The zone is Syracuse’s staple. That was no surprise. What was, though, was just how mightily Indiana struggled against the Orange’s signature defense.

“That’s all we play,” SU guard Brandon Triche said after the game. “They shouldn’t have been surprised.”

Still, the Hoosiers were flummoxed. Syracuse’s defense was excellent all season, but top-seeded IU boasted one of the nation’s top offenses. When the unstoppable force collided with the No. 4-seed Orange’s immovable defense, SU triumphed 61-50 to advance to the Elite Eight at the Verizon Center in Washington, D.C.

Syracuse went on to defeat No. 3-seed Marquette to reach the Final Four for the first time since 2003 before losing to fourth-seeded Michigan.

The Orange charged out of the gate and to a 12-point halftime lead against one of the presumptive national championship favorites. Indiana committed 19 total turnovers and shot just 33 percent from the field for the game. SU blocked 10 shots and racked up 12 steals while never allowing the Hoosiers to cut the deficit slimmer than six.

“We didn’t give them an easy look,” Syracuse forward C.J. Fair said after the game. “Every point they got, they worked for it.”

The Orange held IU’s sharpshooters 0-for-6 from beyond the arc and Indiana tumbled to an eight-point deficit less than six minutes into the game.

The biggest scare that Indiana gave SU came just 87 seconds into the second half. The Hoosiers cut the lead to seven, but Syracuse held Cody Zeller, an All-American, in check.

“We tried to make him uncomfortable,” Fair said. “Our bigs did a good job walling him up and then the forwards would come weak-side and try to block the shot.”

Baye Moussa Keita and James Southerland smothered the big man, but it was Jerami Grant, the sparingly used forward who oozed with potential, who pulled off the game’s biggest defensive play, blocking a Will Sheehy dunk and keeping the lead at 14 after a 3-pointer.

That was just one play. The cumulative effort from the Orange’s smothering defense left it with a remarkable upset in its biggest game yet.

“The one thing that probably surprised them was us being so tough,” Triche said. “That’s the one thing we struggle with — our toughness sometimes.

“Sometimes we’re not as competitive around the basket, getting the loose balls, making the extra-effort plays and that’s where we lose focus, but today, we matched their intensity.”

– compiled by sports editor David Wilson, dbwilson@syr.edu

Published on December 2, 2013 at 11:53 pm