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Welcoming the Blue Devils back to the JMA Wireless Dome was supposed to be the pinnacle of an average season, a jumping off point, catapulting the Orange onto the NCAA Tournament bubble. Instead, it showed how drastic the gap was between Syracuse and Duke.

Amidst a 21-2 run in the first half, Duke thumped the Orange. To begin the run, the defense left Jacob Grandison, a 33% 3-point shooter on a 32.3% shooting team, open. Then, Mounir Hima got bitten by a personal foul down low, leading to another layup from Duke. Hima then fouled Jeremy Roach, as the Blue Devils’ point guard drove down the lane and made a quick move to get Hima up in the air. Two possessions later, Tyrese Proctor, a 28.6% 3-point shooter, extended the Blue Devils’ lead to 27-19 with another wide-open deep shot.

This was meant to be the biggest game for the Orange, a resume builder to compound on the impressive upset of NC State on Tuesday. It quickly turned into a realization of how far away Syracuse is from taking down Duke. The Blue Devils, who aren’t known this year for their 3-point shooting, went 50% from deep, and Syracuse (16-11, 9-7 Atlantic Coast) was outrebounded 38-25 in its 77-55 loss to Duke (19-8, 10-6 ACC).

“We were excited. Obviously, it was a great environment,” Joe Girard III said. “We just didn’t get our crowd into it as much as we would’ve liked just because of the way we played.”

The Orange are led by Judah Mintz, a candidate for ACC Freshman of the Year, headlining a six-man recruiting class, ushering in the final stages of head coach Jim Boeheim’s nearly five-decade career.

The start set into motion exactly what Syracuse had feared. Syracuse was going to have little to no space to operate inside the paint. When Jesse Edwards would get the ball inside, the Blue Devils would clamp down on him. If Maliq Brown or Chris Bell drove baseline and tried to go up and under from inside the paint, they would get stuffed. It led to three turnovers within the first 10 minutes. Brown had one punched out early in the first half after Kyle Filipowski and Mark Mitchell collapsed in on him. A few possessions later, Edwards, either trying for a straight-line shot or pass over to Brown, had the ball punched loose by Duke, leading to another turnover.

What persisted — the 13 made 3s, the most all season — plagued the Orange. Filipowski and Dereck Lively came as advertised, and at times, looked to simply overpower Edwards. But the Blue Devils, who came into the game shooting 32.3% from deep, were consistently left open beyond the arc, and frequently connected. Duke finished the first half going 8-for-14 from deep. Even Filipowski, who was firing at just 27.5% from deep prior to Saturday night, pulled up during the first-half run and connected.

“The team’s kind of down right now,” Edwards said. “We’re gonna try to forget about this one.”

Judah Mintz finished with 18 points in 34 minutes in the loss to Duke. Emily Steinberger | Senior Staff Photographer

Last year, following a 25-point loss to Duke in front of the largest crowd of the season, Boeheim stated a blunt truth: “We can’t handle Duke, pretty simple.” Even without Edwards, who the Orange lost earlier that year for the season to a broken wrist, Boeheim knew that regular season game was bound to be ugly. But this year, there was Edwards, and there wasn’t Paolo Banchero, Wendell Moore, Trevor Keels and AJ Griffin. Instead, Duke flashed Filipowski, the Wooden Award and Naismith Player of the Year contender.

“At the end of the day, there was nothing we could do with their big guys,” Boeheim said last year after Syracuse’s 25-point regular season loss to the Blue Devils.

Duke exchanged those four players for Lively, Roach, Ryan Young and Filipowski. The big men that dominated the Orange last year were gone, but a new crop that has clamped down on teams inside the paint throughout the season provided just as much of an obstacle, ultimately turning in a similar result.

Mintz batted away the ball at halfcourt following an offensive rebound from Whitehead, and the crowd at the JMA Wireless Dome — projected to be the largest of the season — erupted as Mintz bolted down the court alone. He quickly followed up his dunk with another steal, this time off of Roach, at the top of the key. Mintz flipped the ball up to Joe Girard III, who quickly stopped behind the 3-point line and buried a 3, giving the Orange a 13-9 lead. The 9-2 hole Syracuse found itself in to begin the evening was gone, and the Orange had a hold on the Blue Devils. The Orange continued to have electrifying plays and ended the day keeping pace with the Blue Devils on the boards, but the end result was largely the same. 

Syracuse faded up the 2-3 zone toward the end of the second half after Duke had kickstarted a 57.1% first half 3-point shooting performance. That script meant pulling Bell just two minutes and 30 seconds into the game in favor of Benny Williams, who finished with four points and two rebounds, and plugging in Justin Taylor when Brown was fumbling through plays deep in the paint. But Duke did what it always does. Scheyer saw open 3s and instructed his team to take them. He saw that Syracuse had no one to properly combat Lively and Filipowski down low, so he was fine letting the Orange part ways with 3-pointers in favor of feeds down low. He went right at Hima in the first half, and drew two fouls on the backup center despite him playing for just 54 seconds.

“Last year they just beat us easily. It wasn’t even a contest. This was a little better — not much — but a little better,” Boeheim said.

The Blue Devils took off for a 21-8 run to end the first half, entering halftime with a 40-27 lead, connecting on five 3-pointers during the run. Duke followed up the run by storming out in the second half, ensuring the Orange didn’t come within fewer than eight points. 

The Orange needed to play well — and in some aspects did. But the Blue Devils did what they’ve done to SU for the last five years: dominate, wear down and end up with a double-digit win. If Tuesday served as a bright spot for the Orange, a sign that maybe this young team had quickly grown up, Saturday night’s loss showed their maturation is still in progress. 

The more things change, the more they stay the same. And despite all the changes within these two programs, the constant — Duke beating Syracuse — remained.

“It’s disappointing — we have a great crowd, the fans were great,” Boeheim said. “It’s always disappointing when we get a lot of people and we don’t play well.”

Published on February 18, 2023 at 8:14 pm

Contact Anthony: aalandt@syr.edu | @anthonyalandt