 53.9% in their seven wins. And it wasn’t always just about the faceoff unit. Against North Carolina, five failed clears let down SU. That’s another strength of Georgetown, which held opponents to a 84.3% clearing percentage while forcing 8.93 turnovers a game.

Either SU’s clearing game, which ranks 47th in the nation, or the faceoff unit will need to be efficient on Saturday for it to have a chance at the upset. Head coach John Desko said early in the season that his squad wasn’t prepared enough to play without the ball because it happened so rarely in the past. In the ACC this year, it became the norm except for against Virginia. And now Syracuse needs to show it learned from those encounters.

If neither of those get cleaned up, the defense will be scrutinized. It’s undermanned, missing starting close defender Nick DiPietro for the rest of the season, but it will have to find a fix for its often suspect off-ball and transition defense. Georgetown carved up Denver in April with goals in transition and has three defenders and a faceoff man with at least one goal this year. Another two defenders have an assist, and goalie McElroy has three helpers.

Overall, SU will need to play clean and efficient all around the field. That’s not always happened this year, whether it’s been injuries or slumps. It’s the reason Syracuse had such an up-and-down season and is unseeded. But the NCAA Tournament is a reset, and for a program that’s often played its best lacrosse in May, it will need to find that historic tradition once more on Saturday.

Stat to know: 80.6%

Georgetown boasts the second-best man-down unit in the nation, allowing goals on less than 20% of opponents’ man-up opportunities. Syracuse, meanwhile, has the fifth-best man-up unit, which converted 48.3% of its chances this season. It’s a niche part of the game but will be a fascinating battle and could serve as a potential game-changing moment for both teams to turn momentum.

Player to watch: TJ Haley, attack, No. 4

Inside Lacrosse ranked him the 18th-best incoming freshman before the year, but Haley has rocketed up to be the leader amongst freshmen in points per game (4). He also leads the entire nation in assists per game (3.62), even ahead of Notre Dame’s breakout star Pat Kavanagh. For his efforts, the Big East named him the unanimous Freshman of the Year.

Georgetown doesn’t run its offense solely through the freshman, but when he gets the ball on his stick, Syracuse will need to be wary of off-ball movement, a part of the game the Orange have struggled to contain all season. In a tight game, Haley could be the X-factor for the Hoyas to unlock the SU defense.

Published on May 12, 2021 at 9:28 pm

Contact Arabdho: armajumd@syr.edu | @aromajumder