LOUISVILLE, Ky. — Like it has all season, Syracuse played like a shadow of itself on the road. SU never cut its deficit to single digits in the second half, and the Orange (17-13, 9-8 Atlantic Coast) lost big, 88-68, to No. 7 Louisville (23-6, 11-5) in the KFC Yum! Center on Sunday afternoon.

Here are the best and worst from Syracuse’s eighth road loss of the season.

Turning point

If only for a five-minute stretch, Louisville looked mortal. The Cardinals allowed Syracuse to make up an early nine-point deficit by turning the ball over five times, capped off by a Tyus Battle 3 that gave SU a 17-13 lead with 10:06 to go in the first half. But from the point, the Cardinals flew away with the game. UofL buried seven consecutive shots (while the Orange had made only six total) to go on a 23-4 run to lead by 16 at halftime. Syracuse could never close the gap from that point.

Stud: Louisville’s interior defense

Syracuse knows how much it struggled to shoot the 3 against Louisville two weeks ago. The Orange misfired 25 times behind the arc, and missed 21 times on Sunday. It’s not that SU forgot that the Cardinals have been the ACC’s second-best 3-point defense. But the presence of 7-footer Anas Mahmoud and 6-foot-10 Ray Spalding sealed off almost every attempt to penetrate by the visitors.

The Orange was left desperately hoisting long 3s while the Cardinals knifed their way through Syracuse’s defense on the other end of the court. It was a polar opposite picture all afternoon.

Dud: Andrew White

It took nearly 31 minutes for SU’s leading scorer to make a basket. That’s what kind of game it was against the seventh-ranked team in the country. After leading the Orange with 22 points against UofL in the Carrier Dome, White was shutout for most of the afternoon. He finished with only four points, and didn’t make a 3-pointer (0-for-7) for only the second time this season.

Highlight: Johnson’s no-look save

There weren’t many meaningful shots in the second half of Sunday’s blowout, but at least one UofL basket had a bit of artistry to it. As the ball was trickling out of bounds near courtside seats, Jaylen Johnson lunged toward the spectators and blindly flung the ball to halfcourt. Given how the game went for the Cardinals, it was appropriate that Johnson’s desperate save landed right in the hands of Deng Adel. The 6-foot-7 forward lumbered down the court with minimal resistance and easily laid the ball in to stretch the lead back out to 15.

Lowlight: Game-opening shot clock violation

It didn’t take long to find out what kind game Syracuse’s offense was in for. At home against Louisville, Syracuse fueled its late-game comeback on a series of shots at or near the end of the shot clock. In the first possession of Sunday’s game, the Orange found itself in familiar territory.

But with the clock winding down toward zero, Tyler Lydon found no room to move toward the rim. He moved away from the basket but couldn’t get a shot off as the buzzer sounded. It was the first of SU’s 16 turnovers, which UofL scored 28 points off.

Published on February 26, 2017 at 4:16 pm

Contact Connor: cgrossma@syr.edu | @connorgrossman