The regular season comes to a close
The Syracuse Orange (12-18, 6-13) are home for the Senior Night game against the Virginia Cavaliers (15-15, 8-11). Tip off is at 8:00 pm tomorrow on The ACC Network and here’s what we’re predicting:
Kevin: Syracuse 73, Virginia 70
The Orange need to use their advantage inside in this game. Virginia is the worst rebounding team in ACC play, so Syracuse needs to try and run off defensive rebounds and feed Eddie Lampkin and Jyare Davis inside for the whole game. This isn’t the lock-down defenses of past Virginia teams, they just play slow, so anything that Syracuse can do to get them playing faster will help. I think this is one game that the Orange will close out at home.
Dom: Syracuse 77, Virginia 69
Even in a new era, this is still same old Virginia basketball — slow pace and the worst scoring offense in the conference, but second-best defense in the ACC. Syracuse last two losses came on blown leads, but both of those opponents (Virginia Tech and SMU) were good offenses that shot the lights out of the ball coming out of halftime. Virginia’s offense doesn’t boast that same firepower, so I see this as a close game where the Orange ultimately come away and end the regular season at least on a more positive note.
Mike: Virginia 72, Syracuse 69
Surely the Orange won’t lose a double digit lead a fourth time, will they? Well I never thought they’d be missing NCAAs four times in a row either but here we are. We get one last reminder that football took all the nice things this year as the wrong man takes – and misses – the tying shot attempt as time expires.
Szuba: Virginia 71, Syracuse 67
Recent events make it hard to believe Syracuse has both its defense show up and its clutch gene emerge down the stretch of a close game. Virginia is a good shooting team that plays selflessly for open looks; those shouldn’t be hard to come by against a porous defense. Eddie Lampkin should have another solid game but with Starling struggling give me Virginia to edge the Orange in the final game before the ACC Tournament.
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Now it’s your turn: