Without an answer for college basketball’s hottest player, West Virginia’s season came to a disappointing ending Sunday as the Mountaineers suffered a 75-72 loss to Syracuse at Bankers Life Fieldhouse.
Orange shooting guard Buddy Boeheim scored 22 of his game-high 25 points after halftime, including 10 over the final 8:51 after the third-seeded Mountaineers (19-10) had taken their only lead of the game, 53-52.
“I’ve had a lot of hard-working players and guys that just worked their tail off and he works harder than anybody I’ve ever coached,” Orange coach Jim Boeheim said of his son. “It’s really not close. He’s an incredibly hard worker and he deserves this.”
Boeheim, who entered with 88 points over his last three games and 30 in an opening-round win over San Diego State, scored in the paint with 8:51 to play, and the No. 11 seed Orange never trailed again.
Boeheim’s pull-up jump shot with 5:29 left gave Syracuse (18-9) a 60-56 lead, and after West Virginia’s Miles “Deuce” McBride responded with a three-pointer, Boeheim answered with his own triple.
“We did a pretty good job getting back in the game. We took a lead and kept switching when we shouldn’t have switched,” WVU coach Bob Huggins said. “We needed to keep the same defender on their best player. I kept saying stop switching and we kept switching.”
That three was the start of a decisive 10-0 Orange run that also featured Marek Dolezaj’s layup, a Robert Braswell three and Quincy Guerrier’s dunk.
“It comes down to communication,” said WVU guard Sean McNeil, who led the Mountaineers with 23 points. “We went to our point drop where we try to pass things off and switch here and there and it was a lapse of communication on knowing what’s going on.”
The Mountaineers cut their deficit to 72-68 after getting five straight points on a McNeil three and a layup by Emmitt Matthews Jr. with 41 seconds to play.
Applying fullcourt pressure, WVU forced a heldball, but didn’t have the possession arrow and ultimately fouled Boeheim with 21 seconds remaining. Boeheim made both, though WVU still had a chance when Gabe Osabuohien scored inside to cut the deficit to 74-72 with 4.5 seconds.
Boeheim then split two free throws and McBride was whistled for a travel with 0.2 seconds left before the Mountaineers got off a tying attempt.
West Virginia trailed by six at halftime, which quickly grew to a 43-31 deficit in the second half. But the Mountaineers ran off a 9-0 run after falling behind 46-35, only for Boeheim to answer with consecutive triples.
Faced with a 52-44 deficit, McNeil made a three — then added two more over the next 1:20 — to give the Mountaineers their lone lead of the contest with 9:47 left.
“I thought when we got over the hump and took the lead that we wouldn’t look back, but they’re a good team, credit to them,” McNeil said. “Buddy can obviously shoot the ball.”
A dreadful start put West Virginia in an early hole. Plagued by turnovers and an inability to get stops, the Mountaineers trailed 6-0, 17-8 and 28-14 before putting together their only good stretch of the opening half.
WVU outscored Syracuse 15-6 over the final 5:19 of the half — a stretch that was aided by two threes from McNeil.
Still, the Mountaineers had 11 turnovers at the half to go with 32 percent shooting, including 5-of-19 on two-point attempts.
“We ran what we needed to run, we just didn’t score it,” Huggins said. “How many shots inside three and four feet did we miss to start the game? They had a lot to do with that, but you catch it and go at the basket from three or four feet, you ought to make one. We didn’t make any.”
In the second half, West Virginia had only three turnovers and forced the Orange into eight of their 15 turnovers.
But Syracuse shot 52 percent (27-of-52) for the game, including 45 percent (14-of-31) from beyond the arc, while WVU made only 26-of-70 shots and 15-of-44 two-pointers.
McNeil made seven threes. Matthews scored 14 points, while McBride and Taz Sherman added 11 apiece.
Derek Culver struggled and finished with seven points on 2-of-9 shooting. Culver was limited to 21 minutes as Huggins went with Osabuohien for 14 minutes in the second half, compared to Culver’s six.
“We were struggling to guard them and Gabe is our best inside defender,” Huggins said. “They were double-teaming Derek and our timing of getting the ball inside to him wasn’t very good.”
Osabuohien and Jalen Bridges had nine boards apiece, helping WVU win the rebounding battle, 41-29.
Guerrier and Dolezaj scored 12 each for the Orange, as did Joe Girard, who made four first-half threes.
Dolezaj played much of the second half with four fouls.
“The key really was Marek and you make the decision the game is going to get away with 11 or 12 minutes if he doesn’t play,” coach Boeheim said. “We run our offense through him. He played the rest of the game with four fouls and he’s so key for us.”