College men's basketball: Syracuse unable to lasso victory against Pittsburgh

Dec. 21—SYRACUSE — Despite the presence of Buffalo Bills stars courtside, the Syracuse University men's basketball team was unable to circle the wagons Tuesday night.

Blake Hinson and Nelly Cummings combined to score 47 points to help Pittsburgh fend off Syracuse, 84-82, for the Atlantic Coast Conference victory in the JMA Wireless Dome.

Syracuse nearly erased a 20-point deficit over the final 11 minutes but couldn't convert two chances at a potential go-ahead or game-tying bucket in the last 17 seconds.

The Orange (8-5 overall, 1-1 ACC) had its five-game win streak snapped and will be off until hosting the Boston College Eagles at 2 p.m. on Dec. 31 in the Dome.

"I thought the last group played as hard as they could play, got us back in there, but you can't start the game out (that way), we just had no effort from our forwards from the beginning," SU coach Jim Boeheim said. "It's hard to watch."

Among the crowd of 15,427 fans were Bills quarterback Josh Allen and a group of his receivers, including starters Stefon Diggs and Gabriel Davis. They sat courtside next to the SU bench as guests of Syracuse businessman Adam Weitsman.

Syracuse did its best to put on a show for the NFL stars but came up short in the late comeback bid.

Joseph Girard III connected on a pull-up 3-pointer amid traffic at the top of the key to cut the Pittsburgh edge to 83-82 with 41 seconds left, capping off a 10-2 SU run that got the Dome rocking.

Syracuse eventually regained possession with 17 seconds left and called a timeout to set up a play, but freshman point guard Judah Mintz turned it over trying to force a pass inside to center Jesse Edwards.

Syracuse then in-bounded after a timeout with six seconds left — trailing 84-82 following a made free throw by Pitt — and Mintz dribbled the length of the floor but missed a pull-up to tie the game at the buzzer.

"I just think we can fight harder, for sure, because if we would have fought in the beginning, it wouldn't have started out that way," SU forward Quadir Copeland said. "It's just about playing hard on defense and showing effort and energy like I do and like we all did at the end."

Syracuse offered little resistance on defense until its comeback surge and allowed Pitt to finish 13-for-32 from behind the 3-point arc.

Cummings did most of the damage from deep with 22 points, including a 6-for-11 mark on 3-pointers. The Colgate transfer scored 18 on 6-for-13 from deep for the Raiders last year in a victory over the Orange in the Dome.

Hinson scored 14 of his 25 in the second half and hauled in a game-best 13 rebounds for the Panthers (9-4, 2-0), who have won eight of their last nine games and are 4-1 in their last five against the Orange.

"We just have to move a lot better (on defense) in the beginning of the game and not get down, they're just getting open shots, and that's on all of us," Girard said. "We all just have to be ready to go right away and move better. ... You have to have that fight and that energy right from the jump instead of the last 20 or 25 minutes of the game."

Mintz scored 24 on 7-for-17 shooting to lead SU while Girard scored 13 of his 16 after halftime. The senior shooting guard made his first field goal from mid-range three minutes into the second half.

Forwards Maliq Brown and Copeland closed the game for SU and made major contributions to the rally in place of starters Benny Williams and Chris Bell. The starting pair was limited to a combined 7 points and a rebound in 13 minutes each.

Copeland delivered 10 points and five boards in 12-plus minutes, including a four-point play amid the comeback down the stretch, while Brown tied for the team lead with nine rebounds.

"It's hard when your two starting forwards just don't have the effort," Boeheim said. "I don't know what their game is or what they think it is, but there's not effort, and if you don't have effort, you can't play this game."