Jim Boeheim couldn’t find the right defensive combination and Long Beach State took advantage.

Just over a minute into the game, Boeheim screamed “Kaleb!” before yanking point guard Kaleb Joseph from the game and Ron Patterson, the freshman’s replacement, suffered the same fate minutes later. Trevor Cooney played all 20 minutes of the first half in one guard spot, but Joseph (12) and Patterson (8) split time in the other.

Chris McCullough, Rakeem Christmas and Tyler Roberson cycled through the wing and center spots as Michael Gbinije played all 20 minutes on one wing. Although no mix of the seven players clicked, Syracuse (8-4) went on to beat Long Beach State (5-9), 85-67, in the Carrier Dome on Sunday afternoon.

“Our defense picked up just a little bit in the second half,” Boeheim said. “… We got to play better defense than we did tonight. This was kind of an eye opener and our defense really, really was not good.”

As a result of SU’s spotty defense, the 49ers shot 15-of-27 from the field and hit four 3s while scoring 40 first-half points.

Boeheim called Sunday’s game his team’s best offensive performance of the season, but was extremely displeased with its first-half defense. He pinpointed McCullough and Roberson as players that have to be more active, and their inactivity left 49ers open in the paint early on.

“We had the scouting report and we didn’t follow it at the beginning of the game,” Gbinije said of the defense. “As a result we caught ourselves down early … In the future, against (Atlantic Coast Conference) teams, we can’t come out like that.”

The Orange jumped into a full-court press early in the game and that spelled some of its zone problems. In the second half, SU’s wings came up and the guards were more active in defending the 3-point line. Long Beach State shot just 2-of-12 from long range in the second frame, and Boeheim noted that both makes were hard-earned.

And like Gbinije, Boeheim said that kind of defensive start won’t be acceptable in conference play. That’s when there will be better shooters, ball-handlers and post players, and second-half adjustments could come too late.

“We got to be better,” Boeheim said. “We got to go to work tomorrow right away and get better on defense. One more nonconference game, Cornell’s playing well and it’ll be a good game for us. We have to try and get better as we head into the conference season.”

Published on December 28, 2014 at 7:22 pm

Contact Jesse: jcdoug01@syr.edu | @dougherty_jesse